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

by Greg Merritt

  Cinematic stardom offers the ability to stay forever young, captured in moving images and viewed by generations long after perishing. Roscoe Arbuckle achieved such immortality, but it has been far exceeded by a different sort. Always, it seems, when there’s a celebrity scandal of sex or violence, he returns, if only briefly, to the news. And not only then. He garners mentions when there are censorship battles and obscenity questions, when there is a sensational trial or the tragic death of an actress or a Hollywood celebrity arrest. A severely abbreviated list of the events his name has been associated with includes the 1943 paternity suit against Charlie Chaplin, the 1947 Black Dahlia murder, the TV quiz show scandal of the 1950s, the 1962 suicide of Marilyn Monroe, the 1969 Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate, the 1988 videotaped sex-capades of Rob Lowe, the arrests of Pee-wee Herman and Hugh Grant for lewd contact, O. J. Simpson’s arrest for double murder, the Clinton impeachment, Michael Jackson’s molestation trial, and Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction.

  The names of even silent film superstars like Mabel Normand and Buster Keaton are largely unknown today, for they have little reason to appear in the press and their movies are watched mostly by a loyal but small cadre of silent film aficionados. In contrast, the name Roscoe Arbuckle—or, much more likely, Fatty Arbuckle—reappears when there is a scandal or controversy as big as an impeachment or as small as a nipple slip. He is forever the life of the party, forever a defendant, forever a villain or a victim or both, forever remembered—when he is remembered—for his tremendous and devastating fall from grace.

  * So did Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Bob Hope won the poll by a wide margin.

  † Langdon was another Mack Sennett protégé (post-Keystone), and he rose to prominence starring in comedy features in the mid-1920s. His star has since faded as well, leaving only Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd in the silent comedy pantheon. But if the triumvirate was ever a quaternity, Arbuckle had to be the fourth. It’s also debatable whether Lloyd’s contributions to silent comedy were greater than Arbuckle’s, despite the latter’s pantomime career ending in 1921.

  * In contrast, Charlie Chaplin was rejected because of his leftist politics. Arbuckle’s inclusion and Chaplin’s exclusion prompted “one Hollywood observer” to quip, “It is apparently all right to rape and murder, but it’s not all right to be a pinko.” Chaplin got his star in 1972.

  † Sections of Durfee’s unpublished book manuscripts reside in the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They are the source for many of Durfee’s recollections quoted in this book.

  * The Loves of Liberace (1956) was an attempt to paint the flamboyant pianist as the ultimate ladies’ man. How straight was Liberace? Guild wrote, “Liberace is the perfect specimen of a well-groomed gentleman, he doesn’t chew tobacco or drive a truck; but he is as hairy as Rosselini, and who has ever questioned his masculinity? He can move a piano by himself, he chops wood for exercise; and he has always, since he was a very small child, liked to be clean.”

  * A less explicit intimation of this rumor had been published when Arbuckle was still alive. According to a 1931 Time article, “Because many suspicious persons thought he might have caused the death of Cinemactress Rappe by attacking her, perhaps with a beer bottle, no cinema producers dared antagonize their audiences by hiring Funnyman Arbuckle.”

  * This version of the story had an equally unsubstantiated contrapositive. For example, the 1989 book Movieland presumed, “And when Fatty died it was discovered that his sexual parts had never matured: he had the genitals of a child.”

  * This story was debunked in the 1980s via interviews with the football players.

  * Allen should have been better informed about his fellow comedian, for he wrote the songs for the 1985 Los Angeles musical Fatty, which took a sympathetic view of its namesake.

  * She is very circumspect in regards to the Arbuckle case and its participants, but her manuscript pages and interviews proved much more verifiably reliable in regards to her ex-husband’s biography, and they helped fill in many details of his early life and their marriage.

  * Curiously, Edmonds claims to have been introduced to Durfee by someone the author met in 1976, but Durfee died in September 1975. This may be a mere mistake, one of numerous dates, names, and events that are botched.

  * There have, however, been several stage adaptations of Arbuckle’s life and/or the trials, including the 1982 London play Fatty; 1990’s Arbuckle and The Death of a Clown, both staged in San Francisco; 1998’s Chicago “multi-media treatment” Fatty; and at least seven different plays staged in Los Angeles. (In 1966 came a flurry of stories about a Broadway musical named Fatty starring the previously mentioned junior Jackie Coogan in the eponymous role. Coogan, then famous as Uncle Fester on TV’s The Addams Family, gained weight and rehearsals began that fall, but Fatty never played.)

  * Things are different in England for those who remember a restaurant chain called Fatty Arbuckles American Diner (sans apostrophe). They likely associate Fatty Arbuckle with “very generous portions of quality American style food.” Fatty Arbuckles launched in 1983 and grew to more than forty franchises in the 1990s. The eponymous actor/director peered into a movie camera on its signs. The name was later shortened, and only one Arbuckles remains open today.

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  LABOR DAY REVISITED

  Oh, that day! One kept waiting—as if a morning would arrive from before that day to take them away all along a different track. One kept waiting for that shattering day to unhappen, so that the real—the intended—future, the one that had been implied by the past, could unfold. Hour after hour, month after month, waiting for that day to not have happened. But it had happened. And now it was always going to have happened.

  —DEBORAH EISENBERG, “TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERHEROES”

  Before

  This is what occurred on September 5, 1921, in room 1220 prior to whatever happened when Virginia Rappe and Roscoe Arbuckle were alone together in room 1219. The state and the defense reached a consensus regarding most of these events, though they differed on one significant element.

  Consensus

  Rappe had been at the party in room 1220 for three hours, drinking orange blossoms, conversing, and dancing, when shortly before 3 PM she tried to enter the bathroom of room 1221 (Lowell Sherman’s room), but Maude Delmont was in there with Sherman. Rappe then passed through 1220 and into 1219 (the room shared by Arbuckle and Fred Fishback). There was no indication that Rappe appeared ill or distressed at the party before entering 1219.

  State

  The prosecution claimed that Arbuckle watched Rappe enter 1219 and followed her.

  Defense

  The defense claimed Arbuckle was unaware that Rappe entered 1219 and that he only entered 1219 and locked its door to 1220 in order to change out of his pajamas and into a suit before taking Mae Taube for their scheduled car ride.

  Analysis

  To get from 1221 to 1219 Rappe crossed through 1220—a room then occupied by Alice Blake, Zey Prevost, and Arbuckle. It seems unlikely Arbuckle would have missed Rappe walking from one door to the other. That said, Rappe may not have gone directly from door to door, Arbuckle may have been distracted by the other two women, or he may have been facing one of the room’s two outer walls, both of which featured a window.*

  During

  There are two conflicting versions of what occurred in 1219 to cause Rappe’s injury. Here we examine both accounts as presented in the closing arguments of the third and final trial, in which each side had the benefit of the pretrial hearings, the previous two trials, and the third trial’s testimony to help them formulate their strongest cases.

  State’s Account

  “The defendant followed Virginia Rappe into room 1219, and he closed and locked the door. There was no one else in the room. Miss Rappe did not get an opportunity to go to the bathroom. Evidently, he said something or touched her in some way…. Miss Rappe would be standing near the bathroom; the defendant w
ould be between Miss Rappe and the door leading into room 1220. So Miss Rappe, to avoid whatever the defendant said he was going to do, or had attempted to do, at that time, ran to the door leading into the hall…. He followed her to the door, he pulled her away from the door, he threw her upon the [double] bed…. At that precise moment when the defendant forced her toward the bed Virginia Rappe was in the most perfect condition to have her bladder ruptured if any force was applied to her. All that was necessary was a distended bladder.”

  The state agreed with the defense that Rappe had a distended bladder at this point, but whether the distension was caused by her cystitis (a condition that had been confirmed during the first trial by the court-appointed panel of doctors), her ingestion of orange juice and gin (both of which are more diuretic than water), or any other catalyst was immaterial to them, because it didn’t explain how that distended bladder ruptured. They claimed that cystitis had nothing to do with the rupture (this may or may not have been true) and that spontaneous bladder ruptures are very rare (true). Thus, some external force caused her bladder to rupture.

  “The defendant then threw his weight upon her, her bladder ruptured, and she passed into a state of shock…. So Miss Rappe lost consciousness, and of course the defendant knew that she had lost consciousness, and he attempted to revive her. He used the ice, and he succeeded in reviving her. And when he had revived her, and when the bed was wet, then and not until then did he open the door into room 1220.”

  Because the state did not contend that Arbuckle’s attempt at sexual assault proceeded beyond throwing her to the bed and throwing himself upon her, there was no physical evidence of those actions beyond rumpled sheets.

  Defense Challenge

  The defense challenged the state’s account in three principal ways:

  Hairs

  Hairs thought to match Rappe’s were found by the state’s forensics expert Edward Heinrich between the two beds and in the bathroom. The defense contended that this validated their story and invalidated the state’s.

  Analysis: Because the state argued that Rappe was moved from one bed to the other and later moved into the bathroom, the hairs support both conflicting suppositions of what occurred in 1219. Forget the hairs.

  Fingerprints

  The defense vigorously challenged the state’s claim that two handprints on 1219’s hallway door demonstrated that Arbuckle placed his hand over Rappe’s to prevent her escape.

  Analysis: The handprints were much debated and were largely responsibile for one of the jurors holding out for a guilty verdit in the first trial. However, modern forensic experts consulted for this book determined that the state’s logic behind the dual prints would not hold up in a criminal court today, because such fingerprints cannot even be dated, let alone timed to the same moment, to prove that one hand was pressing the other. Forget the fingerprints.

  Timeline

  The defense made much of the timeline, claiming there was insufficient time—approximately ten minutes—for everything to have occurred as the state said.

  Analysis: It could have taken only a few minutes for Arbuckle’s assault and revival of Rappe as the state alleged—surely no more time than it would have taken Arbuckle to do all he claimed to have done in 1219. Forget the timeline.

  Defense’s Account

  The primary way the defense countered the state’s story was via a very different tale—told (in the first and third trials) by the only surviving person who knew for certain what occurred. “When I walked into 1219,” Arbuckle explained, “I closed and locked the door, and I went straight to the bathroom and found Miss Rappe on the floor in front of the toilet, holding her stomach and moving around on the floor. She had been vomiting.” The defense postulated two ways Rappe’s bladder could have ruptured: spontaneous and via some external force.

  Spontaneous

  After suggesting that her bladder had been weakened by many years of cystitis and overextended by hours of drinking without urinating and that her abs were “exceedingly well-developed” due to physical training, the defense proposed, “Now, a violent contraction of the abdominal muscles produced by an act of vomiting, the medical experts advise you, might cause a rupture of an overextended bladder. And if Miss Rappe’s bladder was ruptured while in an act of vomiting, would the rupture be the result of any act of the defendant in this case?”

  Analysis: Instances of spontaneous bladder ruptures are rare, though most are preceded by alcohol consumption, which both fills the bladder and, by dulling nerve impulses, reduces the feeling that one needs to empty it. A chronic case of cystitis could also have weakened her bladder walls, making her more susceptible to such a rupture. Still, the odds were greatly against a spontaneous rupture, and it would most probably have required atypical stress. Vomiting would qualify as such stress. But Rappe’s vomiting—such an important component of the defense’s story—was witnessed only by Arbuckle. No physical evidence was found. No other witness noted any indication of it. Rappe, by accounts, never told other witnesses she was or had been nauseous. Arbuckle claimed he gave her two glasses of water soon after she vomited, and that water did not come back up and out.

  Spontaneous bladder rupture remains a possible explanation, but a very unlikely one.

  Some External Force Not Witnessed

  The defense conjectured that Rappe could have struck the side of the door upon entering the bathroom, or she could have fallen and hit her abdomen on the side of the bathtub or toilet seat. Or the rupture may have occurred after Arbuckle initially tried to assist her.

  ”Mr. Arbuckle assisted Miss Rappe from the [bathroom] floor and placed her upon the toilet seat. Later he gave her some water. She expressed a desire to leave the bathroom and lie down for a moment. Mr. Arbuckle assisted her into room 1219, set her upon the smaller of the two beds, lifting her feet up, and she reclined upon the bed. At that moment Mr. Arbuckle left the room and went into the bathroom. He came out into room 1219 within a few moments, and he failed to find Miss Rappe upon the smaller of the two beds; he found her upon the floor.

  “True, we do not know exactly how she got on the floor, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that, suffering from a spasm of the bladder while lying on the bed, writhing in pain, she fell off the bed onto the floor.” (Bladder spasms are a complication of cystitis, and those sharp, intense pains could have caused Rappe to fall.) The defense then conjectured, quoting doctors, that Rappe could have fallen on her abdomen or “upon other parts of her body,” and either way it “might produce sufficient force to rupture an overextended bladder.”

  Analysis: Striking her abdomen against the side of the bathroom door with sufficient force seems wholly unlikely—unless she was stumbling drunk, and the testimony stated otherwise. Falling in the bathroom and striking her abdomen on the bathtub or toilet seat is less dubious but still improbable. It would have been difficult to fall in such a way that her abdomen got the worst of it. In addition, there were no bruises or marks on her midsection as from striking a hard surface, and perhaps most tellingly, Arbuckle never claimed she mentioned such a fall. His testimony at the first trial regarding the time they were both in the bathroom emphasized her nausea, though he did say that she was “holding her stomach” and that after he assisted her, she was “gasping and had a hard time getting her breath.” He implied she was in greater pain in the bedroom later: “I found Miss Rappe between the two beds rolling about on the floor and holding her stomach and crying and moaning.”*

  As for a fall to the floor of 1219 causing the rupture, this too is doubtful. It would have been difficult for her to belly flop off the bed and to the floor approximately two feet down. A fall “upon other parts of her body” could have possibly caused an abdominal constriction that ruptured the bladder, but this removes us from blunt trauma and returns us to the statistical oddity of a spontaneous rupture.

  State Challenge

  The state challenged the defense’s account primarily by questioning Arbuckle’s immediate actions
in assisting Rappe and his comments and lack of comments about those actions soon thereafter and then days later.

  Immediate Actions

  The state asked why Arbuckle, upon finding Rappe ill in the bathroom, did not immediately seek assistance.

  Analysis: Arbuckle said he thought Rappe was merely nauseous from alcohol consumption, so his actions, as he described them, seem appropriate.

  Actions Soon Thereafter

  The state further questioned why Arbuckle never told anyone at the party nor the hotel’s assistant manager, Harry Boyle, nor the first doctor summoned, Dr. Olav Kaarboe, that he had found Rappe in the bathroom nauseous, that he had helped her to a bed, and that she had likely fallen from that bed. That first day, he told no one anything about what occurred in 1219. “Is that human nature? Is that the way an innocent man would act?” the state asked.

  Analysis: It does seem suspicious—if Arbuckle thought Rappe was seriously injured. By his account, he did not. Neither did anyone else at the party, nor Dr. Kaarboe, who attended to her that evening. All assumed that she had had too much to drink and she would sleep it off. Given that, it would not be especially notable that Rappe had vomited and probably fallen, and it would have been ungentlemanly at the time to mention it.

  Actions Days Later

  The state made much of the fact that Arbuckle did not recount his story of assisting a nauseous Rappe until on the witness stand at the first trial—that he had avoided telling the story to the press, the police, and the district attorney, as well as at a coroner’s inquest, a grand jury, and a preliminary hearing. “Is that the way a man who had nothing to fear would act?” the state asked. The state postulated that Arbuckle’s team only formulated their story after first hearing the state’s witnesses, devising the tale to both complement and counter those witnesses’ accounts.