She started singing in Boston clubs while still in high school, taking the stage name of Totie Fields.

[13] Fields joked that it would be funny if bassist Gene Simmons, under the makeup, turned out to be "just a nice Jewish boy."

)[14] Fields also appeared on various television game shows in the late 1960s and 1970s, including multiple episodes of both Hollywood Squares and Tattletales with her husband George Johnston.

[18] Fields' last television appearance before her surgery was in a rare straight dramatic guest-starring role on the CBS-TV drama series Medical Center, which aired on February 23, 1976.

[19] In June 1977, a much-thinner Fields starred in the Home Box Office special series Standing Room Only, beginning her show seated in a wheelchair.

Actor Van Johnson, who was a friend of Fields, was said to have remarked, "When Totie lost weight, she wasn't funny anymore."

[2] On August 2, 1978, Fields was scheduled to begin a two-week engagement at Las Vegas’ Sahara Hotel when, on the eve of the opening, she was stricken at home by a blood clot, suffering a fatal pulmonary embolism.