Carlotta Monti; Celebrated Companion to W.C. Fields

Carlotta Monti, whose tumultuous and sometimes comedic relationship with W. C. Fields for the last 14 years of his life produced a book that became a movie, has died.

A spokesman for the Motion Picture and Television Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills said she was 86 when she died Wednesday. She had been ill for some time, said the spokesman, who did not announce a cause of death.

Forthright, sultry and sometimes painfully outspoken, Miss Monti re-emerged on the public scene shortly after Fields’ death in 1946. And she stayed there for years.

She spent many of those years in court battling for what she said was her rightful majority share of Fields’ $770,000 estate. Disagreeing with her were the comedian’s estranged wife, brother, sister and others, some of whom said they were his children.

The courtroom appearances of the raven-haired, exotic beauty were such that in 1949 a Los Angeles Superior Court judge designated “Carlotta Monti Day” for July 27 so he could devote the entire day to requests for the return of her possessions from the Fields house and other matters.

Her last public battle came in 1980, when she was unsuccessful in her efforts to sell Fields’ 16-cylinder, 1938 burgundy Cadillac for $70,000. When bids did not meet her expectations she withdrew the vehicle, left to her in Fields’ will. It was acquired by the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 1984 for an undisclosed price and is on display there.

In her court appearances, she testified she “slaved” for Fields for $25 a week because she loved him; that toward the end of his life he kept telling her, “Carlotta, the reaper’s coming for me,” and that he did once refuse a seltzer for his hangover because “I can’t stand the noise.”

An actress in such early films as “The Merry Widow,” the original “Ben-Hur” and “One Night of Love,” she even said she had written some of Fields’ material after quitting her career to live with him.

She also said that Fields was so jealous of her he once hired a detective to follow her; that he had 48 bank books stashed across the country and although he was a notoriously heavy drinker, “I never saw him drunk.”

Eventually, Miss Monti was awarded two trust funds that paid her about $50 a week but she said the money ran out in 1954.

From 1952 to 1972 she worked as a technician at Technicolor.

In 1976, Universal released “W. C. Fields and Me,” a film based on her book and starring Rod Steiger as Fields and Valerie Perrine as Miss Monti.

It was not an artistic success. One critic said it was “just the sort of memorial Fields might have wished for Baby Leroy,” an infant who became an ongoing foil for the comedian.

One of Miss Monti’s last public appearances was 10 years ago when she hosted a question-and-answer session about Fields at the old Masquers club in Hollywood.

“My name is Carlotta,” she said by way of introduction. “And you can ask me anything . . . if it isn’t too personal.”

Survivors include a sister and brother. Donations in Miss Monti’s name are asked to be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.