Biography
Born Benjamin Geisenfeld on 14 June 1894 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, and passing away on 16 August 1959 in New York City, New York, USA, Fields built a career as a vaudeville performer. He joined the cast of Greenwich Village Follies in 1928 alongside Broadway headliner Blossom Seeley. The two later wed, making Fields Seeley’s third husband, and they frequently shared stages as a duo until his death. Their stage partnership receives a brief spotlight in the ten-minute short Blossom Seeley And Bennie Fields from 1929, where the pair, billed as Bennie in his case, perform with dual piano support from Charles Bourne and Phil Ellis.
Fields logged short screen roles in Mr. Broadway (1933) and The Big Broadcast Of 1937 (1936). During the latter he delivered the number ‘Here’s Love In Your Eye’ alongside Larry Adler and Benny Goodman’s orchestra. Beyond the 1929 short, these appearances convey scant impression of his abilities. The 1952 biopic Somebody Loves Me further muddled the record by offering a distorted account of the couple’s lives, with Betty Hutton and Ralph Meeker in the leads. Between 1954 and 1958 Fields made several appearances on Toast Of The Town.
Posterity benefits from his sole starring feature, Minstrel Man (1944), directed by Joseph H. Lewis. The film, later issued on DVD in the early 2000s, casts Fields as Dixie Boy Johnson, a blackface minstrel singer enjoying Broadway success. After his wife dies in childbirth he entrusts their infant daughter to friends, survives a near-drowning at sea, and spends decades in seclusion before resurfacing to witness her own Broadway triumph. Four songs composed for the picture by Harry Revel and Paul Francis Webster—‘I Don’t Care If The World Knows About It’, ‘My Bamboo Cane’, ‘Cindy’, and ‘Remember Me To Carolina’—feature among those he performs, the last earning an unsuccessful Oscar nomination. Ferde Grofé handled the music arrangements. Although the production numbers rely on blackface, a nightclub sequence shows Fields without makeup as he accompanies himself at the piano through a medley. His vocal delivery remains mellow and tuneful throughout, shaped by measured phrasing and restraint.
Fields logged short screen roles in Mr. Broadway (1933) and The Big Broadcast Of 1937 (1936). During the latter he delivered the number ‘Here’s Love In Your Eye’ alongside Larry Adler and Benny Goodman’s orchestra. Beyond the 1929 short, these appearances convey scant impression of his abilities. The 1952 biopic Somebody Loves Me further muddled the record by offering a distorted account of the couple’s lives, with Betty Hutton and Ralph Meeker in the leads. Between 1954 and 1958 Fields made several appearances on Toast Of The Town.
Posterity benefits from his sole starring feature, Minstrel Man (1944), directed by Joseph H. Lewis. The film, later issued on DVD in the early 2000s, casts Fields as Dixie Boy Johnson, a blackface minstrel singer enjoying Broadway success. After his wife dies in childbirth he entrusts their infant daughter to friends, survives a near-drowning at sea, and spends decades in seclusion before resurfacing to witness her own Broadway triumph. Four songs composed for the picture by Harry Revel and Paul Francis Webster—‘I Don’t Care If The World Knows About It’, ‘My Bamboo Cane’, ‘Cindy’, and ‘Remember Me To Carolina’—feature among those he performs, the last earning an unsuccessful Oscar nomination. Ferde Grofé handled the music arrangements. Although the production numbers rely on blackface, a nightclub sequence shows Fields without makeup as he accompanies himself at the piano through a medley. His vocal delivery remains mellow and tuneful throughout, shaped by measured phrasing and restraint.