title: Shuffling To Ignominy: The Tragedy Of Stepin Fetchit
author: Champ Clark
description: Mr. Clark persuasively contends that Perry's Stepin Fetchit was a sly trickster. -- <i>The New York Times, December 7, 2005</i><br /><br />Opinionated and absorbing. -- <i>The New Yorker, December 12, 2005</i><br /><br />[Clark] was able to interview several dozen people who knew Fetchit, including family members. -- <i>Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy</i>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Venus Fly-Trap
  
  
  
  
  
  John Wainwright
  
  
  ## Wednesday, November 1st
  
  
  
  
  
  Steps. They lead up, they lead down. They lead to glory; equally they lead to
  infamy. Take the number “thirteen”. An unlucky number… and why? Because time
  was when that was the required number of steps leading up to the platform; to
  the block and the axe and the headsman. Later to the public hangman. Always
  thirteen, which makes the modern bingo-caller’s “unlucky for some” sound a
  trifle macabre.
  
  
  
  
  
  But, what the hell, he doesn’t know. All he’s interested in is dancing ping-
  pong balls. He is far too busy to worry about steps.
  
  
  
  
  
  Nevertheless, steps…
  
  
  
  
  
  Few would argue that the handful of broad, shallow steps leading into and out
  of the arcade-like entrance to the Central Criminal Court have been
  ascended—and descended—by some of the biggest scoundrels ever to disgrace the
  not-too-honourable name of mankind. The villains. The frighteners. The
  swindlers. The fraudsters. The whoremasters. The hoodlum