I, Fatty

by Jerry Stahl

  I must have talked to her for 20 minutes tops, but from the way her article read—"Love Confessions of a Fat Man!"— you'd have thought she and I had lollygagged for a month in Naples. Her style was what you fancypants would call louche: "We were lunching together in his bedroom . . . I'd never interviewed anyone in pongee pajamas before."

  As if that weren't ridiculous enough, she went on to quote "a couple of schoolgirls—of the cut-his-picture-out-and-sleep-with-it- under-the-pillow age." This is what we're dealing with, fellow earthlings. Listen: "After admitting that Wally Reid was undoubtedly the handsomest man in the world—one girl said, 'But I just adore Roscoe Arbuckle.'"

  Then it gets really peculiar. I mean, listen to me: "A woman today has got to have a good-natured husband. Statistics show that there have been more love murders, marriage murders and suicide love pacts in the last few years than ever before in the history of the world. It is very hard either to murder or to be murdered by a fat man."

  Sure. That's exactly the kind of thing I say. You want to talk about how good that was gonna look a couple of weeks later? Hand me the rat poison while I get a glass of arsenic.

  Angering the Gods of Hollywood

  I don't know who snitched. But when Zukor got wind I wasn't going to show up at Grauman's for a Labor Day showing of my latest, Gasoline Gus, he blew up. El Jefe wanted me there, extolling the virtues of Bible study before the movie. After Grauman's, I was slated to appear with Wallace Reid and Conrad Nagel downtown, for another showing of Gasoline. I ask you, is there no rest for the wholesome?

  Zukor and Lasky both fired off telegrams to Schenck. Zukor's had steam coming off it. He was furious. Called me uncooperative. Called me ungrateful. Schenck, the lunk, thought he could play to Zukor's sympathies. "Roscoe's taking a holiday in San Francisco," he tells him. "He's been working like a coolie, he deserves time off."

  Joe's words, big surprise, had the opposite effect. Schenck calls me up to tell me this while I'm packing. "First time Adolph ever hung up on me. Actually, he didn't hang up. He threw the phone against the wall. I could hear plaster shattering. I bet he bills the contractor who fixes the hole to the studio."

  Meanwhile, I was still trying to snag somebody to caravan up the Coast. Bebe Daniels said she'd show up later. Alf Goulding, my director chum, had a film go long. Rocky Joe Rock, the producer, and my drinking buddy Lew Cody—neither could make it. No knock, but Rock and Cody would drive for a week if there was a free drink at the other end. I should have known then something was hinky. But that's my problem, folks. I'm the innocent type. A husky dunce from the heartland.

  Only Lowell Sherman, who had so much contempt for the profession of acting he had to stay drunk to tolerate it, agreed to take a ride north in my Arrow. Now don't get me wrong. I liked Lowell. But he was the kind of drinker who just got quieter and quieter the more he drank. By the bottom of a bottle he could be scintillating as a corpse. Lowell'd just appeared in Griffith's latest, Way Down East, earning raves as the smoothie who ravishes the wide-eyed Lillian Gish. Naturally, success made him even more morose.

  Still, when Fred Fischbach called on Friday to say he heard I was "wheeling to San Fran" and invited himself along, I can't say I was thrilled. I knew Fred from Sennett. He was a good enough director, but in my early days at Keystone, when Lehrman was busy telling Mack what a no-talent lout I was, Fred was always ready to back him up. Lehrman was still boring bartenders in Manhattan about how he got shafted by Mack. And Fred remained his great good friend. "Going north to scout some locations," he said.

  I don't like saying no to anybody, so I booked rooms next to mine at the St. Francis for Lowell and Fred: 1219, 1220, and 1221. I figured once the party got started, people would start showing up. Anybody in vaudeville passing through would come. And, most weekends, a batch of actors and actresses on the lam from Los Angeles were generally banging around. The thing was just to get going.

  I started to pack, and every time the phone rang I knew it was probably Zukor or Lasky. So I had my butler answer. Somehow, Okie knew even less English now than he did when Minta and I hired him eight years ago. I leaned over his shoulder to eavesdrop, and when Zukor started yelling we both jumped. "You remind that ingrate I'm giving him a million goddamn dollars a year. He can cooperate for one goddamn free afternoon!"

  It was Daddy all over again. I was so shook up I kind of wandered outside, where Puddy, my mechanic, was under the hood of the new Pierce-Arrow. He'd just finished doing something to the batteries. Still reeling from the Zukor call, I dropped down on a bench—and jumped straight up again, my ass on fire. Pardon my Spanish. AI-EEEEH

  "Gee, Mr. Roscoe, you musta sat on your battery acid!"

  An hour later, the pain was making me chew my lip. I finally called my doctor, who came over with something to kill the burn-sting. He left me some morphine pills to hold me if the pain came back. Minta says I rang her up at three a.m., New York time, and told her I had a funny feeling about Fischbach. I don't remember talking to her, but the phone was in my hand when I woke up on the carpet, wearing one shoe I never saw before. In my experience, morphine and whiskey will generally introduce a man to his carpet.

  I thought it was morning, but it turned out to be 10 at night. That's when I decided to track down Lowell and Fred and cancel the trip. Lowell was fine with it. He could get sullen and drunk anywhere. But Fred—you'd have thought I'd violated a deathbed pledge. He absolutely had to go to San Francisco! He was counting on me. I gave him my word. And a few more guilt inducers along those lines. Fine, I said, if it's that important . . . I called back Lowell and he said he'd go wherever I wanted, as long I stopped calling him.

  St. Francis

  The St. Francis was la cramp de la cramp of San Francisco hotels. Presidents and opera stars stayed there. It's where Barrymore was sleeping one off when the earthquake hit. (Along with a couple of underage acquaintances who, being younger and still in the possession of reflexes, were out of John's room and through the lobby while Barrymore was still trying to figure out what kind of hangover made the building shake.)

  I wanted to go right to sleep when we checked in to the hotel on Saturday. I'd driven the whole way with a doggy pillow under my leg, and I was twisted up. The painkillers kept me dull anyway. I just wanted to soak in a tub and start fresh Sunday morning. But Fischbach, who'd been acting weird the whole trip, wouldn't hear of turning in early. He called a bootlegger he knew, who sent a case up under a tablecloth, rolled in by a bellboy.

  I never liked to waste good drink, but whatever was good about the spratwater Fischbach poured was pretty hard to remember the next morning. I'd have probably slept till after lunch, but some friend of Fischbach's, a lingerie salesman by the name of Art Fortlois, called to say he heard Fred was in town, so he invited himself over. Banged on the door at noon.

  "Lingerie salesman" covered a lot of territory, and I wasn't too thrilled about having Fred's friend on the premises. In person Fortlois looked like the kind of skeezix who talked little girls into coming to his "office" to "model underwear." Which, unhappily, we discovered he actually did when we met him 15 minutes later.

  Mr. Fortlois, it seemed, was staying at the Palace, at the bottom of Market and Montgomery. A lovely stroll from the St. Francis. And wouldn't you know, he was enjoying that very stroll when who does he run into but Al Semnacher, Virginia Rappe, and Maude Delmont.

  My thigh was still fried from the battery acid, so I answered the door in my pajamas. Fred, looking more sweaty than usual, was standing there with this unsavory crew behind him. "Roscoe, I'd, uh, like you to meet some friends of mine." "Oh, Roscoe and I have met," Virginia tee-heed. She liked to play the ditzy little girl. "Sure, I know Virginia," I replied, with as much courtesy as I could muster. It was like trying to be nice to a disease. For a guy who'd just run into old friends, Fred didn't look too friendly.

  Being the gentlemanly type, I could say that everybody at Keystone knew Virginia. I could be polite and tell you she'd gazed into at least h
alf their eyes from inches away. But maybe it's best to come out and say she'd given half the boys gonorrhea and the other half lice. Sennett even had to shut down the studio, to fumigate the dressing room on account of Virginia's generosity. You could call her a prostitute, but Virginia never came out and charged, she just happened to have a lot of crises in her life, dire straits that only one semiwhite knight or another could lift her out of.

  The last man to have been publicly linked with Virginia was none other than Henry "Pathé" Lehrman. Henry's the one who brought her to Hollywood in the first place. Knowing the girl's story, Minta always thought Virginia was part of a white-slavery racket. Whatever the explanation, the sloe-eyed brunette was not shy about bestowing physical affection. But somehow, from what I could gather, everyone who shared her affections ended up shelling out a little something for the privilege. I never dove into that pool, myself. For a lot of reasons. But mostly 'cause I was afraid she'd tell the other fellas if I couldn't, you know, get the sausage in the grinder. In which case she'd probably ask me to slip her 50 frogskins a month to keep from selling the lowdown to the Motion Picture News.

  But that's not even what made her dangerous. Prostitution and blackmail you can see coming—but Virginia had another habit. She swallowed cocktails as fast as she could grab them. After she hit double figures, she had a tendency to tear off her clothes and start screaming gibberish at the top of her lungs. Gibberish that usually involved some nastiness at the hands of whatever man was handy.

  More than once some fellow who'd just gone on a belly ride was so startled by Virginia's mouth he'd smack it and back out the door. Since Virginia was a blackout drinker, most of these swells were safe once they escaped. Unless they were unfortunate enough to have company when they were having their way with her. A witness, in the soon-to-explode controversy, provided by the malevolent Maude Delmont.

  If Virginia was trouble, Maude was like having the Devil's homely sister show up for snacks. Fortlois introduced her as a "dress model." Maybe he actually believed that. In Hollywood, the lady was known as a "helpful witness"—a fancy way of saying she made her living supplying incriminating photos for wannabe divorcees. I didn't know then that she'd already had 50 counts filed against her. I just knew you didn't want her anywhere near your private life. Or it wouldn't stay private for very long.

  So this is what's going through my mind as I'm standing in room 1221, at half past noon on a blurry Sunday, wondering why everything Fred said made him sweatier. Watching these two sally-girls throw back the drinks, I wanted to call the hotel dick myself.

  It was an open secret that Al Semnacher had been trying to get a divorce, so it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out why a man of his stature would be traveling with Maude. Later, when he got sloshed, he confided before puking on my slippers that he needed evidence his wife was making hanky-panky. "For a fair price," he explained, the lovely Maude would provide it. This was a new one on me. As far as I knew, Delmont's bread-and-butter, was making sure a troubled wife would have a living witness to her husband's misbehavior—usually by supplying the girl he misbehaved with. She'd obviously branched out and was now supplying hubbys with evidence. Maude herself was going to appear as witness to Mrs. Semnacher's immoral behavior. The case was scheduled for September 9, in the court of one Judge Sommerfeld, on the bench in San Francisco. "She's gonna make me a free man," Al groggled later when he was rubber-legged. "Maudie's gonna make me a free man."

  All of which explains why when Lowell stumbled in, wrapped in a cigarette-burned silk lounging jacket, I took Fischbach aside to tell him that under no circumstances did I want Virginia and Maude Delmont on the premises. I didn't care how he did it, but I wanted them out. Fred acted confused and said he had a bad hangover. I'm the gullible type—I always believe a man who blames his problems on booze.

  The Wrong Party

  We'd rented a Victrola, which Lowell insisted on cranking up the second he arrived. While other guests started drifting in, I did my polite best to prevail on Fred, to enlighten his hung-over brain as to why I needed him to remove Maudie and Virginia. I could have thrown them out myself, but when you're twice as big as everybody else you have to be careful about getting physical. Things can happen.

  Trying to be gentlemanly, I filled Fred in on how Henry "Pathé" Lehrman blamed me for his reversal of fortune. I was probably more long-winded than I had to be. The thing was, Chaplin's the one who actually got Lehrman fired. But since eggheads loved Charlie, and Pathé was always trying to look classier than he was, it was easier for him to hate me. So in Lehrman's version—marched out in every gin mill from Beverly Hills to the Bowery—he'd been thrown out of Keystone for refusing to debase his art with my "crude and low-end antics."

  Of course, what really debased old Pathé was the fact that the flatback whose career he'd invented, his "girl," was known to have fornicated with anything in pants. Pretty galling, when you consider all the favors Henry called in to get Virginia what few credits she had. Her face graced the cover of the sheet music to "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," because the publisher owed Pathé 50 fishskins from a pinochle debt.

  I went on and on, working myself up in the process. The more I talked, the more uncomfortable Fred looked. The reason didn't hit me till later—Fred had gambling debts, too. Maybe somebody was paying him to set me up with these professional ruiners. The only thing that works slower than my brain is my digestion. And they both usually result in a load of crap.

  By the time I finished telling Fischbach why I wanted Maude and Virginia gone, a few more guests had already ambled in. Alice Blake and Zey Prevon, a couple of fresh-minted actresses up from Los Angeles, marched in arm-in-arm between a couple of nervous bellboys with grub. Alice, a slinky brunette, kissed the little pimply one who was pushing the steam table. The poor kid blushed down to his ankles. Then she stole his hat and I thought he was going to cry. She danced around him and lifted the lids off the sausage and egg buckets, oohing and aahing like the Girl with the Blue Ribbon Grits Recipe at the Yokel Flats County Fair. Then an older, unshaven "bellhop" knocked on the door and wheeled in a doghouse of rotgut. When Fred saw him, he stopped me in mid-sentence, ran over, and exchanged a few furtive words. If this hard case was a real bellboy, I'm a professional bird-feeder.

  In minutes, the pretend bellhop lined up bottles on the wet bar, piled ice cubes in the bucket, and set out a chilled bowl of oranges and a hand squeezer like he'd done it a thousand times. Naturally, Maude and Virginia were on him like piglets on porker teats. The fellow did not exactly seem to be a stranger to them. I cupped my hand over my ear for a second to eavesdrop. It was tough to hear over the Victrola. Maude kept playing "I'm Just Wild About Harry." But over the chorus I heard the saucy grifter cooing, "Jack Lawrence, you handsome bootlegger!" And watched Virginia, pretending to drop an ice cube, waggle her backside in front of the handsome criminal as she bent to pick it up.

  Finally, I pulled Fred into a corner and gave him my ultimatum: Eighty-six Delmont and Rappe or the party's over. Fred forgot his hangover blur and responded fiercely, as if I'd slandered his mother. "Virginia's had some tough breaks, but she's a fine little actress."

  "Fred," I said, "you're not talking to Photoplay here! The girl's had more crabs than the Fulton Street Fish Market. I don't wanna have to worry about using my towels." But Fischbach couldn't even look at me. His eyes kept darting to the bar, to the door, down to his wingtips, then back up to the ceiling like he was reading hieroglyphics.

  "You want them gone, you get rid of them," he blurted finally. "I came up here to scout locations. I'm going to borrow your car and go find some seals. Besides—"

  "I know," I finished for him, "you have a hangover."

  "Right!"

  With that Fred dashed out of the room before I could stop him. I galloped down the hall, bellowing, "You're not taking my Pierce-Arrow!"

  I was just fleet of foot enough to see him fly through the closing elevator doors. I pounded the buttons, thinking I'd rid
e down to the lobby in the other car and corral him. But when car two arrived, a dozen revelers spilled out. Two showgirls, Dollie Clark and Bet Campbell, still in their matinee-wear; Victor, the hotel chef, accompanied by a quartet of waiters, and a handful of San Francisco denizens who happened to be in the hotel and heard about the Hollywood party on 12. There was enough clinking when they moved to know somebody'd brought their own refreshments. Either that or they'd been pilfering glassware.

  I wanted to just blast past them, but I never liked to be rude. Everyone seemed delighted to see me in my PJs. So, swept up by this merry band, I let myself be led back to my suite, where the party was definitely in full swing. And, speaking of pajamas, Maude Delmont was now wearing Lowell Sherman's jammies and smoking like a coal-mine fire. While Virginia, laughing raucously, leaned on the piano, tossing back orange blossoms as fast as Art Fortlois, that rancid underwear salesman, could slip them to her.

  "Less blossom and more gin!" Virginia kept screaming, laughing hysterically at her own joke, then repeating it and laughing again. A swarthy Italian in shiny gold tights had obviously entranced her, and between drinks she draped herself on the foreigner, pointedly ignoring the nervous customer who'd brought her, Art the Undie Peddler.

  Shiny Tights turned out to headline at Barnum and Bailey. He was an aerialist. What's more, in a couple of hours, Banini, the Flying Tuscan, was going to walk on a wire from the penthouse of the St. Francis to the roof of a building across from it. The circus was famous for publicity stunts, which explained why he was wearing gold tights in public. As a gag, I asked him if they came in my size.