By cvining, 3 September, 2024

If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up as an old lady, then kick him down the stairs. If you want to make a comedian laugh, it has to be an actual old lady.

Quote Author
Citation

A variant on this was attributed to Fields by John Cleese in a 2014 interview with Adam Savage. Another attribution appeared in the NY Times 24 Jan 2012