Arbuckle testified, repeating his side of the story. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and woman who have sat listening for thirty-one days to evidence, that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame. [3], The scandal and trials had greatly damaged Arbuckle's popularity among the general public. Now that illusion was shattered and studio bosses were terrified it would destroy Hollywood itself.". McNab was furthermore able to get Nurse Hultson to admit that the rupture of Rappe's bladder could very well have been a result of cancer, and that the bruises on her body could also have been a result of the heavy jewelry she was wearing that evening. Silent-film comedian Al St. John (Arbuckle's nephew) and actors Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard appeared with Arbuckle. But the first two trials ended with hung juries and the third ended with an acquittal. . Fatty Arbuckles night club in Coventry 3rd December 20011 of 4. He had merely carried her to the bed and she had fallen off, insisted Arbuckle. One of the rooms occupied by Arbuckle and his guests in the days after the infamous party. [6] Arbuckle then joined the Morosco Burbank Stock vaudeville company and went on a tour of China and Japan, returning in early 1909. After the reading of the apology statement, the jury foreman personally handed the statement to Arbuckle, who kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life. His chief accuser, Bambina Maude Delmont, was a convicted criminal who had admitted plotting to extort money from him. But by this time, the scandal had so devastated Arbuckles career that the jury who acquitted him felt obliged to read an apologetic statement that concluded with We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.. Arbuckle and friends checked into the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. With no concern for prejudicing the trial, the sensationalist "yellow journalism" Press churned out lurid stories of Tinseltown's depravity alongside coverage of the case. Delmont was never actually called to the stand because prosecutors knew her testimony would never hold up in court due to her ever-changing stories. Further, in contrast to the first trial, Rappe's history of promiscuity and heavy drinking was detailed. Arbuckle answered the door wearing his foolish screen smile and Virginia Rappe was on the bed, naked and moaning in pain. The jury saw this as an admission of guilt and deadlocked in a 10 to 2 vote for conviction. It was determined that Rappe had died from a ruptured bladder. [citation needed], During the whole trial, the prosecution presented medical descriptions of Rappe's bladder as evidence that she had an illness. On September 5, 1921, Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, known as "Fatty", a known comedian, actor, director and screen writer, and two others rented three rooms in the St. Francis Hotel. Some claimed that the overweight Arbuckle had damaged Rappes liver by crushing her while trying to have sex with her, while others offered up increasingly outrageous stories consisting of various depravities supposedly carried out by the actor. Arbuckle, whose real name was Roscoe, had allegedly locked Rappe in a room and crushed her with his 19 stone body weight and raped her. Will H. Hays, who served as the head of the newly formed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) censor board, cited Arbuckle as an example of the poor morals in Hollywood. While much attention was paid to Hubbard after the trial, some former jury members told reporters that they believed that Arbuckle was indeed guilty, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. And the man charged with her death was Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Hollywood's first one-million-dollar star. Though the newspapers of the day reveled in the gory, rumored details, juries found little evidence that Arbuckle was in any way connected with her death. The grand jury yesterday evening indicted Roscoe Arbuckle on a charge of manslaughter. With others looking after Rappe, Arbuckle left for the sight-seeing tour and then drove back to Los Angeles. [63], The 2009 novel Devil's Garden is based on the Arbuckle trials. "Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915," database, FamilySearch (, Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 02:12, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7WC-F8M, "The Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920", "Sausalito News 12 November 1921 California Digital Newspaper Collection", "Fatty Arbuckle and the Death of Virginia Rappe", Crime Library Article on the Rappe/Arbuckle case, Film researcher discusses the Fatty Arbuckle trial, Allan Ellenberger blog entry on Virginia Rappe, 'Fatty' Arbuckle and Hollywood's first scandal, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virginia_Rappe&oldid=1140848504, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 02:12. He directed most of his output from 1914 and onwards. Minta Durfee, the actress who was married to Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle and became Charlie Chaplin's first motionpicture leading lady, died Tuesday in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb. [3] At a later press conference, Rappe's manager, Al Semnacher, accused Arbuckle of using a piece of ice to simulate sex with Rappe, thus leading to her injuries. Party guests tried a number of strange treatments, including covering Rappe with ice, but she still wasn't getting any better. Show More. Probably assuming Rappe would simply sleep it off, Arbuckle drove Taub into town. We like the whole world to look upon America as the place where every man gets a square deal. "[21], On September 5, 1921, Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and, despite suffering from second-degree burns to both buttocks from an on-set accident, drove to San Francisco with two friends, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback. [29], In November 1923, Minta Durfee filed for divorce from Arbuckle, charging grounds of desertion. Evidence can be lost, witnesses change their stories, and criminals can lie, making cases very difficult to decide. Public safetyLast week a 34-year-old mother was killed in North Rhine-Westphalia when a German-born man with Serbian roots pushed her into the path of an oncoming train. He was more popular than even Charlie Chaplin and at the time of his downfall in 1921, he was earning over $1 milli Mugshot of Fatty Arbuckle. Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (/rbkl/; March 24, 1887 June 29, 1933) was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. One report had stated that while raping her, Arbuckles weight had caused Rappes bladder to rupture. At this point all those present thought Rappe was just very drunk, including the hotel doctors. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s. Virginia Caroline Rappe ( / rpe /; July 7, 1891 - September 9, 1921) [2] was an American model and silent film actress. He had also requested that all showings and bookings of Arbuckle films be canceled, and exhibitors complied. Another partygoer soon accused Fatty Arbuckle of raping and killing her and he was tried three different times for those crimes. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had long been a performer. [4][5] He weighed in excess of 13 pounds (5.9kg) at birth and his father believed that he was illegitimate, as both parents had slim builds. On September 9, 1921, the death of a young movie actress named Virginia Rappe would make newspaper headlines around the world. But at the hospital, Delmont told police that Rappe had been raped by Arbuckle at the party and on September 11, 1921, the comedian was arrested. [44], In 1929, Doris Deane sued for divorce from Arbuckle in Los Angeles, charging desertion and cruelty. Arbuckle allegedly co-directed scenes in Keaton's Sherlock Jr. (1924), but it is unclear how much of this footage remained in the film's final cut. Are you sure Roscoe Arbuckle is getting one today? Rappe died four days later after being examined. Among the guests was Virginia Rappe, a 30-year-old struggling actress who suffered from chronic cystitis, a bladder inflammation. But silent film funnyman Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's good life burst like a balloon . What happened at that party and why was the public so ready to believe "Fatty" was guilty? Public feeling was so negative that Durfee was later shot at while entering the courthouse. On April 18, 1922, Will Hays, the president of the new organization, banned Arbuckle from filmmaking. His first part was with the Webster-Brown stock company. He appeared sporadically in Selig one-reelers until 1913, moved briefly to Universal Pictures, and became a star in producer-director Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops comedies. [3] The defense had also obtained a letter from Delmont admitting to a plan to extort payment from Arbuckle. [11] He was 46. Los Angeles-based film historian Cari Beauchamp says: "This was the first scandal in Hollywood with box office implications. At least Arbuckle didn't have to deal with Twitter.". [56] In 2007, director Kevin Connor planned a film, The Life of the Party, based on Arbuckle's life. Dr. Arthur Beardslee, the hotel doctor who had examined Rappe, testified that an external force seemed to have damaged the bladder. Virginia Caroline Rappe (/rpe/; July 7, 1891 September 9, 1921)[2] was an American model and silent film actress. It was on 5 September 1921, that Arbuckle ended up at a party in a luxury suite on the 12th floor of the St Francis, after taking a break from a hectic filming schedule. The media had a field day with the story . The Vitaphone shorts were very successful in America,[46] although when Warner Bros. attempted to release the first one (Hey, Pop!) Publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst gleefully noted that the scandal had sold more papers than the sinking of the Lusitania. By the time Arbuckle went to trial for manslaughter, his public reputation was already ruined. had grocery-store gags reminiscent of Arbuckle's 1917 short The Butcher Boy, with vaudeville comic Fritz Hubert as his assistant, dressed like Buster Keaton. Between 1924 and 1932, Arbuckle directed a number of comedy shorts under the pseudonym for Educational Pictures, which featured lesser-known comics of the day. Pansy soon allowed the young Arbuckle to sing for tips on quiet nights. ThoughtCo. His highest-profile project was arguably The Red Mill, also released in 1927, a Marion Davies vehicle. The resulting film, The Frozen North, was released in 1922, almost a year after the scandal first emerged. Arbuckle later wrote a premise for a film parodying Hart as a thief, bully, and wife beater, which Keaton purchased from him. [34] With Arbuckle's films now banned, in March 1922 Keaton signed an agreement to give Arbuckle thirty-five percent of all future profits from his production company, Buster Keaton Comedies, in hopes of easing his financial situation. [17], In 1914, Paramount Pictures made the then unheard-of offer of US$1,000 a day plus twenty-five percent of all profits and complete artistic control to make movies with Arbuckle and Normand. Delmont was touring the country giving one-woman shows as, "The woman who signed the murder charge against Arbuckle", and lecturing on the evils of Hollywood. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. He later worked as a film director under the pseudonym William Goodrich. At this point in time she came to know Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle who had worked at Keystone with her fiance Henry Lehrman. At some point, Arbuckle and Rappe ended up together in a bedroom from where, a few minutes later, her screams were heard. Fans also called Roscoe "The Prince of Whales" and "The Balloonatic". He saw the crook emerging from the wings and somersaulted into the orchestra pit in obvious panic. He thought a victory in the Arbuckle case would send him on his way to . Today we continue with the ruination of Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, circa 1921. However, the name Fatty identifies the character that Arbuckle portrayed on-screen (usually a naive hayseed), not Arbuckle himself. [33] It was eventually released in Europe. But the greatest moment is . The 12th floor hotel suite at the Westin St Francis where Arbuckle and friends partied on Labor Day, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born into poverty in Kansas, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal. During a party held on Labor Day, September 5, 1921, in Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's suite at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, Rappe allegedly suffered a trauma. The papers excluded reporting that Rappe had a history of numerous abortions, with some evidence stating she might have had another a short time before the party. The audience went wild, and he won the competition and began a career in vaudeville. Doing odd jobs around the place in exchange for room and board, author Stuart Oderman reports that Roscoe liked to sing, which caught the attention of the hotel's musician, Pansy Jones. At the hospital, Rappe's companion at the party, Bambina Maude Delmont, told a doctor that Arbuckle had raped her friend. [11], The exact events of the party remain unclear, with witnesses relating numerous versions of what happened. Actor: Coney Island. [3] Arbuckle hired as his lead defense counsel Gavin McNab, a competent local attorney. Whatever happened that night, Virginia Rappes condition had still not improved three days afterward. Virginia Rappe was born in Chicago in 1891 to Mabel Rapp, who died when Virginia was 11. [2] Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. [28][29], The prosecutor, San Francisco District Attorney Matthew Brady, an intensely ambitious man who planned to run for governor, made public pronouncements of Arbuckle's guilt and pressured witnesses to make false statements. Arbuckle was fond of the "pie in the face", a comedy clich that has come to symbolize silent-film-era comedy itself. Another tale credits Keaton, an inveterate punster, with suggesting that Arbuckle become a director under the alias "Will B. During the silent era, comedian Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle once raked in the big bucks. After it was signed, he reputedly said: "This is the best day of my life.". Newspapers across the country went wild. [49], Many of Arbuckle's films, including the feature Life of the Party (1920), survive only as worn prints with foreign-language inter-titles. At the time of his acquittal, he owed over $700,000 (equivalent to approximately $11,300,000 in 2021 dollars[15]) in legal fees to his attorneys for the three criminal trials, and he was forced to sell his house and all of his cars to pay some of the debt. The three checked into three rooms at the St. Francis Hotel: 1219 for Arbuckle and Fishback to share, 1221 for Sherman, and 1220 designated as a party room. She died one day after her hospitalization from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. [7] He first performed on stage with Frank Bacon's company at age 8 during their performance in Santa Ana. In Good Company While at Universal, Arbuckle worked under comedy pioneer Mack Sennett. Courtroom trials are rarely cut and dry. The first two trials . The Day the Laughter Stopped by David Yallop and Frame-Up! "[26] Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death. In the words of his first wife, "Roscoe only seemed to find solace and comfort in a bottle". The Fatty Arbuckle Trial: The Injustice of the Century . But when Arbuckle left the room, Rappe remained lying on the bed writhing in pain. Four days later, she was dead of a ruptured bladder. Another hole in the prosecution's case was opened because Prevon, a key witness, was out of the country after fleeing police custody and unable to testify. The couple eventually became engaged and lived together, but in the United States Census of 1920, the young actress is listed as a "Boarder" in Lehrman's home in Los Angeles. Funnyman FATTY ARBUCKLE was the biggest thing in Hollywood literally but when he was accused of the heinous rape and murder of a notorious party girl his adoring public wanted him strung up! The star, thought to have weighed about 260lb (118kg), was portrayed as a fat brute who had pinned down his prey, rupturing her bladder. Virginia Rappe died the following day from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder. [13] Subsequent witnesses testified that Rappe had for some time suffered from cystitis, a condition which could have been aggravated by consuming alcohol. Director: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. On April 18, 1922, six days after Arbuckle's acquittal, Hays banned him from ever working in U.S. movies again. [25], Arbuckle's trial was a major media event. Showing Editorial results for fatty arbuckle. He was 46. To celebrate just having finished three pictures at the same time and to celebrate his new contract with Paramount, Arbuckle and a couple of friends drove up from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Saturday, September 3, 1921, for some Labor Day weekend revelry. [citation needed], The 2021 French graphic novel Fatty: le premier roi d'Hollywood, by Nadar and Julien Frey, portrays the period from Arbuckle's early days in Hollywood to his death. In the newspapers, Arbuckle was assumed guilty and Virginia Rappe was an innocent, young girl. Good". Around 3 o'clock, Arbuckle retired from the party in order to get dressed to go sight-seeing with a friend. A family trip to the cinema shortly after Prohibition takes effect. On the day of Taylor's funeral, February 7, Arbuckle returned to Los Angeles . Ultimately, the judge found no evidence of rape. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? "This was the guy who discovered Buster Keaton; who helped mentor Charlie Chaplin," says Arbuckle biographer Stuart Oderman. [39], Arbuckle tried returning to filmmaking, but industry resistance to distributing his pictures continued to linger after his acquittal. "Arbuckle was just a film star who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," says Pearson. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. Although Arbuckle was able to keep his leg, he was prescribed morphine against the pain; he would later be accused of being addicted to it. The jury was hung with a 10 to 2 vote for acquittal. In their deal, Keaton promised to give him 35% of the Buster Keaton Comedies Co. profits. [59], In April and May 2006, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a 56-film, month-long retrospective of all of Arbuckle's known surviving work, running the entire series twice. She, along with Maude Delmont and Al Semnacher went to a party thrown by Arbuckle on Labor Day 1921. 'Fatty' Arbuckle in silent film Coney Island, from 1917. The comedian supposedly said he wanted it to play a joke on the actress. Virtually the only indisputable facts seem to be that on September 5, 1921, there was a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco where alcohol was in abundance (despite Prohibition laws) and that both Arbuckle, then age 33, and a woman named Virginia Rappe were in attendance. Arbuckle was one of the most famous actors in world at the time, second only to Charlie Chaplin. But it was such an amazing thing for me to come in to make this broken-down picture, and to find my director was the great Roscoe Arbuckle. After three manslaughter trials, Arbuckle was formally acquitted; his acquittal in the third trial was accompanied by an unprecedented statement of apology from the jury stating, in part, that, "Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born into poverty in Kansas After it was signed, he. "Fatty Arbuckle was known to have one of the biggest cellars, which meant he had all of this alcohol at his disposal," says Mann. The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. After five days and over forty hours of deliberation, the jury returned on February 3, deadlocked with a 102 majority in favour of conviction, resulting in another mistrial. Arbuckle's accuser, Bambina Maude Delmont, had accompanied Rappe to the party; she had first met Rappe only a few days earlier. Even today, publications re-examining the scandal often come to completely different conclusions regarding Fatty Arbuckles guilt or innocence. That evening, the three men, Arbuckle, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fischbach, had invited several women to the party. Read about our approach to external linking. The case against the silent movies' king of slapstick would be Tinseltown's first major scandal. https://www.thoughtco.com/fatty-arbuckle-scandal-1779625 (accessed March 4, 2023). Arbuckle however, testified that he had gone into his bathroom and found Rappe already there on the floor, vomiting. Rappe was not taken to the hospital on that day. During cross-examination, however, Campbell revealed that Brady had threatened to charge her with perjury if she did not testify against Arbuckle. While Hubbard offered explanations on her vote whenever challenged, Kilkenny remained silent and quickly faded from the media spotlight after the trial ended. Delmont claims that Rappe managed to gasp Arbuckle did it before she was taken away into a different hotel room. Arbuckle denied any wrongdoing. Both Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia Rappes names were dragged through the mud in the competition to print the most salacious rumors. Arbuckle wrote the story for a Keaton short called Day Dreams (1922). One newspaper even dubbed her an amateur call-girlwho used to get drunk at parties and start to tear her clothes off.. Wikimedia CommonsOne of the rooms occupied by Arbuckle and his guests in the days after the infamous party. He moved gracefully, threw pies, and humorously tumbled. [54], In Ken Russell's 1977 biopic Valentino, Rudolph Nureyev as a pre-movie star Rudolph Valentino dances in a nightclub before a grossly overweight, obnoxious, and hedonistic celebrity called "Mr. Fatty" (played by William Hootkins), a caricature of Arbuckle rooted in the public view of him created in popular press coverage of the Rappe rape trial. The main prosecution witness, Zey Prevon, had escaped house arrest and left the country. Movie houses across the country almost immediately stopped showing Arbuckle's movies. As Arbuckle left the party, revellers initially assumed the actress was just drunk. He died of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, having never fully restored his reputation. The restaurant was named after Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the most successful silent film actors in the 1910s. Oh, I thought he was magnificent in films. Arbuckle sang, danced, and did some clowning around, but he did not impress the audience. The public reaction to Arbuckle was fierce. Some 8,000 strangers attended her funeral at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in East Hollywood. In early 1917, she was hired by director Fred Balshofer and given a prominent role in his film Paradise Garden, opposite screen star Harold Lockwood. in the United Kingdom, the British Board of Film Censors cited the ten-year-old scandal and refused to grant an exhibition certificate. He soon became one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. The resulting scandal destroyed Arbuckle's career along with his personal life. Despite his popularity, no future Arbuckle films were to be released, the letter stated. THE LONG FALL OF ROSCOE "FATTY" ARBUCKLE. [citation needed], Some experts later concluded that Rappe's bladder might also have ruptured as a result of an abortion she might have had a short time before the fateful party. During the party one of the guests, Virginia Rappe, an aspiring actress, was found seriously ill in room 1219, the room in which Arbuckle was to stay. Arbuckle researcher Joan Myers describes the political climate and the media attention to the presence of women on juries (which had only been legal for four years at the time) and how Arbuckle's defense immediately singled out Hubbard as a villain; Myers also records Hubbard's account of the jury foreman August Fritze's attempts to bully her into changing her vote to 'not guilty'. [3], On November 28, Arbuckle testified as the defense's final witness. Even so, the actor was tried three times. By Friday of that week, Virginia had died in the hospital and Arbuckle was charged with her murder. Little or no effort was made to preserve original negatives and prints during Hollywood's first two decades. Roscoe Arbuckle, the youngest of nine children, reportedly weighed 16 pounds at birth in Smith Center, Kansas on March 24, 1887. When he was a teenager, Arbuckle traveled the West Coast on the vaudeville circuit. comment. These rumors were proven false by autopsy. [9], The circumstances of Rappe's death in 1921 became a Hollywood scandal and were covered widely and sensationalized by the media of the time. 2023 BBC. Photo: File photo. In response to the Arbuckle scandal, Hollywood established a self-policing organization that was to be known as the "Hays Office.". [55], In the Gumby movie entitled Gumby: The Movie, the supporting character Fatbuckle is an affectionate reference to Arbuckle. [47], On June 28, 1933, Arbuckle had finished filming the last of the two-reelers (four of which had already been released). Nicknamed Madame Black, Delmont already had a reputation for procuring girls for Hollywood parties, using those girls to instigate scandalous acts, and then blackmailing celebrities anxious to keep those acts quiet. [6], Arbuckle was nearly two when his family moved to Santa Ana, California. The movies were so lucrative and popular that in 1918 they offered Arbuckle a three-year, $3million contract (equivalent to about $54,000,000 in 2021 dollars[15]).

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