Roscoe's Really Rotten, Really Bad Day

A wee bit of movie history...

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (who hated the handle "Fatty") was one of the most famous film comics in the world. He'd come into the business in 1909, found his rhythm with Mack Sennet's Keystone Company in the early teens, and on this date in 1921, was among the highest paid movie celebrities around.

In early September, Roscoe took a break from the hectic pace of filming feature-length comedies for Paramount Pictures. He and two friends drove to San Francisco and booked into the St. Francis hotel. On September 5, 1929 they threw a party with bootleg liquor and lots of pretty girls in a three-room suite upstairs.

And Roscoe Arbuckle's life and career imploded.

A starlet and party girl named Virginia Rappe (unfortunate last name) takes ill from the booze. Arbuckle assists her, a hotel doctor is called, and the comedian departs to drop somebody off in another part of town.

Meantime, Rappe takes a turn for the worse. She's shipped off to a local hospital, where Rappe's companion Bambina Maude Delmont says that Virginia has been raped by Arbuckle. (The attending doctor, however, can find no evidence of rape.) Virginia R. dies the following day from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. And the pile-on against Roscoe Arbuckle starts in earnest.

Rappe's manager accuses the comedian of rupturing the girl's bladder, an ambitious district attorney twists arms to get testimony he needs for a criminal charge, and Arbuckle is arrested and arraigned for manslaughter. Film studios scurry for cover, telling their actor employees not to comment on the "scandal". Charlie Chaplin, who knows Arbuckle well and owns his own studio, vouches for Arbuckle's good character. And Buster Keaton, sho loves Roscoe like a big brother, speaks up for him.

These endorsements, of course, are little noticed. And in the great American tradition, media has a field day regarding "Fatty's" perfidy and general villainy, Hearst newspapers leading the way with lurid story after lurid story.

Roscoe Arbuckle is dragged through three jury trials. The first two result in hung juries. The third ends with his total exoneration, the prosecution's case in tatters, and a jury that offers an apology to the comedian for the heartache and sorrow that he's suffered. Arbuckle is a free man, but the "not guilty" verdict makes no difference to his career and reputation. He can't get arrested in Hollywood. His films are withdrawn. He can find no work.

Buster Keaton, who owes his start in movies to Roscoe Arbuckle, offers him financial support, but Arbuckle mostly stays in his house (the mansion being long gone) and drinks. But little by little, Roscoe finds work as a director. He's still mostly a zombie and shell of his former self, but at least he's drawing a paycheck. Then, in the early days of sound, Warner Bros. offers him a contract for six two-reel comedy shorts, all of which find success at the box office. (Kindly note the specimen above.)

Arbuckle completes the last WB short and the company offers him a feature contract. On the day Roscoe signs it, he tells friends, "This is the best day of my life."

That night, he dies in his sleep of a heart attack. He is forty-six years old.