ALL IT TOOK WAS A LIE

The Ruin of the Life And Career of Fatty Arbuckle

by

Robert Young, Jr.

(The following remarks have been adapted from the Introduction to the

author's 1994 book, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle: A BioBibliography, and

have been updated with current information.)

Today, and throughout the more than 75 years that have elapsed since it

began in San Francisco in the fail of 1921, perhaps the biggest

Hollywood myth has been that $1,000aday rotund slapstick comedian and

director Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle wantonly murdered a young film actress

named Virginia Rapp. He was accused of having done so while having

sexual intercourse with her during a noholdsbarred drinking party in

his St. Francis Hotel suite. More vicious versions of what allegedly

took place claim he ravaged her with a bottle Ñ variously identified as

"a CocaCola bottle, or a champagne bottle..."(1) In other accounts the

instrument is recounted as having been a soda bottle, beer bottle or a

jagged shard of ice.(2) It all depends upon who's telling the story.

So ingrained in the history of show business is this story that it has

become macabre folklore. Comedienne and talk show host Joan Rivers, on

the Tonight Show in January 1985, had only to mention Arbuckle's name in

the context of a ribald remark to get a crude laugh. The late actor Rex

Harrison ruefully recalled in his 1974 autobiography that when he was

falsely implicated in the tragic suicide of actress Carole Landis in

July 1948, and there was talk of his being prosecuted, he overheard a

movie studio executive say, "After all, it happened to Fatty

Arbuckle."(3) In March 1977, when film director Roman Polanski was

arrested on a charge of drugging and raping a 13year old girl, Parade,

a national Sunday newspaper supplement, found reason to print a question

from a reader who asked: "Do we have another Fatty Arbuckle case here?"

On national television, October 17, 1990, the Arbuckle case was

mentioned in a report on the claimed rape of the late comedian Sam

Kinison's girlfriend of the moment in his Hollywood hills home by his

300pound bodyguard. In his introduction to an account of the alleged

attack on the program, Hard Copy commentator Alan Frio referred to the

case as being the worst since the "Fatty Arbuckle case where a young

woman was sexually abused and killed during a party." On August 25,

1992, on Entertainment Tonight on NBC, it was found necessary to dredge

up the Arbuckle case in the context of a report on the then current

actress Mia Farrow and producer/director Woody Allen breakup scandal,

though it was not in the slightest relative.

A year later, on ABC's Nightline, August 27, 1993, the case surfaced

anew in a discussion of the affect of criminal charges on show business

careers Ñ in particular that of megastar Michael Jackson. The following

evening, the television tabloid Front Page also gave it currency. No

sooner was O. J. Simpson arrested than the press was busy comparing the

case with the Arbuckle affair. It appears certain that as long as there

are Hollywood scandals, the case will be cited.

Show business personalities are notorious for gilding the lilies of

birth, age, parentage, family, experience Ñ of forgetting anything which

might jeopardize their careers, of exaggerating, and often of believing

their own publicity. This was especially the case in the early days of

films. From the first squib written about a film player before the turn

of the century, up until the current edition of the leading supermarket

gossip tabloid, the public has been fed a steady diet of what partisans

and detractors alike believe it desires to read and hear, regardless of

accuracy. Thus the Arbuckle myth has survived and has been perpetuated.

The result is that a clever, multitalented, at one time highly

respected and genuinely beloved stage and film comedy actor has been

unjustly catalogued and remembered for more than half a century as a

rspistmurderer, his personal and professional generosity, international

success, and contributions to the art of the film, generally denied,

glossed over, and forgotten.

The perpetuation of the myth is not surprising, given that the public

wants to believe, and the ease with which people can be duped. Of such

gullability, author Richard Shenkman has written, "We may bemoan the

frequency with which we are taken in by apocryphal stories, but there

can be little doubt that we like them. If we didn't, there wouldn't be

so many. We are all suckers for the welltold tale, whether it is true

or not."(4) The mortality of the Arbuckle myth amply illustrates this.

The American public has long made a habit of selecting idols on the

basis of a particular accomplishment, such as flying the Atlantic Ocean

alone, winning the heavyweight boxing championship, making it laugh;

but, when one of the chosen is found to be less than godly, public

adoration in a twinkling turns to abominations.

When a public idol falls in the Englishspeaking world Ñ particularly in

the United Ststes Ñ condemnation is quick, venemous, and profuse.

Admirers of the fallen, their judgment suddenly shaken and in question,

are loathe to admit they erred. They quickly act to defend themselves,

heap abuse upon the disgraced, and in true hypocritical fashion voice

their dislike as loudly as, if not louder than, they voiced

appreciation. Such individuals rush to judgment; they refuse to consider

the facts or weigh evidence with justice, and are without courage when

it comes to taking a stand, especially if the position will place them

in a minority. Where were their thousands of fans when Charlie Chaplin

was slapped with a paternity suit; Errol Flynn was accused and tried for

rape; Ingrid Bergman bore twins out of wedlock; Lew Ayres announced

himself a conscientious objector during World War Il; when, with an eye

on financial gain, a bigamist, prostitute, and blackmailer with a long

criminal record accused Roscoe Arbuckle of rape and murder?

Arbuckle was only accused, never indicted or tried on these charges. In

point of fact, in retrospect, no crime took place. Just the same,

lamely, he was put on trial for manslaughter. A zealous prosecutor with

a personal ulterior motive whose ego overrode his ethics persisted in

trying him three times and lost every time. After two mistrials,

Arbuckle was acquitted by a jury which made a point of apologizing to

him for all that he had been put through by the legal system, but the

stigma of accusation branded him for life as far as a great segment of

the public was concerned. The mark is indelible in some quarters. His

films were banned in Great Britain in 1922. The ban, while not now

enforced, has never been officially lifted.

In 1959, in Hollywood, when the Chamber of Commerce first discussed the

idea of embedding coral terrazo and brass stars in the sidewalks of

Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street to honor outstanding show business

personalities in what is now called the "Walk of Fame," the name of

Fatty Arbuckle was on the list of the 1,529 to be initially

memorialized. Also on the list was Charlie Chaplin, then in disfavor

because of his political views. Chaplin was rejected. He did not receive

his star until 1972. Arbuckle's star was duly put down in front of 6701

Hollywood Boulevard. Said one prejudiced cinema sage: "It's apparently

all right to rape and murder, but it's not all right to be 'pinko.ÕÓ (5)

Myths do die hard, if at all.

It was the author's privilege to know the first of Roscoe Arbuckle's

three wives, Minta Durfee Arbuckle (18911975), and to discuss with her

in detail the comedian's life and career Ñ especially their married

years, 1908 through 1925. This was in 1958. Our correspondence and

conversations were carried on with an eye toward collaborating on a

book. Beginning in December 1989, the author enjoyed the privilege of a

continuing exchange of correspondence with the comedian's third wife and

widow, long retired actress Addie McPhail (Arbuckle) Sheldon. She guards

her memories of Arbuckle zealously, and has steadfastly refused to

cooperate with a number of writers seeking information about him and her

life with him. Nevertheless, she graciously overrode her own objections

and answered a number of questions. She also made some observations

pertinent to how Roscoe Arbuckle is remembered and catalogued in

history. Writing in January 1990, Mrs. Sheldon remarked, "I feel that

enough Ñ sometimes too much Ñ has been written about Roscoe."(6)

Commenting on an observation that some people still believe Roscoe was

guilty, she asked a week later, "Is it because writers, TV, & the press

constantly refresh their memory?"(7)

H. L. Mencken once said, "What everybody believes rarely is true!" Since

truth is often far more strange than fiction, the aim of my study of

Arbuckle is to lay out for examination the facts of Arbuckle's life and

career, to provide a track for further investigation and research. So

much the better if, along the way, it debunks the lies, suppositions,

and malicious representations of fact about Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle when

he was falsely and maliciously accused of committing a rapemurder;

distortions and factual errors which have been carried forward and added

to constantly throughout the years since his acquittal of all charges in

April 1922, and which, since his death in late June 1933, have so

unjustly obscured his many contributions to screen comedy, both as a

performer and director, and denied him the posthumous recognition as a

film star he most rightly and richly deserves.

Following his death, in June 1933, very little was written about

Arbuckle beyond recapitulations of the scandal that ruined his career.

No one rushed to mark his place in film history with a biography. Now

and again, his tragedy was replayed in the Sunday magazine sections of

major newspapers, and cited when another Hollywood scandal caught public

attention. Short accounts have also appeared as chapters in books

"exposing" Hollywood scandals.(8)

In 1958, Minta Durfee Arbuckle and I signed a contract with our then

agent, Carleton Cole, to pen the story of Roscoe Arbuckle and her life

with him. Publishers were at best lukewarm to the project, and it died.

The contract lapsed. However, still interested in the project, I made it

something of a hobby to collect and compile information on the comedian.

The result, distilled from more than 35 years of research, was my book

Roscoe "FattyÓArbuckle: A BioBibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood

Press, 1994).

In 1962, freelance writer Leo Guild published The Fatty Arbuckle Case,

(9) a cheap mass paperback focusing on Arbuckle's San Francisco trouble.

Measured against substantiated facts, it is a fairytale from beginning

to end and of no use whatsoever to anyone interested in the case. Gerald

Fine, another freelance writer, in 1971 selfpublished Fatty,(10) also

a drugstore rack paperback. Unable to back up his fanciful account of

the comedian's life and career, Fine avoided being called for accuracy

by labeling the book a novel. In 1976, British author David A. Yallop

became the first to attempt a biography when he published The Day the

Laughter Stopped: The True Story of Fatty Arbuckle. (11) Among those

interviewed by Yallop was the comedian's halfbrother Clyde Arbuckle,

who recalled in March 1976 that Yallop was mainly interested in the

scandal and the ensuing three manslaughter trials, making them the focus

of his book.

Yallop had the advantage of interviewing all three of Roscoe Arbuckle's

wives, but, despite extensive research, persisted in repeating gossip

and hearsay as fact. In March 1991, Hollywood writer Andy Edmonds,

billed by her publisher as "one of America's top investigative

reporters," entered the field with FrameUp! The Untold Story of Roscoe

ÔFattyÕ Arbuckle, (12) in which she further garbles established fact,

summarily characterizes Arbuckle as an "alcoholic and workaholic" and

purports to prove he was the victim of a carefully calculated plot by

Adolph Zukor, the legendary founder and head of Paramount Pictures,

Arbuckle's employer when the scandal broke and all Hollywood found

itself tarred.

The Yallop and Edmonds books provide illuminating and entertaining, if

not entirely accurate, overviews of Roscoe Arbuckle's life and career,

but are found to be deficient when it comes to providing the details

upon which careful research must depend. Both of these authors were

given to reaching conclusions based upon little or no evidence. Both

books are amply sprinkled with anecdote Ñ always an agreeable substitute

for fact. Most unfortunately, neither book contains footnotes, endnotes,

or verification of the considerable quotes each employs. Further, Yallop

made the mistake of injecting himself into his account; Edmonds

likewise, quoted individuals barely born when Arbuckle was on trial. In

February 1994, Stuart Oderman, after many years of association with

Minta Durfee Arbuckle, published Roscoe "FattyÓ Arbuckle: A Biography of

the Silent Film Comedian 1887 1933.

Interest in Arbuckle's life and career has risen in recent years. In

1997, advertisers have shown interest in adapting some of his films for

commercial purposes, and two television producers, A&E and E!

Entertainment, have developed documentaries to be aired in the near

future. In both, the author has had the opportunity to put the record

straight concerning what happened in San Francisco.

At least three film scripts dealing with Arbuckle's career are afoot.

The portly comedian lives, though dead 65 years come June.

Yet the myth continues to thrive. Just last month, on a television

program devoted to the success of horror films and the effect of fear,

author Stephen King found it necessary to mention Arbuckle and the death

of Virginia Rappé.

NOTES

1. The savage use of these and other foreign objects was alleged by

tabloid newspapers and a variety of writers of the day and far after who

put sensation before truth. See Anger, Kenneth. Hollywood Babylon. San

Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1975, page 28.

2. The piece of ice claim was proven false after it was established the

St. Francis Hotel furnished something new in cooling drinks: ice cubes.

3. Rex Harrison. Rex:AnAutobiography. NewYork: Morrow, 1974.

4. Richard, Shenkman. "I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode or NotÓ New

York: Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 193 194.

5. Ezra Goodman. The FiftyYear Decline and Fall of Hollywood. New York:

Simon and Schuster, 1961, p. 337.

6. Addie McPhail Sheldon. Letter to the author, January 11, 1990.

7. Ibid. Letter to the author, January 30, 1990.

8. See John Austin. Hollywood's Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Ace, 1970;

William A. H. Carr. Hollywood Tragedy: A Book of Scandals About

Hollywood's Greatest Stars Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1976; I. G. Edmonds.

Hollywood R.l.P. Evanston, IL: Regency Books,1963; and Jeffery Feinman.

Hollywood Confidential. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976.

9. Leo Guild. The Fatty Arbuckle Case. New York: Paperback Library,

Inc., 1962.

10. Gerald Fine. Fatty. Hollywood: Gerald Fine, 1971.

11. David A. Yallop. The Day the Laughter Stopped. The True Story of

Fatty Arbuckle. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976.

12. Andy Edmonds. FrameUp! The Untold Story of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

New York: Morrow, 1991.

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