Room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood

by Greg Merritt

  He is decked out in the tight tux as he attends the benefit with Durfee, and the movie’s highlight is his ludicrous heel-kicking dance. Chase sneaks in and unravels the stolen pants, leaving the embarrassed Fatty in his underwear. Chase then fires a barrage of bullets at Fatty, hitting him with all the effect of slaps. Fatty leaps out a window and to a street where a cop, noting his state of undress, places a barrel around him and beats him with a club. The final image is of Chase and Durfee laughing at crying Fatty as the clubbing cop herds him to jail.

  THE END

  Unlike Chaplin’s Little Tramp, we have scant sympathy for the title character of Fatty’s Magic Pants, for he is insincere, cruel, lazy, and corrupt. Upon greeting him, Chase offers his hand, and after they shake, Fatty’s smile melts into a scoff. A minute later, Fatty distracts Chase and coldcocks him with a board wrapped in a newspaper, only to then laugh heartily at his rival laid out on the ground. Though he resorts to stealing the formal wear, he doesn’t appear impoverished; his only legitimate effort to attain a tux is begging his mother for money. The punishment for his minor thievery—public humiliation, dodging and absorbing bullets, police brutality, jail—does not fit his crime, but we have no qualms about enjoying Fatty’s downfall.

  This man-child is not that bad, so we smile at his innocence when he naively gives a hatcheck man not just his hat and cane but also his shoes, and we revel in his joy when, among high society, he dances about in unbridled ecstasy. But he’s not that good either, a grown-up delinquent, and so, like his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s new boyfriend, in the end we laugh as Fatty cries.

  In 1914 Arbuckle and his wife rented a large house near the beach in tony Santa Monica. After years of traveling, they were happy to be rooted to one place. They lived there with their pit bull, Luke, a gift to Durfee from Keystone director Wilfred Lucas (the canine’s namesake) after Durfee performed a dangerous stunt. They employed a Japanese servant, Oki, who lived in the guest house. Arbuckle often stayed up late, plotting out gags, stunts, and camera angles, smoking and drinking.

  The couple, who had been broke the year before, spent their lavish paychecks soon after receiving them on extravagances befitting movie stars: she on designer clothes and perfumes and he on expensive jewelry for her and—something he had coveted for years—his first automobile: a secondhand Stevens-Duryea Model C-Six touring car. His love of cars bound him to race car driver Barney Oldfield, co-owner of the Oldfield-Kipper Tavern in downtown Los Angeles—a trendy refuge for male sports and movie celebrities, including Arbuckle. It was also an interest he shared with Mabel Normand.

  The close friendship Normand shared with Arbuckle and Durfee provided her respite from her boyfriend. Sennett wrote, “Mabel and I were engaged and unengaged more than twenty times, I suppose, and once or twice we set a date. But things being like they were around Hollywood, she would hear stories about me and I would hear stories about her, and our affair was a series of fractures and refractures.” Perhaps to heal fractures and certainly as a relief from the grueling shooting schedules, Normand spent most Sundays with Minty and Big Otto, often with Durfee’s family, eating meals cooked by Durfee’s mother.

  Arbuckle also swam in the Pacific with Normand nearly every Sunday. Durfee remembered:

  So one Sunday morning they came back, and instead of the two of them getting out of the water immediately and coming up on the sand, there was something going on…. Well, what it was, as they were swimming back from the Venice pier, up came a dolphin, and instead of Mabel being frightened like anybody would, because none of us knew anything about dolphins in those days, she just put her arm over the neck of this dolphin, and he swam right along with them. And do you know, every Sunday, for nearly a year, he came and swam with them, down and back, until one day they came back and then he disappeared, and they never saw him again.

  Though Durfee was content merely to observe Arbuckle and Normand’s aquatic adventures, she and her husband often partook in the local nightlife together. Recalled Durfee: “If either of us went anywhere in the evening, the other always went along. I was brought up in the belief—they call it old-fashioned now—that a wife’s place was to suit herself to her husband’s wishes, and to go where he wanted to go…. Perhaps we made a mistake by being so much together. It is the safest thing for married couples to take an occasional vacation from each other. I know that now, but you couldn’t make me believe it then.”

  One can picture Roscoe Arbuckle and Minta Durfee as 1914 came to a close, him twenty-seven, her twenty-five, walking near the sea as they had six years before when they fell in love. Santa Monica’s amusement center had burned down two years prior, but they could see the palatial auditorium and the schooner-shaped Cabrillo Ship Café at the Abbot Kinney Pier in neighboring Venice, the signpost for his Sunday swims. They talked about their future. Their marriage was sometimes strained; his drinking could darken his mood and breed arguments. But unlike Normand and Sennett, they had a marriage, and unlike in their first years together—mostly spent in strange towns and cities in the West and Far East—they now had the comfort of financial security and a permanent home with family and friends nearby. The sun spilled into the ocean. Then and there when everything was building, it seemed it could never end.

  * Their tumultuous love story was adapted into the 1974 Broadway musical Mack & Mabel.

  * Peeping Pete was released on June 23, 1913, with A Bandit; they are the oldest surviving Arbuckle movies.

  * Custard tended to break up in flight, and it faded into the background when shot in monochrome, so later pies consisted of blackberries and whipped cream—a concoction local bakeries readily learned to devise.

  * Some movies then were released under multiple titles. So Fatty Again might be Fatty the Fourflusher a week later at a theater across town.

  * Macklyn Arbuckle (no known relation to Roscoe) was a Broadway star. His most famous stage role was Sheriff “Slim” Hoover in The Round Up, and it was as this character that he uttered, “Nobody loves a fat man.” Roscoe Arbuckle eventually starred in the same role and made the line his own.

  {8}

  THE NEXT WEEKEND

  DETAIN ARBUCKLE

  Fat Comedian in Trouble As Girl Dies from Orgy

  SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 10—Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, motion picture actor, is to be “held in custody” pending the action of the police investigation of the death of Miss Virginia Rappe, motion picture actress, following a party in Arbuckle’s room in the St. Francis Hotel, acting Captain of Detectives Michael Griffith [sic] announced today.

  The giant DETAIN ARBUCKLE banner and its subheading were the spin of the Evening News editors in San Jose, Arbuckle’s former hometown. Earlier on that Saturday, the Los Angeles Examiner shouted, ACTRESS DIES AFTER HOTEL FILM PARTY. The San Francisco Chronicle ran with the similar GIRL DEAD AFTER WILD PARTY IN HOTEL, while its rival, the San Francisco Examiner, alleged a crime with S.F. BOOZE PARTY KILLS YOUNG ACTRESS. AS details developed throughout the day, the San Francisco Bulletin went for the jugular: GET ROSCOE IS DEATHBED PLEA. Others were more cautious. The New York Times chose ROSCOE ARBUCKLE FACES AN INQUIRY ON WOMAN’S DEATH, the Los Angeles Times the obscure MYSTERY DEATH TAKES ACTRESS, the Pittsburgh Press the optimistic “FATTY” ARBUCKLE TO HELP CLEAR ACTRESS’ DEATH. But sensationalism would win out before the weekend was through.

  According to the Evening News, the police had received two different accounts of Rappe’s death. The first was “an affidavit given Detective Griffith Kennedy by Miss Alice Blake, actress”—one of the chorus girls at the party. The second was “a statement said to have been telephoned them from Los Angeles by Roscoe Arbuckle, motion picture comedian, which denied portions of Miss Blake’s affidavit.”

  From Blake’s affidavit: “About half an hour later Mrs. Delmont tried to get into the room, but the door was locked. She banged on the door and Arbuckle came out. As he opened the door we heard Miss Rappe moaning and crying ‘I am dying, I am dying.’ Arbuckle came out and sat
down and said to us, ‘Go in and get her dressed and take her back to the Palace. She makes too much noise.’”

  From Arbuckle’s statement: “We sat around and had some drinks and pretty soon Miss Rappe became hysterical and complained she could not breathe and began to tear her clothes off…. At no time was I alone with Miss Rappe. There were half a dozen people in the room all the time.”

  Picture a spy with multiple enemies who is courting allies and underworld connections he can never truly trust, endeavoring to attain a secret code—by any means, bit by bit—before his enemies get it first. Newspaper journalism in 1921, particularly the crime beat when the crime was worthy of daily eight-column headlines, was a devious sort of warfare. When the Arbuckle/Rappe story broke, there were five general-interest daily newspapers in Los Angeles and as many in San Francisco. In New York City, there were fourteen. Except for those owned by the same company, they were rabid competitors, segmented by Democratic, Republican, or Socialist party politics and also by the relish with which they pursued the more sordid criminal stories. There were morning papers, evening papers, and to disseminate the results of the day’s final horse races, late editions. When the news warranted it, extra editions were published; there could be multiple extras throughout a day, each with a new headline on a new development, each rushing to beat competitors to the crowded stands. Today we think of the print press as a staid medium caught flat-footed when a whirlwind of events kicks up, but newspapers in 1921 were closer to today’s twenty-four-hour cable news networks and the Internet’s plethora of news sites and political blogs: rapid responses, strong opinions, factional politics, relentless competition.

  With radio still in its infancy and no general-interest newsmagazines, newspapers were the only news medium of note in September 1921.* Newspaper editors, columnists, and publishers were celebrities, the equivalent of television commentators today, and none were bigger than publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who had a nationwide media empire of twenty-four newspapers. His Los Angeles and San Francisco Examiners shared information on the fast-developing Arbuckle story, and they reveled in the salacious.

  The news industry had recently begun a trend toward greater sensationalism, and this development would be greatly accelerated by the Arbuckle case—to Arbuckle’s detriment. In part, the transformation was the result of competing wire services. The United Press Associations (later UPI) was formed in 1907 to take on the Associated Press. Hearst formed the more sensationalistic International News Service in 1909 and spun off the morning-edition Universal Service in 1917. Thus, by the time of the Arbuckle trial, papers around the world could use content from multiple wire services as well as the content of other papers (transmitted via leased wires). Each wire service vied for greater sales largely by promulgating stories that could run with startling headlines.

  Another factor in the shift was the rapid success of New York City’s Daily News, launched in June 1919. America’s first modern tabloid adopted the subheading “New York’s Picture Newspaper,” and its emphasis on photos, scant text, and provocative headlines appealed to the same working-class immigrants who had long been Arbuckle’s core audience. Lured in by bold headings and the bark of newsboys, many such workers scooped up a copy to graze on the subway going to or from their jobs. At its one-year anniversary, the Daily News had over a hundred thousand readers, and a year after that, as Arbuckle’s arrest loomed, the number had blossomed to nearly four hundred thousand, spurring imitators.*

  To meet the growing demand for headline-worthy provocation, crime reporters (colloquially called “hot crime men”) got into police headquarters, jails, hospital rooms, coroner’s offices, morgues, and law offices. They had paid sources everywhere; their newspaper expense accounts allowed them to outbid the police for details. Frequently, they arrived at a crime scene before the cops, and they followed leads that took them to the doors of witnesses, suspects, and victims, often before detectives could make an official inquiry. They weren’t merely ambulance chasers; they were also ambulance leaders. Sometimes they even detained suspects and obtained confessions. As A. J. Liebling wrote, “In making ‘arrests,’ the reporters, who had shiny badges and pistol permits, usually represented themselves as detectives, but when printing the story their papers invariably said they had ‘made the arrest as citizens.’” They shared tips with police, defense attorneys, and prosecutors, and they paid those officials to throw their competitors off the trail. Especially in New York City, where the print competition was fiercest, the police tailed the best newsmen just as reporters tailed the best detectives, and each might wear a disguise recognizable to only those with whom they had a working relationship.

  Less scrupulous reporters might make up a story or report one of dubious veracity. (Six days after the Rappe story broke, the Los Angeles Evening Record would report, per anonymous sources, that members of a “Hollywood dope ring” made up of minor actors and other studio employees planned to kill Arbuckle, because the negative light shining on their industry since his arrest hurt their “dope peddling.” Logic be damned.) When a newspaper devoted its resources to a story, it would include not just twenty-five-dollar-per-week hot crime men but also freelancers paid by the column inch who received bonuses for cover stories.

  On September 10, the feeding frenzy began.

  Los Angeles Times reporter Warden Woolard beat the police to Roscoe Arbuckle’s Los Angeles mansion on Friday evening, September 9, and informed the comedic superstar of Virginia Rappe’s death hours earlier. The movie star told the reporter that Rappe had grown ill at his hotel party but he knew of no injuries that could have caused her death. “After Miss Rappe had a couple of drinks she became hysterical, and I called the hotel physician and the manager,” he said. He denied having hurt her. “This is assuming serious proportions,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” Woolard agreed.

  Around that time, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle called. Arbuckle lied, saying “there were no closed or locked doors” to room 1219. Futher, he implied that Rappe “threw her fit in the presence of everyone” in 1220 before being moved to 1219.

  Arbuckle telephoned Joseph Schenck, the executive of his production company, who called for a midnight meeting with the unofficial suspect and the three potential witnesses then in Los Angeles: Arbuckle’s suitemates, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback, and Virginia Rappe’s friend Al Semnacher. The location: Sid Grauman’s office at Grauman’s Million Dollar Theatre.

  On his way there, Semnacher stopped at the home of Kate and Joseph Hardebeck. “His face was grave. Something terrible had happened. And I knew before he spoke that my Virginia had died,” Kate Hardebeck stated later.

  In addition to the unofficial suspect and the three potential witnesses, the Million Dollar Theatre meeting likely included Sid Grauman and Arbuckle’s manager, Lou Anger. The men discussed Rappe’s death. “We all thought it was very unfortunate, and we could not understand it,” Semnacher later testified. As a friend of Rappe’s and no friend of Arbuckle’s, Semnacher was the group’s outsider. Did the men coordinate a strategy, agreeing on what the witnesses would and would not say to the press and authorities? It seems likely this was the reason for the meeting. Was the promise of money or movie career advancement made to Semnacher for his cooperation? Possibly.

  From Grauman’s office, Arbuckle telephoned a San Francisco detective and offered his outline of events, including the falsehood that he was never alone with Rappe. He also asserted that those saying he bore responsibility for her death were motivated by “ill feelings” toward him. He was told to report to the San Francisco Hall of Justice. He then tracked down his attorney, Milton Cohen, who was out of town. Cohen called his partner Frank Dominguez, who agreed to represent Arbuckle in San Francisco.

  After the meeting, Arbuckle told his actress friend Viola Dana he had to return to San Francisco but couldn’t say why, adding, “For God’s sake, don’t die on me.”

  Around 3 AM on the morning of September 10,
Arbuckle’s Pierce-Arrow headed north again, its owner behind the wheel. Along for the ride were Lou Anger, Frank Dominguez, and Joe Bordeaux, a bit player on both sides of the camera during Fatty productions and a steadfastly loyal friend whom the movie star could depend on (he called Arbuckle “chief”). Witnesses Fred Fishback, Lowell Sherman, and Al Semnacher headed north in Fishback’s car. The two groups stopped at a diner in Bakersfield for breakfast.

  The press pounced on the story throughout that Saturday, and “Fatty’s car” was easy to track. When it stopped in Fresno, Arbuckle was quoted as saying he had never met Rappe before Monday. “She had a few drinks, and then it became necessary to call a physician and to have her removed,” he said, leaving out virtually everything. The same article listed Rappe’s age as twenty-three and quoted San Francisco’s night captain of detectives, Michael Griffin: “No charges will be placed against [Arbuckle], but he will be detained until after the inquest.” The Pierce-Arrow reached Oakland at 7 PM, and, waiting there for a ferry to San Francisco, a weary Arbuckle made a more diplomatic statement to the press, no doubt at attorney Dominguez’s behest: “I am coming here to do all I can with the investigation of the case.” At the ferry dock, he bought a newspaper from a newsboy while Dominguez made a phone call.

  “They’re saying some rotten things about you, Fatty, but I’m for you,” the newsboy offered.

  “Thanks, son, I’m glad to know it,” Arbuckle replied as he scanned the paper’s account of the St. Francis party.

  “I don’t know why they are saying these things. I wasn’t with Miss Rappe alone at all,” Arbuckle offered up for the press at the ferry. “There was someone else in the room during the entire affair. These tales of me dragging her into another room are false. She had two or three drinks and became hysterical. We did everything we could to revive her.”