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

by Greg Merritt

  Arbuckle made three comedy shorts for Warner Bros. in the final five months of 1932, each shot in less than a week at Brooklyn’s Vitaphone studio (the old Vitagraph studio where teenage Mabel Normand acted). The second of these, Buzzin’ Around, featured Al St. John and a swarm of animated bees.† It was the final of sixty-three films known to include the uncle and nephew. The third short, How’ve You Bean?, paired Arbuckle with the smaller, blank-eyed Fritz Hubert to form a new comedy duo, with the latter serving mostly as straight man to the former’s shenanigans. (Destined for a brief career, twenty-four-year-old Hubert had only just debuted with a small role in Hey, Pop!) The pair mishandle Mexican jumping beans; as with the bees in Buzzin’ Around, the beans are animated to good effect. This heralded a change, because with the rise of Mickey Mouse, short comedy was increasingly an animated medium. And slapstick, which had gone from vaudeville to silent films to sound films during Arbuckle’s lifetime, was finding a new and lasting home in cartoons.

  A New York gossip column item in October 1932 read, “Quite the most man-about-town-ish man-about-town at the moment is Fatty Arbuckle who, liberated from an old stigma, seems to be having the time of his life. He appears in all the night spots, invariably accompanied by his attractive wife.” The party continued for Arbuckle, who had first been a regular at Manhattan nightclubs with Keaton fifteen years prior. But, now-middle-aged, he had shed the all-male entourage to spend time with his new wife. He and McPhail danced at such legendary joints as the Cotton Club, the Onyx Club, and Roseland Ballroom.

  A suite at Manhattan’s elegant Park Central Hotel was the home for Arbuckle, McPhail, McPhail’s then-eight-year-old daughter, Marilyn, and their African American maid. Arbuckle never had a child of his own, but he loved playing with kids, and kids quickly warmed to him. For the first time since he lived with Durfee’s family in the early 1910s, there was a child in his home. He doted on Marilyn.

  In early 1933 the family of three returned to Los Angeles on a vacation. Afterward, when they boarded a train and headed east again, it was the last time Arbuckle, who called himself a “100% Californian,” saw the Golden State. During Mardi Gras week in March 1933, he played a weeklong vaudeville engagement to packed houses in New Orleans, assisted by McPhail. Also that month, a newspaper item read, “Roscoe Arbuckle has given up dieting. He says he’s not going to starve himself to death just for the sake of living a few years longer.”

  In April he was back at the Vitaphone studio, starring in the comedy short Close Relations, which featured Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame. Then he was again paired with Fritz Hubert in Tomalio and In the Dough. Arbuckle had no love interest in his six comeback movies, thus avoiding any association with the scandal of 1921. Instead, In the Dough, his final film, recalls more innocent times. Its relentless pie fight is reminiscent of Arbuckle’s Keystone days, when every scene was a potential custard eruption and Fatty’s fame was climbing weekly. Production began on June 22 and wrapped on the afternoon of June 28.

  On the evening of June 28, Arbuckle and McPhail belatedly celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary at Billy La Hiff’s Tavern, a popular hangout for Broadway and film notables in midtown Manhattan. Alcohol was served at La Hiff’s with a wink at Prohibition, which was by that summer evening crawling feebly toward its official demise on December 5. Arbuckle and McPhail ate and drank. She played backgammon. He talked with friends, including former world boxing champ Johnny Dundee. Arbuckle had tickets to the world heavyweight championship fight the following evening at the Madison Square Garden Bowl, a seventy-two-thousand-seat outdoor arena in Queens. Arbuckle and his agent, Joe Rivkin, discussed his Midwest vaudeville tour scheduled to begin in four days and the fact that Warner Bros. was exercising its option to produce eight additional sound Fatty shorts. A feature film was a possibility. It’s appropriate that the final full day in the life of Roscoe Arbuckle was spent acting in a film and then out on the town, eating, drinking, and socializing with friends—for those were the things that made him happiest.

  “I’ve made my comeback,” Arbuckle said. “There are lots of stars not doing as well as I am right now.”

  Arbuckle and his wife had planned to go to a nightclub, but he was more tired than usual. It was the rare time he turned down an opportunity to keep the party going. At around 11:30 PM, he and McPhail took a cab the seven blocks to their home at the Park Central Hotel. He was in bed by 12:30 on the morning of June 29, 1933. Between then and 2:15, Roscoe Arbuckle died peacefully of a heart attack at age forty-six.

  Dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and a dark bow tie, Arbuckle’s body was laid in a gray casket in the ornate Gold Room of Frank E. Campbell’s Funeral Church on Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. As many as a thousand mourners and curious onlookers paid their final respects to him on June 29 and 30.

  Campbell’s had then (and maintains now) a reputation for discreetly and securely handling the mortuary needs of the rich and famous.* Funeral services were conducted by officers of an Elks Lodge (Arbuckle was an Elk) at 1:00 PM on Saturday, July 1, at the Funeral Church. Three hundred people attended. Honorary pallbearers included Billy La Hiff, Joe Rivkin, Ray McCarey (the director of Arbuckle’s final three movies), and comic actor Bert Lahr (later the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz). Because only two days elapsed between his death and his funeral, Arbuckle’s famous friends in California didn’t have time to traverse the country via train. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Joe Schenck were among those who sent flowers.

  ”We think of his love of children and how he brought a surcease of sorrow to those in pain,” the Elks elder said in the eulogy. “There is nothing in the world like laughter, and so we may say that he made the world laugh. And now that the end has come we know he will be judged by the good he has done.” After the service, a crying McPhail, wearing all white, followed the flower-topped casket outside to the hearse while police held back the rubbernecking crowd of five hundred. Then, by car, she followed the hearse to Fresh Pond Crematory in Queens. Soon thereafter, McPhail, her daughter, and her maid returned to Los Angeles.

  Within weeks of his death, his older brother Harry and younger half-brother Clyde contested Roscoe Arbuckle’s will, claiming they had a right to over $100,000 in stocks and bonds. In July 1934 a New York court ruled that the estate’s assets totaled $2,000. Minus debts, $396 was awarded to Addie McPhail.*

  On September 6, 1934, Arbuckle’s ashes were shipped to McPhail in Los Angeles, and shortly thereafter she alone committed them to the Pacific Ocean off Santa Monica—the waters in which Roscoe Arbuckle had swum on those blissful days two decades earlier when his fame and fortune had only just begun to grow, when he could never have imagined the highs and lows his life would reach.

  His obituaries mostly focused on the lows. In the briefest of hatchet jobs, Time told readers as much about Will Hays’s career as Arbuckle’s: “Died. Roscoe Conkling (“Fatty”) Arbuckle, 46, globular oldtime cinemactor; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. Although acquitted of manslaughter after the death of one Virginia Rappe eleven years ago, the malodorous evidence brought out at the trial dropped him to obscurity; resulted in the appointment of President Harding’s Postmaster General Will H. Hays as public apologist for Hollywood.”

  Some obituary writers painted a cautionary tale: “Instead of being the innocent and jovial blunderer he so amusingly depicted, Arbuckle was disclosed as a weakling who couldn’t stand prosperity and who, under the influence of intoxicants, became a coarse vulgarian. But now there can only be a feeling of pity for ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle—a man who muffed a wonderful opportunity in life. Young people should be able to learn something from a study of his life—it is as important to know the road to avoid as the road to take.”

  Others told a tragic story: “Arbuckle got a rough deal in life. He was yanked from the heights and shot to the depths so that I sometimes wondered how he managed to survive the ordeal. And for what? For doing something that happens in every city, in every state, in every hotel
on every day of the year. For staging a drunken party. But Arbuckle got the rap that most party-goers are fortunate enough to miss. In his case a sick girl died. And the holier-than-thous swooped down upon the man with such vengeance that they deprived him of a livelihood for many years.”

  Will Rogers echoed this sentiment more poetically: “Those who demanded their pound of flesh, finally received their satisfaction. ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle accommodated ‘em by dying, and from a broken heart.”

  His heart literally broke, but Arbuckle was as happy when he died as he had been in twelve years. He was married again, happily, and a firsttime stepfather. He was working onstage and acting in movies. He was no longer burdened by great debts. He was optimistic about his future, but June 29, 1933, may have been as good as it would get. His cinematic comeback would have continued, but judging by the careers of most silent stars, it likely would have expired within a few years, and it almost certainly never would have approached the heights of his previous peak. In that regard, his may well have been the right time to exit life’s stage.

  Arbuckle’s final movies continued to play after he was gone. He continued to fall and chase and hurl pies, and audiences continued to laugh at him, forgetting for a while the tragedy and trials, and forgetting, like always, the reality outside the dark theater. They laughed with an old friend like old times, after he was gone.

  * With sound, Buster Keaton also returned to low-budget comedy shorts, starring in twentysix between 1934 and 1941. He later resuscitated his career better than any other silent star, scoring roles in feature films, plays, and television programs until his death in 1966 at age seventy.

  † St. John also had a prolific sound career, including more than eighty supporting roles in westerns as the bearded, comical “Fuzzy.” He died in 1963 at sixty-nine. Over a forty-year career, Al St. John acted in over 340 films.

  * Campbell’s secured this reputation when it handled the services of Rudolph Valentino in 1926.

  * McPhail acted only a few more times in bit parts. She remarried and lived in Los Angeles until her death at ninety-seven in 2003.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Numerous people and institutions assisted in the research of this book. I would especially like to thank the staffs of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Louis B. Mayer Library of the American Film Institute, the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles Public Library and the County of Los Angeles Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin, the San Francisco County Clerk’s Office, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the County of San Francisco Criminal Court, the California Department of Public Health, the National Archives and Records Administration, the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, the Orange County Archives, the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum, the West Adams Heritage Association, the Culver City Historical Society, the Blackhawk Museum, the Nethercutt Museum, the International Buster Keaton Society, the Interstitial Cystitis Network, and the Westin St. Francis hotel—the enduring home of room 1219.

  The following online databases proved especially useful: Ancestry .com, Chronicling America (the Library of Congress newspaper archive, at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov), the Google News archives, the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), NewspaperArchive.com, ProQuest.com, and Taylorology (www.taylorology.com). Some Arbuckle movies and video documentary material were viewed via the Internet Archive and YouTube.

  The many individuals who assisted with research include Bruce Long (the force responsible for Taylorology), Dean Budnick (author of a doctoral thesis on the Arbuckle case, “Directed Verdict”), Howard Mutz (official historian of the Westin St. Francis), Don Wilson (Route 101 historian), Marilyn Slater (Mabel Normand scholar), Thomas Reeder (Henry Lehrman scholar), Henry E. Scott (author of Shocking True Story), Marion Gregston of the Montecito Association History Committee (for busting the myth that the Montecito Inn was owned by Arbuckle and Chaplin), and Kenneth Moses and Larry Stewart (fingerprint experts). A special thanks to Robert Young Jr., Don Schneider, and Stuart Oderman, all of whom interviewed Minta Durfee, and to Paul E. Gierucki for his work restoring Arbuckle’s films.

  Thanks also to Yuval Taylor, Devon Freeny, Mary Kravenas, and everyone else at Chicago Review Press, Eric Myers of the Spieler Agency, Rose Bubert, Joe Weider, Roger Ebert, Charles Mitchell, Arnold Lip-kind, James Hosney, Peter McGough, Shawn Perine, Kevin Horton, and the clerk at Book Alley (Pasadena) who remembered she filed Anger: The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger in the “Psychology” section.

  NOTES

  1. Labor Day

  a custom-built right-hand-drive Pierce-Arrow … “Conspicuous Consumption: Fatty Arbuckle’s Fabulous Pierce-Arrow,” Special Interest Auto, February 1990, 44-46.

  “To attempt to describe in cold, unfeeling print…” Variety, August 5, 1921.

  “Paramount Week”… Advertisement, Literary Digest, September 3, 1921, 8.

  They invited Arbuckle … Eleanor Keaton and Jeffrey Vance, Buster Keaton Remembered (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 84.

  “‘most polished villain”… From the Studio Lot, Oakland Tribune, September 5, 1921.

  an article attributed to Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle… Roscoe Arbuckle, “Love Confessions of a Fat Man,” Photoplay, September 1921, 22-23.

  twenty bottles were along for the ride … “Probers Identify Men Who Carried Arbuckle’s Booze,” Oakland Tribune, September 17, 1921.

  The St. Francis … History and details via David Siefkin, Meet Me at the St. Francis: The First Seventy-Five Years of a Great San Francisco Hotel (San Francisco: St. Francis Hotel Corp., 1979), 10-11, 38.

  His menu was noted… Linda Civitello, Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011), 287.

  Breakfast options … Siefkin, Meet Me at the St. Francis, 39.

  The hotel’s brochure in the early 1920s … Ibid., 46.

  a deliveryman carried four bottles … “Liquor Source Found,” St. Joseph News-Press, October 5, 1921.

  a fully stocked speakeasy in the basement… Charles Fracchia, “San Francisco During Prohibition,” forum with Michael Krasney, KQED radio broadcast, December 5, 2008.

  she made the news for her elopement … “Young Romance Is Short-Lived,” Oakland Tribune, December 7, 1912.

  he had filed for divorce … “Semnacher, Who Attended Party, Seeking Divorce,” Oakland Tribune, September 14, 1921.

  “Virginia Rappe, the movie actress”… “Put Miss Rappe in Tub, Fishbach [sic] Testifies,” New York Times, November 24, 1921.

  “I’ll go up there …” “Dead Girl’s Accusation Is Repeated,” Oakland Tribune, September 13, 1921.

  she wore the same self-made clothes … “Fate Sealed by Dress She Made,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1921.

  At the time of the 1920 census … US Census Bureau, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, population of San Francisco, CA, precinct 38, dist. 33, sup. dist. 4, enum. dist. 264, January 7 & 8, 1920 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1921).

  “Let’s have some music … “ “Arbuckle on Grill Tells of S.F. Party,” Oakland Tribune, November 28, 1921.

  Arbuckle later described her as “peeved”… “Virginia Rappe Film May Be Offered as Evidence in Trial,” Pittsburgh Press, November 29, 1921.

  “Who are all these people?” … Ibid.

  The deliveryman from Gobey’s Grill… “Liquor Source Found.”

  “Roscoe liked nothing better …” Buster Keaton with Charles Samuels, My Wonderful World of Slapstick (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), 158.

  “If I would jump out of the twelfth-story window … “ “Comedian Ready to End Life, Party Guest Says,” Oakland Tribune, September 14, 1921.

  2. Journeys: 1887-1908

  Roscoe Arbuckle purportedly weighed sixteen pounds … “Nobody Loves a Fat Man?,” Movie Pictorial, June 13, 1914, 20.

  This much is true… Parents’ a
nd siblings’ ages estimated based on their ages on June 22, 1880, via US Census Bureau, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, population of Pawnee Township, Smith County, KS, sup. dist. 3, enum. dist. 302, June 22, 1880 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1881).

  The town in 1883 … William G. Cutler, History of the State of Kansas (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883), www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/.

  “a sod house of the most primitive kind”… Nevada Daily Mail, September 12, 1921.

  Its population had blossomed… “General Population by City: Orange County, 1860-1900,” OC Almanac, www.ocalmanac.com/Population/po25.htm.

  Roscoe later said he never felt loved … Minta Durfee, unpublished manuscript, 13, Minta Durfee Arbuckle Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.

  Schoolmates would remember him … “Nicknamed ‘Fatty’ When Six Years Old,” Oakland Tribune, September 13, 1921.

  Still, others would recall… “Grave of Arbuckle’s Mother Is Neglected,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1921.

  Teasing children bestowed on him … “Nicknamed ‘Fatty’ When Six Years Old.”

  “My stage career was thrust upon me …” “The Solemn Mr. Arbuckle,” New York Tribune, May 6, 1917.

  Bacon had been a sheepherder… “Frank Bacon, Actor, Tired Out, Is Dead,” New York Times, November 20, 1922.

  “For years and years he barnstormed…” “Frank Bacon, the Creator of ‘Lightnin’,’ Dies,” New York Herald, November 20, 1922.

  So greasepaint was used to blacken … Roscoe Arbuckle, interview by Ray Frohman, Los Angeles Herald, October 28, 1919.

  Hours later, a railroad worker… Durfee, unpublished manuscript, 15—16.