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bit september the 5th 1921 it was labor day and roscoe arbuckle was hosting a party
in a suite of the saint francis hotel in san francisco he had every reason to be happy patty
arbuckle as he was known had been one of the most successful movie stars of the 1910s and given that
he had just signed another big lucrative contract with paramount studios all signs
pointed to the 1920s being just as profitable for the portly performer but then one party
changed everything one woman mysteriously fell ill and died another one laid the blame on the actor
and just like that arbuckle found himself charged with causing her death for the tabloids this was
journalistic dynamite as they squeezed every little juicy detail onto their front pages with
little regard for the truth meanwhile hollywood was concerned with its own survival and completely
distanced itself from the once popular actor that left fatty arbuckle fending for himself
as he became the target of the biggest scandal in america
roscoe conkling arbuckle was born on march 24 1887 in the small town of smith center kansas
one of nine children to william goodrich arbuckle and mary gordon the family moved to santa ana
california when he was an infant right off the bat roscoe was a larger than life individual
his reported birth weight range from a sizeable 14 pounds to a gargantuan 16 pounds either way
he was a big boy and his birth may have caused health problems for his mother which persisted
until her death his father resented him because of this but also because he suspected that roscoe
might have been an illegitimate child since both william and mary were small
slim people in fact you can tell the contempt that william arbuckle had for his child from
his name alone he named his son roscoe conklin after a prominent republican senator even though
william arbuckle was a democrat and absolutely despised him as you might imagine childhood
was not a happy time for roscoe the future act we mean not the politician at home he was shunned and
abused by his father at school he was bullied and mocked by the other kids due to his weight already
he became known as fatty a nickname that followed him for the rest of his life roscoe became a shy
introvert who often turned to food for comfort which of course trapped him in a vicious cycle
the taunts and jeers of his schoolmates led to overeating which made roscoe even bigger and led
to more mockery fortunately for him the young boy soon discovered his calling the stage whenever he
found himself in front of the spotlight that shy self-conscious boy turned into a dedicated
performer arbuckle made his theater debut when he was only eight years old and from then on
he knew that showbiz was the life of him it didn't matter if it involves singing dancing clowning or
acrobatics roscoe was surprisingly good at all of them roscoe's mother died in 1898 when he
was 12 years old and his father wanted to have nothing more to do with him out on the streets
the teenager traveled to san jose where he found a job working in a hotel thanks to his habit of
singing while working a professional singer overheard roscoe one day and suggested that
he try out on amateur night at a local theater this was back when stage managers used giant hooks
to pull bad acts off the stage the kind that you and i have only seen in old looney tunes cartoons
arbuckle greatly feared the humiliation of getting the hook but it worked out well for him at night
during his turn nerves got the best of him and arbuckle left the audience less than impressed
with the songs that he performed the dreaded hook emerged from the left of the stage but arbuckle
tried to evade it by jumping out of the way he ended up doing a summers hold and landing in
the orchestra pit to the raucous laughter of the audience he won the contest and earned himself
some appearances at a few other theaters the following year arbuckle became part of the pedages
theater and in 1906 he toured the country with the vaudeville show as one of their main attractions
in 1908 arbuckle met and married his first wife a singer named mint duffy by that point he had
earned some renown in the theater world so a move to the silver screen was only a matter
of time fatty arbuckle made his movie debut in 1909 appearing in a short titled ben's kid in the
following years he made a few shorts with the same studio the selig poloscope company before he moved
to keystone studios where his career kicked off in earnest the man who founded keystone studios
max sennett was known as the king of comedy and he built his reputation around a series
of popular shorts featuring the side-splitting and incompetent actics of the keystone cops
these movies proved to be the perfect vehicle for arbuckle to display his talent at slapstick humor
and he starred in dozens of these shorts often time alongside silent era actress mabel normand
who also gained fame due to a comedic chops in one of their first projects together 1913's a
noise from the deep the duo might have made movie history when arbuckle became the first person to
get pied in the face on camera courtesy of normand by 1914 fatty arbuckle was comedy royalty and he
even started directing some of his shorts he also gave some up-and-coming actors their big breaks
including his own nephew also john and the future comedy legend buster keaton his personal life
wasn't doing so hot though his relationship with his wife had become strained due to arbuckle's
heavy drinking a habit he had picked up during his days touring with the vaudeville shows in 1916
he had a serious health scare when he developed an infection on his leg that could have required
amputation ultimately arbuckle's leg was saved but the actor went on a crash course
to lose some weight as fast as possible which caused a brief morphine addiction
the setbacks in his personal life did nothing to dim arbuckle's ever-growing stardom however in
1917 he founded his own film company named kamik to have some more creative control over his shorts
however just a year later he relinquished control to buster keaton when paramount studios made him
an offer that he couldn't refuse an unparalleled three-year contract of a million dollars per
year okay we'll get back to today's video in just a minute but first here's a word from
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arbuckle may have been making big bugs but his fat contract also came with an increased workload
as he almost always was working on multiple movies at once roscoe was getting a little burnt
out so when the opportunity came for a little r r he jumped at the opportunity it was labor day
1921 and arbuckle had planned a three-day trip to san francisco alongside friend and director
fred fishbach right off the bat the trip had an inauspicious start patty thought about canceling
the whole trip after suffering an injury to his prodigious posterior there are several tales
of how this came about but the most popular one claimed that arbuckle had brought his luxurious
piercero automobile to a garage to be serviced and while waiting he accidentally sat down on
an acid-soaked drag and suffered second-degree burns to his buns anyway the fish park eventually
persuaded arbuckle not to let a little mishap get in the way of their fun so the two of them plus
actor lao sherman jumped in roscoe's pierce arrow and headed to san francisco where they had booked
three lavish rooms at the saint francis hotel even though prohibition had been in effect for
over a year and a half by that point booze was still not hard to find especially when you were
one of the biggest movie stars in the world once arrived at the hotel arbuckle and company received
a shipment of whiskey and gin in anticipation of the party that they were planning to throw
on september 5th 1921 their little shindig was in full swing room 1220 had been designated as
the party room while adjoining rooms 1219 and 1221 were the sleeping quarters for arbuckle
and his two companions among the various attendees of the festivities were 26 year old small-time
actress virginia rapp who became accompanied by her publicist alfred semnaker and another woman
called mordelman whether or not they were invited is uncertain but with the booze flowing and the
music playing they soon made themselves at home at one point rep needed to use the bathroom so
she went into room 1219 which belonged to arbuckle and was soon followed by the actor himself the two
of them were alone in the room for an undetermined length of time some people say 10 minutes others
said an hour eventually though the particles made their way inside and found virginia rap on the bed
barely conscious and looking deathly ill the young woman was writhing in agony complaining of
a sharp piercing pain in her abdomen though our doctor was summoned but unbeknownst to everyone
he'd clearly just dented a worse doctor in the world competition because he concluded that rap
had simply had too much to drink and burst out in hysterics he gave us a morphine to shut her up and
moved her to another room to sleep it off the following day arbuckle checked out of the hotel
and left san francisco for reasons we still can't comprehend even though rap was still ill she was
not taken to hospital but rather she was kept in the hotel for a few more days on a steady diet
of morphine when her condition kept getting worse she was finally checked into hospital but by then
it was too late on september 9 virginia rap died of peritonitis an acute infection that was caused
by a ruptured bladder but then a new question arose what exactly caused her bladder to rupture
right off the bat arbuckle was suspected to have been involved in the young actress's death mainly
this was due to rap's companion moore darmond who kept telling everyone who had listened that the
returned actor had sexually assaulted rap and then caused her bladder to rupture under the weight of
his enormous girth later we'll go over the fact that moore delmont had numerous charges of fraud
extortion and blackmail on her record and that she was almost allergic to the truth but for now it
seems that her statement was enough to convince the authorities just two days after rap's death
san francisco police arrested roscoe arbuckle the story was as followed at around 3 pm on the
day of the party agbockel had agreed to drive a friend of his into town he went into his room to
get changed and found virginia wrap on the floor of his bathroom he picked her up and placed her
on the bed and brought her a glass of water since arbuckle thought that the young woman was simply
drunk he went about his business but rabb soon rolled out of bed onto the floor and began moaning
and writhing the actor put her to bed again and brought her a bucket of ice her cries of anguish
attracted other party goers into the room who saw arbuckle holding an ice cube on her stomach and
attempting to dull her pain like arbuckle their instinct was to assume that rap was drunk but
then the actress allegedly screamed the words that doomed his career he did this to me and we
should stress the word allegedly here in the days that followed delmar brought in a doctor friend
of hers to look in on rap and specifically told him to check for any signs of sexual assault but
he didn't find any despite this dormant stuck to a story and police charged arbuckle
with first-degree murder the actor had two important enemies working against him one was
san francisco district attorney matthew brady who immediately understood that this could be
a career-making case for him and was determined to obtain a guilty verdict truth apparently be damned
the other was the newspaper magnate and yellow journalism pioneer who realized that his tabloids
could leech off this scandal for months no detail was too divorced or too gruesome and the truth
once again was simply a third wheel that would not get in the way of a juicy story it was in hearst's
newspapers that the most sensational parts of the affair took life such as the rumor that rapp's
bladder had ruptured because she had been violated with a champagne or a coke bottle even today this
is sometimes mentioned despite the fact that this was never alleged during the trials for hearst
this strategy was an unmitigated success he later bragged that the arbuckle case sold more copies of
his san francisco examiner than the sinking of the lusitania which prompted the united states
to join world war one for roscoe arbuckle the case and the publicity surrounding it led to an
immediate fall from grace his films were pulled from theaters and he became a persona non-grata
in hollywood there was a genuine concern that the scandal would bring down the entire movie industry
during the indictment hearing district attorney matthew brady realized that the case against
starbuckle might not be as rock solid as he hoped but he certainly had no intention of backing down
now given how much publicity the case had already garnered before the trial even started his star
witness was more delmont but you didn't need to beat columbo to realize that her story was
as phony as a three dollar bill for starters it changed every time she said it then during
the hearing she testified that arbuckle had dragged rap into the room even though it had
already been established that he walked in after her she kept insisting that the actor
sexually assaulted the victim even though this had been proven false by the medical examination
at last but certainly not least some letters of hers revealed that she was plotting to extort
arbuckle for money unsurprisingly gelman was never called to testify during the
actual trials the whole thing should have ended right then and there but the judge concluded that
arbuckle could still be tried for first degree murder based on testimonies from a few other women
who attended the party who claimed that they heard rap say he did this to me or something of that
effect at one point brady genuinely wanted to seek the death penalty in the case but ultimately the
charge was lessened to manslaughter which could still result in a 10-year sentence for the actor
if he was found guilty the first trial began on november 14th 1921 most of the medical evidence
went along the same lines the injuries could have been caused by arbuckles volnumana's body
but they could also have been caused by something else such as stds cystitis or an abortion then
came the testimonies from the women who said they heard virginia rapp accuse arbuckle of attacking
her they were betty campbell alice blake and zay prevon all of them actresses models or showgirls
who attended the party during cross-examination arbuckle's defence team showed that all three of
them had been intimidated by the prosecution to testify against the accused if they didn't brady
would have them hit with a perjury charge this little truth bomb resulted in a deadlocked jury
10 to 2 in favor of acquittal so in early december the judge dismissed them and a second trial was
scheduled for mid-january the evidence during this trial went even more in arbuckle's favor
day private testified that she never heard rap say anything and that she was pressured to give
false testimony the defense presented medical evidence that rap suffered from a chronic bladder
infection called cystitis which was aggravated by alcohol things were looking good for arbuckle but
his defense team royally screwed the pooch when they decided to keep their client off the stand
and not make any closing arguments in their minds this strategy was supposed to show
confidence in how strong their case was but it had the opposite effect on the jury during the
first trial roscoe's affable and sincere testimony swayed some of the jurors but now they found his
absence indicative of guilt they deadlocked 10 to 2 again but this time in favor of conviction
the third and final trial began on march 13 1922 this time arbuckle's attorneys took no chances
point by point they took every shred of evidence against their client and showed to the jury
how it was either inconclusive or outright false their biggest gamble here was going after virginia
rapp's character as they presented her as a promiscuous party girl whom they accused of
having several back alley abortions that caused her health problems this could have backfired
badly if the jury took exception to them bad mouthing a dead woman but it didn't on april
12th the third jury went into deliberation for just five minutes before returning with a verdict
not guilty that was not all though as they'd prepared a statement which said
acquittal is not enough for roscoe arbuckle we feel that a great injustice has been done to him
there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission
of a crime he was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe
we wish him success and hope that the american people will take the judgment to 14 men and women
that roscoe arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame
in the eyes of the law fatty arbuckle was an innocent man but that was not good enough for
hollywood his case was one of several scandals that hit the movie industry in the early 1920s
and studio execs were worried that all the lurid publicity would remove the shine from
its biggest stars who were usually seen by the general public as larger than life figures above
the problems and temptations of us puny mortals therefore hollywood would need to police itself
and thus the motion pictures producers and distributors of america was born today known
simply as the motion picture association or mpa the head honcho was will hayes a
former politician and postmaster general a decade later he would become notorious for adopting the
motion picture production code aka the hayes code which acted as the de facto rule book on
what american movies were and were not allowed to show all the way up until the mid-1960s but
in the early 1920s his main concern was to rehabilitate hollywood's image by getting
rid of some of its most undesirable and immoral figures fatty arbuckle was at the top of the list
even though he had just been found innocent just his association with such a big scandal was enough
to get him blacklisted from the movie industry officially hayes lifted the band 8 months later
but unofficially everybody in hollywood knew that they couldn't touch the actor with a 10-foot pole
arbuckle's personal life suffered as well the trials had left him heavily in debt he became
bitter and depressed and turned into an even bigger drinker his first wife stood by him during
the scandal believing in his innocence but she finally divorced him in 1925 and although roscoe
remarried that same year to actress doris dean his second marriage lasted only four years but his
biggest problem was finding a way to make a living eventually arbuckle found some acceptance in
hollywood behind the camera directing a few shorts each year under the alias william goodrich but
these all saw limited releases and mainly featured unknown up and coming actors so none of them were
big box office hits it wasn't until 1932 a whole decade after the scandal the fatty arbuckle was
welcomed back to hollywood's bosom when warner brothers hired him to star under his own name
in several comedy shorts that same year arbuckle married his third wife addie macphail on june 29
1933 with the shorts finished warner's offered him a contract for a feature film it was everything
that arbuckle wanted so he eagerly signed his name on the dotted line as it happened it was also his
wedding anniversary so that night he and daddy and some friends went out and painted the town red
things were looking up once more for fatty arbuckle but abruptly the end came just like the
end of this video the 46 year old actor suffered a heart attack in bed that night and the king of
comedy died in his sleep so i hope you enjoyed today's video if you enjoyed this one about a
hollywood star why not check out our video on hedy lamarr who was a hollywood star but also kind of
invented wi-fi there's a link on the screen right now so check that out and thanks for watching
you