These six short films constitute the only recordings of Arbuckle's voice. According to party guest Maude Delmont, after a few drinks, Arbuckle strong-armed Virginia Rappe into his room with the sinister utterance Ive waited for you five years, and now Ive got you. After 30 minutes or so, Delmont became concerned upon hearing screams from behind the closed door of Arbuckles room and started knocking. He was one of the all-time greats.". Rudolph Nureyev Dances", "Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, acquitted for murder of Virginia Rappe in 1922, never recovered from all the bad press", "Rediscovering Roscoe: The Careers of "Fatty" Arbuckle", "Restoring Fatty Arbuckle's Tarnished Reputation at MoMa", Contemporary press articles pertaining to Arbuckle, Banned Film Resurfaces 90 Years After San Francisco Scandal, The Fatty Arbuckle Trial: The Injustice of the Century (2004), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roscoe_Arbuckle&oldid=1139315103, Arbuckle, Roscoe "Fatty," "What the Well-Dressed Man Will Wear,", This page was last edited on 14 February 2023, at 13:48. However, the name Fatty identifies the character that Arbuckle portrayed on-screen (usually a naive hayseed), not Arbuckle himself. "A grave injustice has been done.". Louise Brooks, who played the ingenue in Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931), told Brownlow of her experiences in working with Arbuckle: He made no attempt to direct this picture. Arbuckle was heavyhe weighed somewhere between 250 and 300 poundsand that was part of his comedy. 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. Few know he was eventually acquitted of his crimes (after three trials). [2] Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. comment. "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. Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection. Delmont then told police that Arbuckle had raped Rappe; the police concluded that the impact of Arbuckle's overweight body lying on top of Rappe had eventually caused her bladder to rupture. Posters for his movies billed the 266-pound comedian as "worth his weight in laughs." Rooms 1219 and 1221 were for them, and room 1220 was to be used for a party room. On the day of Taylor's funeral, February 7, Arbuckle returned to Los Angeles . They were on the twelfth floor in a suite that contained rooms 1219, 1220, and 1221 (room 1220 was the sitting room). 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. Fatty Arbuckles night club in Coventry 3rd December 20011 of 4. [13] Subsequent witnesses testified that Rappe had for some time suffered from cystitis, a condition which could have been aggravated by consuming alcohol. Click Lists to find my most popular articles. Arbuckle and Fischbach then took her to room 1227 and called the hotel manager and doctor. [14] Witnesses also testified that Rappe had previously suffered from venereal disease, so there were allegations that her death was brought on by her health rather than by an assault.[13]. [40] The same year, in Photoplay's August issue, James R. Quirk wrote: "I would like to see Roscoe Arbuckle make a comeback to the screen." In 1921, Arbuckle signed a three-year contract with Paramount for $1 millionan unheard-of amount at the time, even in Hollywood. McNab took an aggressive defense, completely tearing apart the prosecution's case with long and aggressive examination and cross-examination of each witness. [3] The defense had also obtained a letter from Delmont admitting to a plan to extort payment from Arbuckle. Though Hays lifted the ban in December of the same year, the damage was done -- Arbuckle's career had been destroyed. Party guests tried a number of strange treatments, including covering Rappe with ice, but she still wasn't getting any better. Newspapers went wild with the story: popular silent-screen comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had killed Virginia Rappe with his weight while savagely raping her. Show More. In 1913, at the age of 26, Arbuckle hit the big time when he signed with Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company and became one of the Keystone Kops. By 1916, at the age of 21, she was earning $4,000 a year ($66,000 today) from her dress designs. He didn't like his nickname and asked friends to call him "Roscoe." Like many comedians, he came out of a. On April 18, 1922, Will Hays, the president of the new organization, banned Arbuckle from filmmaking. The comedian supposedly said he wanted it to play a joke on the actress. In response to the Arbuckle scandal, Hollywood established a self-policing organization that was to be known as the "Hays Office.". 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. He also mentored Charlie Chaplin, Monty Banks and Bob Hope, and brought vaudeville star Buster Keaton into the movie business. Brady at first used Delmont as his star witness during the indictment hearing. After Arbuckle was arrested, the San Francisco D.A., one Matthew Brady, a man who wanted to be governor of California, pursued the case with a vengeance. Good). At the hospital, Rappe's companion at the party, Bambina Maude Delmont, told a doctor that Arbuckle had raped her friend. [11] He was 46. McPhail, whose most recent . The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system. He directed most of his output from 1914 and onwards. [citation needed] In December of the same year, under public pressure, Hays elected to lift the ban. Mississippi-based Arbuckle historian David Pearson says the star was the inspiration to many overweight comics, such as John Belushi, Benny Hill, John Candy and Chris Farley. 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. In his testimony, Arbuckle denied he had any knowledge of Rappe's illness. He had recently signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for a whopping $1 million (about $13 million today), an unheard-of sum at the time. In 1921, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was the highest-paid actor in the world. 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. 'Fatty' Arbuckle in silent film The Waiters' Ball, from 1916. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident.[3]. What fueled the scandal at the time and what has remained a mystery ever since is just what role, if any, Arbuckle played in Rappes death. [50], For his contributions to the film industry, in 1960, some 27 years after his death, Arbuckle was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard. Arbuckle's rehabilitation was finally complete when Warner Bros offered him a feature-film contract in 1933. [3] As in the first trial, Arbuckle testified as the final witness and again maintained his denials in his heartfelt testimony about his version of the events at the party. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, onscreen, discovered an empty whisky bottle and gives it a decent burial, using flowers he had gathered for his girlfriend. On Thursday, Rappe was taken to the Wakefield Sanitorium, a maternity hospital known for giving abortions. Luckily for Arbuckle's lawyers, the case was riddled with holes. Skully after being charged with the murder of Virginia Rappe, San Francisco, 1921. During cross-examination, however, Campbell revealed that Brady had threatened to charge her with perjury if she did not testify against Arbuckle. "Fatty" had also been Arbuckle's nickname since school; "It was inevitable", he said. Arbuckle and friends checked into the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The resulting scandal destroyed Arbuckle's career along with his personal life. Fatty Arbuckle began his film career the Selig Polyscope Company. Eventually, the hotel staff was contacted and Rappe was taken to another room to rest. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. Succumbs at 46 After He and Wife Had Celebrated Their First Wedding Anniversary", "Minta Durfee, actress, 85, Dies; Former Wife of Fatty Arbuckle", "Home Video: Arbuckle Shorts, Fresh and Frisky", "The death of an actress in San Francisco. Bakhmut attacks being repelled, says Ukraine, Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61, US lawyer jailed for murdering wife and son, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, Xi Jinping is unveiling a new deputy - why it matters, Snow, Fire and Lights: Photos of the Week. . It was a double tragedy.". The media had a field day with the story . We feel that a great injustice has been done him. One of the films (How've You Bean?) 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. "[26] Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death. With morality groups demanding he face the death penalty, movie moguls ordered Arbuckle's industry friends to disown him. [56] In 2007, director Kevin Connor planned a film, The Life of the Party, based on Arbuckle's life. He moved gracefully, threw pies, and humorously tumbled. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd as well as with his nephew, Al St. John. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle's attorneys. An infection that developed on his leg became a carbuncle so severe that doctors considered amputation. Rooms 1219 and 1221 were for them, and room 1220 was to be used for a party room. During the second week of September 1921, like Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, motion picture executives placed a ban on any motion pictures in which Rappe appeared. "The "Fatty" Arbuckle Scandal." He was often heckled in the street. [3], Most exhibitors still declined to show Arbuckle's films, several of which now have no copies known to have survived intact. The Vitaphone shorts were very successful in America,[46] although when Warner Bros. attempted to release the first one (Hey, Pop!) Durfee starred in many early comedy films, often with Arbuckle. [61] The 1963 novel Scandal in Eden by Garet Rogers[62] is a fictionalized version of the Arbuckle scandal. He saw the crook emerging from the wings and somersaulted into the orchestra pit in obvious panic.