Front Row Dress Circle

One of the juicier scandals to ever hit Hollywood happened in the early years when the industry was still young.  Whilst the actors and actresses of the screen were promoted to the general public as icons of goodness and morality, the reality could not have been more different!

Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was a chubby comic actor during the silent movie era and was a favourite with families everywhere. At his peak he was in the same league as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. But remember that in those times morality was the thing and many movie idols were promoted as clean-living yet in private were hopeless drug addicts and drunks; the public placed their idols on pedestals but could quickly knock them down as became the case for poor Fatty.

Fatty and a large group of Hollywood friends hopped in his new car one weekend and drove to San Francisco and checked in at the St Francis Hotel for a weekend long party. Booze and cocaine (the drug in Hollywood circles) was the order with many there indulging. One actress, Virginia Rappe, disappeared into a bedroom with Arbuckle for a short time. The party stopped when her screams rang out and she was found in a very dishevelled state on the bed. One witness, Maude Delmont, claimed she accused Arbuckle of violating her with a bottle.

She was admitted to hospital but died from peritonitis after 3 days. The papers went wild with the story and rumours grew taking on all sorts of gruesome ‘details’ about what Arbuckle had done to the young actress.  It did not take long for the public to turn on Fatty and soon all his films were shelved, his contract with the studio cancelled and his name effectively became mud. No-one wanted to know him bar a small number of loyal friends who knew the truth…that he was completely innocent of the charges against him. The public called for him to be executed, womens, church and morality groups called for him to be lynched. The papers had a field day, the public were suitably shocked but lapped up every morbid detail. Stories circulated everywhere about the lurid sexual practices of Hollywood’s stars and a complete clean up of the industry was called for.

The whole saga became a complete farce with lawyers bribing witnesses to lie in court in order to convict Arbuckle. Three trials were held - the first two were declared mistrials and the third led to his acquittal. But mud sticks and Fatty’s career was destroyed. In later years Buster Keaton remained a loyal friend and told him to change his name to Will B Goode (William Goodriche) and try his hand at writing scripts, but to no avail. Fatty wanted to act and make people laugh again. It was never to be.

He descended into depression and alcoholism and died at the age of 46 in 1933 - perhaps the first real victim of celebrity in Hollywood and an example of how powerful the media was to become.

Suggested reading on this topic: ‘The Day the Laughter Stopped’ - author David Yallop.

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