W. C. Fields by Himself", it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), and financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania, the oldest child of a working-class family. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield (1840–1913), was from an English family that emigrated from Sheffield, England in 1854. James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. Fields' mother, Kate Spangler Felton (1854–1925), was a Protestant of British ancestry. The 1876 "Philadelphia City Directory "lists James Dukenfield
Stage name with Davy Jones of The Monkees. Singer Ray Charles, born Ray Robinson, changed his name to avoid confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. A performer may also have had their stage name chosen for them by their agent – such was the case with Barbara Eden, born Barbara Jean Huffman – or, in the heyday of the Hollywood studios, by a movie studio. Joan Rivers (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky) went one step further and named herself after a former agent, Tony Rivers, after he told her to change her name. In the non English-speaking world, an example is the Taiwanese