I'm not. The Death Of Virginia Rappe And The Trial Of Fatty Arbuckle. And the man charged with her death was Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Hollywood's first one-million-dollar star. Some articles stated Arbuckle had crushed Rappe with his weight, while others said he had raped her with a foreign object (the papers went into graphic details). [33] It was eventually released in Europe. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had long been a performer. In Good Company While at Universal, Arbuckle worked under comedy pioneer Mack Sennett. During cross-examination, Norgard's testimony was called into question when he was revealed to be an ex-convict who was currently charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, and who was also looking for a sentence reduction from Brady in exchange for his testimony. Little or no effort was made to preserve original negatives and prints during Hollywood's first two decades. As Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan says: "Stars still get into trouble and they still need help managing crises. [63], The 2009 novel Devil's Garden is based on the Arbuckle trials. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In 1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was the highest-paid actor in the world. Arbuckle was fond of the "pie in the face", a comedy clich that has come to symbolize silent-film-era comedy itself. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born into poverty in Kansas After it was signed, he. [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. He retreated into alcoholism. 'Fatty' Arbuckle and Hollywood's first scandal - BBC News [3], Roscoe Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. Gordon and William Goodrich Arbuckle. Arbuckle hated the nickname "Fatty" and insisted that his friends and acquaintances always address him by his real first name, Roscoe. [3], Most exhibitors still declined to show Arbuckle's films, several of which now have no copies known to have survived intact. "Everyone had believed the stars were covered in fairy dust. 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. Paramount had just signed a giant $1 million ($13 million in today's money) deal with Fatty,. He helped Charlie Chaplin become an actor. [7] He first performed on stage with Frank Bacon's company at age 8 during their performance in Santa Ana. Brady at first used Delmont as his star witness during the indictment hearing. 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. With morality groups demanding he face the death penalty, movie moguls ordered Arbuckle's industry friends to disown him. Rosenberg, Jennifer. Fatty Arbuckle began his film career the Selig Polyscope Company. 1921. 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 happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. Then, one by one, the 12-person jury plus the two jury alternates walked up to Arbuckle's defense table, where they shook his hand and/or embraced and personally apologized to him. [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. Fatty Arbuckle's suite. "The "Fatty" Arbuckle Scandal." The public reaction to Arbuckle was fierce. The same evidence was presented, but this time one of the witnesses, Zey Prevon, testified that Brady had forced her to lie. For Tinseltown, of course, the show went on - it survived the Arbuckle affair, just like it has weathered many other scandals since then. 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! Read about our approach to external linking. Keaton co-wrote, directed and starred in the picture; consequently, Hart refused to speak to Keaton for many years. During closing statements, McNab reviewed how flawed the case was against Arbuckle from the very start and how Brady fell for the outlandish charges of Delmont, whom McNab described as "the complaining witness who never witnessed". [55], In the Gumby movie entitled Gumby: The Movie, the supporting character Fatbuckle is an affectionate reference to Arbuckle. The Authors - Spite Work: The Trials of Virginia Rappe and Fatty Arbuckle "He had magical comic timing. 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. She refused to look at the exhibits or read the trial transcripts, having made up her mind in the courtroom. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $1,000,000 a year (equivalent to $13,527,000 in 2021). Specializing in excellent craft cocktails with over 200 different Whiskeys and a large selection of. "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. [53] In this film, James Coco portrays a heavy-set silent film comedian named Jolly Grimm whose career is on the skids, but who is desperately planning a comeback. Hearst was gratified by the profits he accrued during the Arbuckle scandal, and he later said that it had "sold more newspapers than any event since the sinking of the Lusitania. Because the first trial ended with a hung jury, Arbuckle was tried again. [6] Arbuckle then joined the Morosco Burbank Stock vaudeville company and went on a tour of China and Japan, returning in early 1909. One of the films (How've You Bean?) 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. Although Arbuckle was never tried for sexual assault, this notion has endured, largely because of how the trial was reported at the time. The jury saw this as an admission of guilt and deadlocked in a 10 to 2 vote for conviction. Any trauma in the abdominal area could have caused the rupture. "Arbuckle was just a film star who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," says Pearson. On the heels of million-dollar comedian Fatty Arbuckle's manslaughter charge, and actor Wallace Reid's drug-related death, Taylor's murder spurred a newfound interest in Hollywood scandal. Arbuckle and Fischbach then took her to room 1227 and called the hotel manager and doctor. [citation needed], Fatty Arbuckle's was an American-themed restaurant chain in the UK named after Arbuckle. 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. Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection. At the behest of Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players-Lasky, his films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays[1] after the trial, and he was publicly ostracized. Photo: File photo. Seventeen people in cast. 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. The funeral of Earl Hamilton Frye, of whose death at St. Paul, Jan. 18, we reported last week, was held last Thurs His lawyer, McNab, made no closing argument to the jury. How A 'Not Guilty' Verdict Still Managed To Sink Fatty Arbuckle's Film 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. Addie McPhail, a former Hollywood actress who became the third and last wife of scandal-plagued silent-film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, has died. Arbuckle was heavyhe weighed somewhere between 250 and 300 poundsand that was part of his comedy. [42] Keaton himself told this story during a recorded interview with Kevin Brownlow in the 1960s.[43]. "Roscoe Arbuckle." She died one day after her hospitalization from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. 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. The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle [DVD] Guests to San Francisco's Westin St Francis Hotel still ask to see the room where an infamous bootleg-booze-soused party took place 90 years ago.