To Sleep, Perchance To Lose Your Edge?

Dennis Drabelle
... The insomniac as hero -- that's how I think of W.C. Fields. When chronic lack of sleep wore the comedian down during a film shoot, he would repair to his trailer for a few winks (supplemented, no doubt, by a few swigs from the bottle). For Fields, who wrote his own scripts, sleep was the Great Eluder, and his struggles to catch up with it inspired an unforgettable scene in his best movie, "It's a Gift" (1934).... ...