Hollywood's First Scandal: Fatty Arbuckle Should've Nursed His Ass at Home
Ninety-three years ago this week, silent film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was arrested for the rape and murder of Virginia Rappe.
By 1921, Arbuckle had made the move from Keystone Comedy shorts (two-reel movies) to feature-length films. As a result, he worked furiously for his new boss, Adolph Zukor, sometimes shooting three pictures at once. After one especially grueling week, the actor decided to take a brief vacation to San Francisco with his friend, director Fred Fischbach.
Before leaving town, however, Arbuckle had an accident: he burned both his buttocks by either sitting on a mechanic’s acid-soaked rag or backing into a hot stove; accounts vary. Either way, Arbuckle was injured, uncomfortable, and reneged on his Labor Day weekend getaway. His friend balked at the idea and after some fighting between the two, the movie star gave in.
Arbuckle and Fischbach arrived in San Francisco, checked into the St. Francis Hotel, and began carousing with several women who had made their way to the three-room suite. Before long, one of these guests, a 26-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe, fell ill.
Virginia Rappe
Arbuckle found Rappe lying on the floor and assumed she had fainted or was drunk. Using a trick he’d learned from his silent-comedy colleague Buster Keaton, the sizable comedian found some ice and held it next to Rappe’s thigh. If she reacted, everyone would know the fainting or hysterical fit was fake (later, witnesses would say that Arbuckle placed the ice on Rappe’s vulva).
After feeling the ice against her body, Rappe allegedly screamed and tore at her clothes. A doctor was called. Rappe was given a cold bath and morphine to calm her hysterics. The party continued.
Two days later, Virginia Rappe checked into a local hospital, and on Friday, September 9, the aspiring actress died of peritonitis, an infection caused by a ruptured bladder.
Arbuckle and Keaton
At this point, Maude Delmont, Rappe’s companion at the party, informed doctors that Arbuckle raped Rappe (rumors would eventually swirl that the star sexually assaulted Rappe with a Coca-Cola bottle and the ice mentioned above). Doctors assured Delmont there was no evidence of rape.
Still, on September 11, 1921, Arbuckle was arrested for manslaughter, the prosecution arguing that his sexual attack on Virginia Rappe along with his weight (300+ pounds) ruptured her bladder and thus caused her death. After a lengthy trial, Arbuckle was acquitted by a jury.
But the comedian’s career would never recover. Arbuckle’s films were banned and some destroyed outright. Moreover, newspapers portrayed the comedian as an overweight deviant who preyed on young actresses, and Maude Delmont toured the country warning audiences of the evils of the movie industry and all of those involved.
1922 Fatty Arbuckle murder trial.
Since politicians and religious leaders already despised Hollywood, this only added fuel to the fire.
In fact, the Arbuckle scandal along with other industry-related misconducts of the 1920s—actress Olive Thomas‘s overdose on syphilis medication and director William Desmond Taylor‘s murder—as well as an outpouring of violent and salacious movies prompted the creation and tightening of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).
This organization, still in effect today, would serve to regulate movie content and hopefully reorient the industry’s scandalous image.
Image of Arbuckle: http://doctormacro.com
Further Reading
For more details on Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s scandal and Virginia Rappe’s backstory —she suffered from cystitis, was prone to over-drinking at parties, and had undergone several (probably shoddy) abortions that may have precipitated her death—see
The Day the Laughter Stopped
“Censorship and Self-Regulation” inThe Oxford History of World Cinema (235-47)
Frame-up!: The Untold Story of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle
TruTV and Wikipedia‘s “The Scandal“
“Scandal, Social Conditions, and the Creation of Public Attention: Fatty Arbuckle and the Problem of Hollywood”
Hollywood’s First Scandal: Fatty Arbuckle Should’ve Nursed His Ass at Home was originally published on Kelli Marshall
