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

by Greg Merritt

  When Golden finished his questioning, Dominguez got Semnacher to admit he had never witnessed any improper conduct by Arbuckle toward any of the women present at the Labor Day party. Semnacher agreed that Arbuckle acted as a gentleman on that day, at which point Golden interjected, questioning whether the “snatch” remark was gentlemanly. Dominguez strenuously objected—sustained—but the damage was done, and calling the defendant a gentleman would not undo it. Undoing it required a charge capable of equal or greater destruction.

  Dominguez’s attack began at the next court session. First, he livened up what should have been the pedestrian questioning of hotel doctor Arthur Beardslee by asking him if on his visits to room 1227, where Rappe lay ill and Maude Delmont watched over her, Delmont was “under the influence of alcohol or morphine” or if he ever saw her “taking a white powder.” Objections thundered.

  It was merely a warm-up for the full frontal assault on Semnacher, who was called back to the stand that afternoon. Dominguez succeeded in establishing that Semnacher was not Rappe’s manager, despite that occupation being his synonym in the press (he claimed he had been misquoted) and that he had known her well for only six weeks. More important, Dominguez got him to admit Arbuckle may have said he placed the ice “on” Rappe’s “snatch” and not “in” it. Dominguez was less successful in establishing anything untoward about Semnacher occupying a Palace Hotel room connected to the room of Delmont and Rappe.

  And then the defense attorney got down to business, first with a few minor shots at Delmont’s character that Semnacher successfully volleyed, then with the introduction of a new name: Earl Lynn, a minor movie actor. Delmont had supposedly tried to extort money from Lynn’s father in exchange for her keeping private her sexual relationship with Lynn and her resulting pregnancy. Golden objected, and Judge Lazarus ruled that the defense should not go beyond the murder case at hand.

  Dominguez explained the relevance: “If we can, we will show that Semnacher, in conversation with Mrs. Delmont and someone else, plotted that Virginia Rappe’s torn clothing should be taken to Los Angeles, there to extort blackmail from Arbuckle. If we can show that Semnacher was aware of circumstances that we expect to show connecting Mrs. Delmont and Earl Lynn, of Los Angeles, we will then establish the intimate relations existing between Semnacher and Mrs. Delmont. We will show, moreover, that Earl Lynn is not the only individual to be mentioned in this connection.”

  Judge Lazarus declared, “I am not going to try the character of every witness appearing here.”

  But it was too late for Al Semnacher. At his own request, the question of his conspiring to blackmail Arbuckle was promptly brought before the grand jury. He testified as the only witness. The grand jury took no action. Afterward, Semnacher told reporters he was bringing a civil suit against Dominguez for defamation of character.

  The question of why Rappe’s torn shirt and undergarments were found in the possession of Semnacher has never been satisfactorily answered. Car dusting? At the preliminary hearing, he said his original intent was “joshing” Rappe but he later kept them to clean his car. (He never used them for this purpose.) It is possible that after Rappe’s injury, Semnacher and Delmont (who had Rappe’s outer clothing) saw the possibility of enlisting Rappe in a conspiracy to blackmail Arbuckle with the promise they would keep events out of the press and unreported to the police. The clothes could have been used as possible evidence of an assault. If this was a scheme, it collapsed with Rappe’s death and the resulting criminal investigation.

  Bambina Maude Delmont’s role as countervailing force to Roscoe Arbuckle was then coming into focus—avenging angel if one presumed his guilt, conspiring con artist if one presumed he was wrongly accused. This is what is known about her life before September 1921.

  She was born in New Mexico in 1882, to Mr. and Mrs. Winfield Scott, both from Indiana. She had a younger sister. At some point prior to 1910, she got married to a man named Delmont. But by the time of the 1910 census, she was divorced and a guest at a New York City hotel; no occupation was given.

  On November 27, 1912, she remarried in Los Angeles. The groom was John C. Hopper, a Canadian farmer and ex-soldier. They separated on March 1, 1914, and Delmont was granted an interlocutory divorce decree on grounds of nonsupport.

  Reporters in September 1921 dug for dirt about her past but found little. A wire story stated that she lived for a time in Wichita, Kansas, under an assumed name. The Los Angeles Times reported that in 1919, authorities asked her to leave Catalina Island: “She conducted a beauty parlor in the dance pavilion. She left without contesting the official warning. Her baggage was held some time on the island until certain debts were paid, island officials say.”

  The 1920 census had found her renting a home in Los Angeles with her sister, a nurse. She reported her occupation as “corsetier.” Presumably, she co-owned a corset-making business with her next-door neighbor, a divorced forty-one-year-old mother who shared the same unusual occupation.

  On February 26, 1921, she married again, wedding Cassius Clay Woods, a publicist, in Madera, California. Both were thirty-eight and residents of Los Angeles. Both were listed as divorced.

  September 27 was the fifth and final day of testimony in the preliminary hearing. Blake and Prevost testified, both recalling, with minor variations, that after Rappe moaned “I’m dying,” Arbuckle told her to be quiet or “I’ll throw you out the window.” Prevost confirmed parts of the ice story. According to her, Arbuckle said to Rappe regarding his application of ice, “That’ll bring you to”—which might indicate that he intended it as a remedy, though the line could also be interpreted as a crude joke.

  The prosecution then called a surprise witness, a stout and nervous woman in a blue dress named Josephine Keza. Keza was a maid at the Hotel St. Francis. She explained in heavily accented English that on Labor Day she had been in the twelfth-floor hallway when she heard a woman scream behind the door to 1219 and then say, “No, no, oh my God!” A man’s voice followed: “Shut up!” On cross-examination, Dominguez tried to trip up her remembrance but made little headway.

  Afterward, the state rested.

  The defense was stunned, as were Arbuckle and, just behind him, Durfee. Dominguez leapt to his feet. “Do you mean to say that the prosecution in this case is not going to call Mrs. Maude Delmont to the stand? She is the principal witness; she swore to the complaint. In the interest of truth and justice, I appeal to you, Mr. District Attorney, not to deny this defense the right of cross-examining this witness.”

  “Put her on the stand yourself,” Brady said.

  “She is your witness,” Dominguez insisted. “I have no desire to be held responsible for her testimony. I appeal to you in the interest of fair play and justice to put her on the stand. I never knew of a case in the jurisprudence of California where a complaining witness has not been placed on the stand. I know you do not want to put her on the stand. And I’ll tell you, the only reason you will not call her is because you know that the moment you give me the opportunity to cross-examine her, I’ll impeach every word of her testimony.”

  Judge Lazarus also expressed surprise at the failure to bring Delmont before the court. “You are traveling very close to a line which might necessitate me dismissing these proceedings,” he warned Brady.

  But she was not called. And then the defense rested without calling a single witness. Court adjourned.

  The following afternoon, September 28, the judge was ready to deliver his decision. But first, he said, “the court will indulge in a little discussion.” He blamed the Hotel St. Francis and all of society for allowing “this orgy” to occur. He said, “It is of such common occurrence that it was given no attention until something happened, until the climax made it notorious.”

  As for the prosecution’s case, he said Arbuckle’s action with the ice was very regrettable but had no connection with murder. “Some of the witnesses were absolutely worthless, especially Semnacher, who occupied two days’ time. The only witness i
n the entire case who gave any direct testimony bearing on the guilt or innocence of Arbuckle was the nervous chambermaid, Josephine Keza.” And yet he also dismissed the voices Keza overheard as, perhaps, adults shifting the boundaries of consensual sex. He concluded: “The question for me to decide from the merest outline of evidence, this skeletonized description of what occurred in those apartments on Labor Day, is whether I am justified in holding the defendant for murder. And I don’t think I am justified in sending him to trial on this grievous charge under the circumstances. Therefore, I hold him for trial on the charge of manslaughter.”

  The courtroom of mostly female observers erupted in applause. Arbuckle embraced his wife and hugged and kissed his mother-in-law. When court was adjourned, a dozen women rushed forward to shake the hand of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and he accepted congratulations without a smile but with watery eyes. As he and his wife and mother-in-law were ushered into the judge’s chamber, Durfee began to collapse, and her husband held her up and quieted her with great affection. Women observers cooed. His mother-in-law smoothed back his hair.

  The defense’s $5,000 cashier’s check submitted thirteen days prior for bail on the grand jury’s manslaughter complaint was finally accepted. Arbuckle was a free man, if perhaps only temporarily. He returned to what had been his residence for the last eighteen days, cell 12 on felon’s row, and said good-bye to Fred Martin and others. He stuffed his clothing into a suitcase as newspaper photographers crowded the cell, snapping photos with flashes of fiery light.

  A photographer suggested, “Roll a cigarette with one hand when we take the next snap.”

  “I can’t,” the man accused of manslaughter answered. “It’s the other Arbuckle that does that.”

  When he left the Hall of Justice with his family and his lawyers and his lackeys, women lining both sides of the street cheered him.

  That evening Brady released a statement declaring that if Arbuckle “were unknown and unimportant, he would have been held for murder.” It is, though, much more likely that an unknown man would never have been charged with murder. The evidence for murder was weak, and a grand jury and coroner’s inquest had already favored manslaughter.

  The movie star, his wife, and his mother-in-law spent that night and most of the next day at his brother Arthur’s house in San Francisco. Thursday night at the train depot, he was stopped by women well-wishers, some of whom gave him flowers. Aboard the train headed south, the conductor, porters, and many passengers congratulated him. He quietly said thanks without smiling. Congratulations were awkward for a man out on bail charged with manslaughter.

  The next morning when the train arrived at the Los Angeles station, a large crowd of friends and curious spectators had gathered. A woman stood on a suitcase to loudly denounce Arbuckle, and some agreed with her, but many more in the crowd supported him. Several young women kissed him. A rumor that the homecoming was as staged as a movie scene was hotly denied.

  What should be made of the fact that many women reacted positively to the lesser charge for Arbuckle? The New York Times published an editorial questioning it entitled “Some Problems for the Psychologists.” Here, then, some psychoanalysis.

  Just as his celebrity spawned the tsunami of negative press, it also aided him. Some fans could never shake the impression of him created by his projected image. They felt they knew Fatty—he was coarse and capable of petty crimes and cartoonish violence, but no one got hurt for long. He was no rapist, no murderer. One crying woman who waited in a hall outside the courtroom for three hours to see him but still missed him as he passed by said, “I’ve only seen him on the screen, and I wanted to see him in real life.” There may have been more women like her in the Hall of Justice than vigilant mothers.

  As for the vigilant mothers, there is no tally of how many, if any, cheered or otherwise approved of the decision. However, one stated purpose of the Women’s Vigilant Committee was to monitor proceedings to make certain justice was served, so perhaps many of those who observed the preliminary hearing agreed with Justice Lazarus that the case for trying Arbuckle for murder had not been made.*

  Another factor was the daily presence of Minta Durfee and her mother. The estranged wife, herself a movie celebrity, had traveled across the country to stand by her man. And the mother-in-law, then sixty-four and as matronly as any of the vigilant women, was standing by him too. In a women’s court where all the attorneys were male, where the judge was male, where most reporters were male, and where all the amateur observers were female, the presence of two other females visibly supporting Arbuckle and proclaiming his innocence spoke volumes. The newspapers reported Durfee’s reactions as closely as Arbuckle’s. Her photos ran regularly during the preliminary hearing, highlighting her choice of dress and necklace and hat, crowding out photos of that other fashion maven, Virginia Rappe.

  Durfee’s presence was so valuable in bolstering Arbuckle’s eviscerated image, it was speculated that Paramount paid her way to San Francisco and picked up her expenses. She always denied it. But another form of leverage was probably in play. Durfee later wrote of her “tense trip to Los Angeles, to a home that I had never seen, where if Roscoe desired to do so my separate maintenance could be cut off for all time.” The fear of losing her $500 weekly payments from Arbuckle almost certainly factored into her decision to support him so publicly.

  That Friday night, his first back in his West Adams mansion in three weeks, Roscoe Arbuckle was the guest of honor at a homecoming party. Limousines pulled up outside, delivering movie industry friends. There, behind closed doors, Arbuckle smiled. He shook hands and accepted congratulations. “He has seen fair-weather friends fall away from him, and he has learned the value of his true friends,” Durfee said. It was the last day of September and his first party since the one on Labor Day, but this time no alcohol was served. “Half the people there whispered and tiptoed around, and the others laughed too loud,” Buster Keaton remembered. “What could you say to the poor bastard?”

  * Though the majority of the mail was supportive, Durfee later said, “Some of the mail that came to us was unbelievable. There were threats against Roscoe’s life and against mine. Some wrote and said that Roscoe had torn down the moral fiber of the country, that he was a monster, that he deserved to hang.”

  * The count varies from over three thousand to eight thousand.

  * Grateful for a local angle on the nation’s biggest story, New York newspapers attacked the minor subplot of Sherman’s march. Hence, even the hair color of the driver of a car in which Sherman was the passenger was widely reported (subsequently, he claimed she was his wife).

  † Sherman’s ploy worked to minimize his connection to the scandal, and his cinematic career subsequently thrived. He transitioned to directing with the sound era, and he was helming the pioneering color feature Becky Sharp when he died of pneumonia in 1934 at forty-six.

  * There was a mild backlash against the Women’s Vigilant Committee. During the preliminary hearing, a controversial editorial in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Feasting and Vigilance” criticized the WVC’s members for turning court proceedings into theater, for heartily dining at the Palace Hotel before the first day of the preliminary hearing, and for picnicking and applying makeup in the courtroom. It also questioned why the WVC’s presence was necessary for a fair trial. This editorial, which itself fueled a backlash in Northern California, reflected the ongoing rivalry between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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  BLISS: 1919-20

  I sometimes wonder if the world will ever seem as carefree and exciting a place as it did to us in Hollywood during 1919 and the early twenties. We were all young, the air in Southern California was like wine. Our business was also young and growing like nothing ever seen before.

  —BUSTER KEATON

  It was in June 1919 when—among his daily deluge of autograph requests, unsolicited story suggestions, pleas for donations, and fawning praise from around the globe—Roscoe Arbuckle received
a letter signed with a number:

  Dear Mr. Arbuckle,

  I have just been sentenced to twelve years in this prison for burglary and now that my head is shaved and I’ve got the stripes on, I don’t think they were joking. I used to drive a taxi cab in New York and you occasionally rode with me. It is only a step from driving a taxi to second story work and my foot slipped.

  I told all the boys here in this prison that I knew you and they asked me to write and invite you to come down here and entertain us some evening. Please come, Mr. Arbuckle. Anything you do will be appreciated because it is very dull here.

  Subsequently, Arbuckle, accompanied by Lou Anger and a few Comique players and escorted by armed guards, strode through the gates of a California penitentiary. From the stage in the main hall, he told old vaudeville jokes, and after three rousing ovations, he greeted individual members of his captive audience.

  As indicated by this anecdote, as well as his financial and moral support of the troops during World War I, Arbuckle was charitable with his time and money. In fact, he went further than most of his fellow movie stars. Louella Parsons recounted how benevolent he was to individuals behind the scenes. She mentioned an instance involving “a certain little girl whom Fatty had given his friendship and advice.” Two and a half years before a very different image of Fatty took hold, Parsons wrote, “To those who think the Arbuckle life is one round of continual pleasure, it might be well to hear how he went out of his way to befriend this girl when things looked black for her. I shall like him always for that, though he modestly refused to admit he had done more than any other man would do when I spoke to him of this young woman.”