Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle : June 29th, 1933

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

At the height of his career, Arbuckle was under contract to Paramount Studios for $1 million a year, the first such documented salary paid by a Hollywood studio. He worked hard for the money, filming three feature films simultaneously. On September 3, 1921 Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and drove to San Francisco with two friends, movie directors Lowell Sherman and Fred Fischbach. The three checked into the St. Francis Hotel, decided to have a party and invited several women to their suite. During the carousing a 30-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe became seriously ill and was examined by the hotel doctor, who concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication. Rappe died three days later of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Rappe's companion at the party, Maude Delmont, claimed Arbuckle had pierced Rappe's bladder while raping her. Accusations arose that Arbuckle had gotten carried away and tried to use a Coca-Cola or Champagne bottle to simulate sex with Rappe, which led to the injuries. Arbuckle was confident he had nothing to be ashamed of and denied any wrongdoing. Delmont later made a statement to the police in an attempt to get money from Arbuckle's attorneys, and the matter soon spun out of her control. Roscoe Arbuckle's career is cited by many film historians as one of the great tragedies of Hollywood. His trial was a major media event and stories in William Randolph Hearst's nationwide newspaper chain were written to make Arbuckle appear guilty. The resulting scandal destroyed his career and his personal life. Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death and studio executives ordered Arbuckle's industry friends not to publicly speak up for him. Charlie Chaplin was in England at the time. Buster Keaton did make a public statement in support of Arbuckle, calling Roscoe one of the kindest souls he had known. After two trials resulted in hung juries the third ended in an acquittal and a written apology from the jury. The Arbuckle case was one of four major Paramount-related scandals of the period. In 1920 Olive Thomas died after drinking a large quantity of medication meant for her husband (matinee idol Jack Pickford) which she had mistaken for water. In 1922 the murder of director William Desmond Taylor effectively ended the careers of actresses Mary Miles Minter and former Arbuckle screen partner Mabel Normand and in 1923 actor/director Wallace Reid's drug addiction resulted in his death. The scandals caused by these tragedies rocked Hollywood, leading to calls for reform of the "indecency" being "promoted" by motion pictures and resulted in the Production Code, which set standards for behavior depicted in Hollywood films. The Hays Office banned all of Arbuckle's films, although Will H. Hays later acknowledged that Arbuckle could be allowed to work in Hollywood. Ironically one of the few Arbuckle feature-length films known to survive is Leap Year, one of two finished films Paramount held from release during the scandal. It was eventually released in Europe but was never theatrically released in the United States or Britain. Aftermath On January 27, 1925 he divorced Araminta Estelle Durfee in Paris. She had charged desertion. Arbuckle married Doris Deane on May 16, 1925. Arbuckle tried returning to moviemaking but the ban on his pictures lingered after his acquittal and he retreated into alcoholism. In the words of his first wife, "Roscoe only seemed to find solace and comfort in a bottle." Buster Keaton attempted to help Arbuckle by giving him work on Keaton's films. Arbuckle wrote the story for a Keaton short called "Daydreams." Arbuckle allegedly co-directed scenes in Keaton's Sherlock, Jr., but it is unclear how much of this footage remained in the film's final cut. Arbuckle also directed a number of comedy shorts under the pseudonym William Goodrich for Educational Pictures featuring lesser-known comics of the day. He is said to have helped Bob Hope early in his career with an important job referral. In 1929 Doris Deane sued for divorce in Los Angeles, charging desertion and cruelty. On June 21, 1931 Roscoe married Addie Oakley Dukes McPhail (later Addie Oakley Sheldon, 1906-2003) in Erie, Pennsylvania. Shortly before this marriage Arbuckle signed a contract with Jack Warner to star in six two-reel Vitaphone short comedies under his own name. The six Vitaphone shorts, filmed in Brooklyn, constitute the only recordings of his voice. Silent-film comedian Al St. John (Arbuckle's nephew) and actors Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard appeared with Arbuckle. The films were very successful in America, although when Warner Brothers attempted to release the first one ("Hey, Pop!") in the UK, the British film board cited the 10-year-old scandal and refused to grant an exhibition certificate. Roscoe Arbuckle had finished filming the last of the two-reelers on June 28, 1933; the next day he was signed by Warner Brothers to make a feature-length film. At last, Arbuckle's professional reputation was restored, and he was welcomed back into the world he loved. He reportedly said, "This is the best day of my life." The exhilaration may have been too much for him: he died that night of congestive heart failure. He was 46. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.