Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle and The Trial By Press

So with the abundance of sordid/sensational material on offer, where to begin?  I spent quite a while thinking about it and the same story kept popping into my head, a story both shocking and heart breaking in equal amounts, a story that affected me profoundly, a story which was to become the first real scandal to truly shake Hollywood to it's very foundations..  the story of Fatty Arbuckle and the sequence of events that lead to his phenomenal fall from grace.

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

  Roscoe Conkling 'Fatty' Arbuckle was born March 24th 1887 in Smith Centre, Kansas, U.S.A.  One of nine children of William Goodrich Arbuckle and Mollie Arbuckle.  The young Roscoe showed an interest in the stage from an early age and from age eight was appearing in stock company productions, mainly as an acrobat, clown and singer. 
  At age twelve Roscoe took part in an amateur talent show, it was the type of show where the performer would be pulled off the stage by a shepherd's crook if their act was not up to scratch.  Arbuckle danced and clowned around a bit but failed to impress the audience, inevitably the Shepherd's crook appeared, in a state of panic Arbuckle somersaulted into the orchestra pit, much to the amusement and uproarious applause of the audience.  Needless to say, the competition was in the bag and thus began Arbuckle's Vaudeville career.

  Fast forward a few years and 'Fatty', as he was now known, had risen through the ranks, working for Selig, Universal and perhaps most notably, for Mack Sennett as the star of the Keystone Cops.  By 1918, so sought after were Fatty's talents that Paramount offered him a lucrative three year contract worth $3 million, Fatty's star was on the ascent and there seemed to be no limits to where his career could go..

  With the pressures of his exhausting workload and hectic filming schedule, it's little wonder that Fatty felt he was deserving of a little rest and relaxation. On the morning of September 5th 1921 he and two friends, Lowell Sherman (actor/director) and Fred Fischback (cameraman) took to the road and made their way to San Francisco.  Once there, the three checked into three rooms at the St Francis Hotel.  Copious amounts of bootleg booze were purchased and of course, no Hollywood party is complete without the addition of pretty starlets and chorus girls, Fatty had his contacts and soon the party was in full swing.

  Among the lovely ladies invited to Fatty's soiree was an attractive young woman named Virginia Rappe.  Rappe was a model who had appeared on the cover of the sheet music for the song 'Let me call you Sweetheart'.  She had also enjoyed some success as a fashion designer and had acted in a small number of film shorts, although her career in movies hadn't really taken off to any great degree.

  Miss Rappe was later in the press painted as something of a 'good time girl' who apparently had a tendency to shed her clothing when inebriated (which was often, reportedly).  There are far crueler rumours about her on the net if you care to do a quick search, I choose not to include them here as I don't wish to tarnish this unfortunate young woman's reputation any more than it already has been.

  This is where the story becomes ever so slightly messy.  At some point during the drunken revelry, Virginia Rappe suffered some sort of trauma and became gravely ill, many sources claim Arbuckle was in a seperate room with Miss Rappe when she became unwell.  Recalling the moment when Fatty opened the door, Maude Delmont (a friend of Rappe's who had accompanied her to the party) stated that Rappe was bruised and battered, extremely distressed and screaming "he did it!  I know he did it!  I have been hurt, I am dying!"
   
  Pro Fatty accounts of the story state that Fatty was in the bathroom trying to help Rappe, who was vomiting violently from the effects of too much bootleg booze and her own personal medical condition (it's rumoured she had recently undergone an abortion, although let me emphasise the word 'rumoured'). 

   Four days later, at the age of thirty, Virginia Rappe was dead.  

  Maude Delmont  accused Fatty of violently raping and murdering her friend. Delmont was later dismissed as an unreliable witness as she was in another room with Lowell Sherman when the alleged attack took place.  Delmont was not called to the stand as a witness at any of  the three ensuing trials.

  News of the scandal travelled like wildfire, the press (Hearst press in particular) had a field day.  Sensationalist stories emerged suggesting that Fatty had raped Rappe with a shard of ice, which then became a champagne bottle, which then became a coke bottle..  Other reports claimed that Fatty had crushed the poor girl with his enormous 260lb mass. The official cause of Rappe's untimely demise was 'ruptured bladder and secondary peritonitis'.  

  In September of 1921 Arbuckle was charged with first degree murder and rape of Virginia Rappe, he was released on $5000 bail.  And just like that, Fatty's once stellar career was in tatters, his movies were banned from movie theatres and everyone's favourite funnyman was now demonised by the tabloids of the day.

  In the coming months Arbuckle would endure three gruelling trials.  The first began November 14th 1921.   Fatty was calm and unruffled during his cross examination.  He maintained that he had found Virginia Rappe vomiting and in a distressed state in the bathroom of his hotel room when he had gone to change his clothing.  He stated that he and some fellow partyers placed Rappe in a bathtub full of cool water in an attempt to calm her down.
  After two weeks of testimony and 44 hours of deliberation, on Dec 4th 1921 the jury returned deadlocked.  A mistrial was declared.

Fatty's Mugshot

  The second trial began January 11th 1922.  Fatty didn't testify at the second trial as his legal representatives were convinced that he would be acquitted.  Surprisingly for them, Fatty's failure to testify was misinterpreted by some jurors as guilt and, after over 40 hours of pained deliberation, the jury was once again deadlocked.  The result of this being a second mistrial.

  On March 13th 1922 the third and final trial began.  On this occasion Fatty was called as the final witness.  Again, retaining his composure, Fatty denied any wrongdoing and after just six minutes of deliberation, a unanimous 'not guilty' verdict was declared.  In an unprecedented move a jury statement apologising to Fatty for his ordeal was read out by a jury foreman.  There's a full transcript of the statement on the Roscoe Arbuckle Wikipedia page.  

  At last Fatty's nightmare was over..  Or was it?

    Arbuckle's glory days were all but over.  He tried changing his name to William Goodrich and throughout the late 20's and early 30's worked mainly as a director of film shorts for Educational Pictures (a film distribution company that employed the likes of Buster Keaton, Lloyd Hamilton etc).  Unfortunately Fatty's zest for movie making had practically disappeared, he was drinking heavily and was a shadow of the charismatic personality he had once been.

  This quote by Louise Brooks to Kevin Brownlow (film historian, author and filmmaker) gives some measure of insight into how dramatically Fatty's personality had changed:

 'He made no attempt to direct this picture.  He sat in a chair like a man dead.  He had been very nice and sweetly dead ever since the scandal that ruined his career.'  Louise also likened dancing with Fatty to 'floating in the arms of a huge doughnut'.  I included that last bit because it made me smile!

  In 1932 Arbuckle's fortunes looked as if they were about to take a turn for the better.  He was offered a contract with Warner Bros studios to make six two-reel comedies under his own name.  Filming on the last short ended on June 28th 1933, the following day Warner Bros signed Fatty for a feature length film.   That night Fatty celebrated his first wedding anniversary (to his third wife) 'this is the best day of my life' he exclaimed.  A happy Fatty went to bed and was asleep by 12.30.  He never woke up.  During the night Fatty's tired and broken heart beat it's last, he was 46 years old.

  Roscoe Arbuckle's body was cremated July 1st 1933, his widow later scattered his ashes over the Pacific Ocean.

  Many of Arbuckle's movies were purposely destroyed when news of his disgrace hit the news stands, but there are hidden gems still to be found in box sets and online.   

Roscoe Arbuckle's star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame

  Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle's astonishing rise and catastrophic fall from grace is testament to how a star's public can build them up to heady heights and then tear them right back down again.  We'll never know for sure the exact events that occurred in room 1219 on that fateful day.  One thing is certain though, the motion picture industry's shiny golden image was tarnished and from here on in, things would only get worse...  Much much worse.

   'I don't believe there is any finer mission on earth than just to make people laugh'                                                                                        Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle