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

by Greg Merritt

  After an hour’s wait, I became alarmed, took down the receiver to the telephone and called for help from the office. Mr. Boyle, the assistant manager, came up. When Arbuckle heard our conversation he opened the door, standing in his pajamas, wet with perspiration, and had Miss Rappe’s Panama hat on his head.

  The bed where she lay was saturated wet and she was semiconscious and tearing her clothes. She tore the cuffs off her white silk [shirt]waist and threw them on the floor, screaming: “He did it, I know he did it. I have been hurt, I am dying.” This was said in the presence of Arbuckle.

  She further told of Rappe’s pains in her neck, left leg, and, especially, abdomen, and of “monkey bites” on Rappe’s neck and big marks on her right arm and left leg. Early on Tuesday morning, the severely pained Rappe allegedly told her: “Maude, Roscoe should be at my bedside every minute and see how I am suffering from what he did to me.” But Delmont’s affidavit was riddled with crucial falsehoods. For example, she did not see Arbuckle and Rappe go into 1219, and they were not in the room for anything remotely as long as an hour.

  Riding the courthouse elevator on the morning of September 12, Delmont begged, “Oh, please don’t make me face Arbuckle. I don’t ever want to lay eyes on him again.” But she subsequently steeled herself: “If I have to do it, I will. I will try to nerve myself to the ordeal, but it will be terrible.” The defendant was not in the courtroom shortly after 11 AM when Delmont stood beside DA Brady and swore under oath to the accuracy of her previously transcribed account. After the short formality, she nearly fainted to the floor. Hysterical, she was led from the courtroom.

  When a dejected Arbuckle appeared in court with his attorneys at 11:30 AM, he was greeted by an explosion of camera flashes and chatter from the mostly male observers who packed the gallery, standing and clamoring for a better view. Accused men awaiting their turns in court pressed against the steel grating of the prisoner’s dock. Called to the bench, Arbuckle approached, hands clasped, face twitching. Grimly, he heard a clerk read Delmont’s complaint.

  Subsequently, Brady told the press, “I desire to state that I will spare no effort to punish the perpetrator of this atrocious crime, although I know I will be opposed by the cleverest lawyers and the greatest influence which money can purchase.”

  ARBUCKLE DANCES WHILE GIRL IS DYING, JOYOUS FROLIC AMID DEATH TRAGEDY

  —SAN FRANCISCO CALL AND POST, SEPTEMBER 12, 1921, FRONT PAGE

  In New York City, Henry Lehrman had received the news about his old friend and former coworker Arbuckle and his former domestic partner Rappe. From his apartment in midtown Manhattan, he fired off a vituperative statement:

  From information I received from San Francisco, I believe Arbuckle is guilty. For his sake, I wish that he will receive full measure of justice so there will be no other crime necessary. You know what the death of Virginia means to me. I will not attempt to express it. She died game, like a real woman, her last words being to punish Arbuckle, that he outraged her and she begged the nurse not to tell this, as she did not want me to know…. Would I kill Arbuckle? Yes. I feel just as would any other man with red blood in his veins. I will not deny that I have said I would kill him if we were to meet. I hope the law will punish him and that he will receive full justice for the crime.

  Arbuckle is the result of ignorance and too much money. He was originally a bar boy, although he has been in the chorus and done other things. I directed him for a year and a half, and I had to warn him to keep out of the women’s dressing rooms. There are some people who are a disgrace to the film business. They get enormous salaries and have not sufficient balance to keep right. They are the kind who resort to cocaine and opium and who participate in orgies that are of the lowest character. They should be driven out of the picture business. I am no saint, but I have never attended one of their parties. Virginia’s friends were decent people, and I know she would not have associated with anyone she knew to be vile.

  Surprisingly, Lehrman claimed that at the time of her death, he and Rappe were engaged to be married. His malicious attack on Arbuckle was a sensation, and with it the prolific and accomplished director, producer, writer, and actor achieved his greatest fame.

  MANY CANCEL MOVIES MADE BY ARBUCKLE

  —TULSA DAILY WORLD, SEPTEMBER 13, 1921, PAGE 7

  With great rapidity, the films of Roscoe Arbuckle were banned throughout the country—by theater organizations, by theater chains, by censorship boards, by police commissions. In other instances, individual theater owners followed Sid Grauman’s lead and instituted banishments themselves. In Jersey City the commissioner of public safety contacted every theater owner, inquiring about Arbuckle’s movies. Every theater had withdrawn them. “I know of no legal method to prevent the showing of Arbuckle features,” the commissioner said, “but I think it would be common decency on the part of motion picture theater owners not to show the pictures until Arbuckle is cleared of the charges.” At some theaters that persisted, temporarily, to disregard “common decency,” protests were launched, marquee billboards were defaced, and lobby posters were torn down.

  Conversely, a demand grew for films in which Virginia Rappe appeared. In death, she was given the star billing on marquees she never received in life.

  ARBUCKLE, THE BEAST

  —OXNARD DAILY COURIER (OXNARD, CALIFORNIA), SEPTEMBER 12, 1921, FRONT PAGE

  The coroner’s inquest into the death of Virginia Rappe was moved forward three times and ten days to stay ahead of the grand jury, which was scheduled to convene the evening of Monday, September 12. So at 2 PM that Monday, in an office of the county morgue (also located in the all-purpose Hall of Justice), the inquest began. A coroner’s inquest has one goal: to determine the manner of a death. In San Francisco in 1921, a jury of citizens sat in judgment and could ask questions of witnesses, though most questioning was done by the attorneys and the coroner. The proceeding commenced with a heated argument between Assistant DA Milton U’Ren and defense attorney Frank Dominguez.

  The prosecution argued that they were still gathering information and wanted to delay Maude Delmont’s testimony so she could first be heard by the grand jury, away from the ears of defense attorneys and reporters. Fearful of her being coached, the defense demanded to question their chief accuser. “We want the full facts placed before the people, and we want it done today at this inquest,” Dominguez said. The prosecutor retorted that Arbuckle’s silence was not contributing to such transparency.

  Overseeing the proceedings, San Francisco coroner Dr. Thomas B. W. Leland took offense at the implication that a coroner’s inquest was unworthy of key evidence, but after deliberation he delayed Delmont’s testimony and ordered the defense to bring her to the stand the next morning.

  The first witness was Hotel St. Francis assistant manager Harry Boyle, who testified to being called to 1219, carrying Rappe to 1227 with Arbuckle, and calling Dr. Olav Kaarboe—the second witness. Dr. Melville Rumwell and Dr. William Ophüls spoke of performing the first postmortem examination, and they bolstered the defense by proclaiming that they saw no evidence of violence other than the lacerated bladder. To the assertion that theirs was an illegal autopsy performed by private citizens, Rumwell claimed he called the coroner’s office and learned Leland was out of town and could not be reached. Quizzed about the cause of Rappe’s torn bladder, Rumwell ruled out a puncture created by a catheter and a spontaneous rupture caused by overdistention. After Drs. Emmet Rixford and George Reid spoke about their consultations with Rumwell in the sanitarium prior to Rappe’s death, the proceedings adjourned for the day. The press reported that Arbuckle was “an almost unnoticed figure at the inquest.”

  ARBUCKLE MAY HANG FOR MURDER

  —EVENING REPUBLICAN (MITCHELL, SOUTH DAKOTA), SEPTEMBER 12, 1921, FRONT PAGE

  Pressed for comments, most in the film industry steered clear of opinions on Arbuckle’s guilt or innocence and served up “this is unfortunate” banalities. Those at Paramount said nothing publicly.

  A
lice Lake emphasized her friend’s compassion: “He was always doing kind things, and he certainly was always one of the first to help at benefits for poor people and other unfortunate ones.” Buster Keaton was unequivocal in his support: “I don’t believe he is guilty. I never saw him pull any such parties…. I think it is wrong to ruin a man before he is even heard.”

  From his office in New York, Joseph Schenck was equally stalwart, and he went on the offensive against prosecutor Brady: “Arbuckle is a great big, good-natured, lovable sort of chap, and I think that he is not guilty of the charges that certain California public officials seeking notoriety are trying to hang on him.”

  But the Los Angeles Athletic Club, home away from home to the city’s elite (and, previously, the literal home of Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin), held an emergency meeting and voted Arbuckle out. The club president said, “I have little to say regarding the action except it was the unanimous belief of the directors that such a step should be taken. We do not want that kind of men in the club for we do not care to associate with that class.”

  FATTY ARBUCKLE, MOVIE COMEDIAN, BATTLES FOR LIFE

  —CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM (ELYRIA, OHIO), SEPTEMBER 12, 1921, FRONT PAGE

  When the grand jury hearing commenced at 7:30 PM on Monday, a throng of reporters and other observers crowded the hallway and pressed as near to the closed doors as guards would permit. Over the remaining hours of the evening and into the next morning, witnesses, flanked by police officers, were brought in and out to much commotion and a barrage of camera-powder flashes.

  A grand jury room is void of reporters, observers, defense attorneys, the defendant (unless testifying), or a judge. Questioning is done by the prosecutors and jurors, and the sole mission of the jurors is to determine if there is sufficient evidence for a trial.

  The first witness was Maude Delmont, who was questioned for more than an hour and later brought back for an additional fifteen minutes. When she emerged from the closed doors, she was leaning heavily on a policewoman and said to be ill “due to the shock induced by the death of her friend.” Subsequently, Al Semnacher, Zey Prevost, and Drs. Rumwell, Ophüls, and Rixford testified, as did the surgeon from the coroner’s office who performed Rappe’s second autopsy, Dr. Shelby Strange.

  Two floors above in cell 12, Arbuckle was sitting nervously on the edge of his bed when guards approached shortly before 1 AM. He was wanted in the grand jury room. He dressed hastily. A reporter described him trudging to the courtroom, flanked by guards: “He looked nervous, his comedy face was gloomier than that of a tragedian, and beads of perspiration sparkled on his brow.” Inside, the jury foreman asked Arbuckle to give his account of the events in question. His answer: “My attorneys have advised me to say nothing at this time.” He was in the courtroom for three minutes before he was led back to his cell by a phalanx of guards.

  After the prosecutors were excluded from the room, the jury deliberated for nearly an hour. At around 2 AM, the foreman announced the jury had decided against voting on the matter and instead wished to give “District Attorney Brady more time in which to secure certain information which we desire.” Brady addressed the press, contending the case had not been weakened by the grand jury’s equivocation.

  He then made an announcement that would scream in Tuesday’s headlines: “We have sent Miss Zey Prevon* home under [police] surveillance. The girl changed her story completely before the grand jury. Whether or not we shall arrest her and charge her with perjury depends on further developments. I am convinced that undue influence and pressure has been brought to bear on her and other witnesses, one of whom, Alice Blake, has mysteriously disappeared from her home in Berkeley. We have been unable to find her.”

  HIS FAMOUS SMILE IS GONE

  —LOS ANGELES EVENING HERALD, SEPTEMBER 12, 1921, PAGE 4

  It is hard to fathom today how pervasive the newspaper coverage was that first week. The tsunami of ink was greatest in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but if a newspaper covered any national events, it likely splashed ARBUCKLE or FATTY prominently across front pages. From Seattle to Miami, in big cities and small towns, the Arbuckle case was the overriding news story, just as it was, in a melange of languages, in cities across the Atlantic and Pacific—oceans Arbuckle and his movies had traveled.

  The tidal wave reached its zenith on Tuesday, September 13, when the San Francisco Examiner printed seventeen stories related to the case and the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times each published sixteen. There was much fast-breaking news that day, with both the coroner’s inquest and the grand jury hearing in progress, new evidence and witnesses introduced, and charges of perjury, missing witnesses, and “undue influence and pressure.” But it wasn’t enough to merely cover the legal proceedings. After all, your competition was printing Brady’s statement the same as you were. You had to ferret out what the others didn’t have.

  That Tuesday an interview with Arbuckle’s housekeeper (“Roscoe is just a big, good-natured boy”) was newsworthy, as was the fact that the inmate in the cell next to his, a convicted murderer, would soon be returning to Maryland, where he had escaped from prison (ARBUCKLE WILL LOSE NEIGHBOR IN JAIL). Another headline stated, GRAVE OF ARBUCKLE’S MOTHER IS NEGLECTED and explained that the wooden slab marking Mary Arbuckle’s final resting place in a Santa Ana cemetery was so faded it was unreadable and “overrun with grass and weeds.” (Arbuckle had repeatedly paid for its upkeep.) Minta Durfee made her first public statement on Tuesday, and effusively supportive comments by Arbuckle’s sister Nora were widely published (“He has the kindest, tenderest heart in the world”) as was his brother Harry’s “no comment” the next day (under the misleading heading BROTHER IS NEUTRAL). Housekeeper, neighbor, mother, wife, sister, brother—what next?

  BULLDOG MOURNS FOR ARBUCKLE

  Faithful Pet Waiting at Door for Return of Comedian

  Fatty Arbuckle has one sincere mourner, one mourner whose love and faith no reports can shake. That mourner is Luke, Fatty’s old bulldog. Luke usually goes with Fatty on his long trips, but the comedian didn’t take him to San Francisco with him.

  This is the longest time that the comedian and Luke have been separated. And out at Fatty’s house, Luke sits, disconsolate at the door, waiting for the familiar step and the well-known voice. He doesn’t eat. He waits.

  Whatever befalls Fatty, Luke will not forget.

  Apparently, with Arbuckle away then for only one day longer than he had been the week before, Luke had gone on a solidarity food strike. If true, he had surely been reading the newspapers.

  It’s always easier to create news than find it.

  A headline promised OTHER ILLEGAL ACTS CHARGED TO FILM STAR and then suggested that Arbuckle may have attended Hollywood “drink and drug orgies.” Another header asserted, SECOND GIRL ESCAPES FATE OF MISS RAPPE, but dealt with Lowell Sherman luring a model into his room after Rappe was moved to 1227. An article in a Flagstaff newspaper was headlined FATTY ARBUCKLE TREATS WIFE ROUGH IN ARIZONA and alleged that, twelve years prior, not only did he beat Durfee, blackening both of her eyes, but he also abandoned her penniless at the train stop in Benson, Arizona, where she was rescued by the good citizens of Bisbee. The one source listed for this was “word received here today.”* Words could convey anything.

  In fact, the very words “Virginia Rappe” seemed to denote a heinous felony: Virgin Rape. It was the sort of on-the-nose name no Hollywood screenwriter would dare pen, but it was exploited by newspaper editors in headlines that referred to the “Rappe Girl” or “Rappe Tragedy.” Most newspapers then had policies against even printing the word rape (assault was the popular euphemism), which imbued the name Rappe with even more power.

  Many of the same papers that shunned rape freely printed orgy. The word, unstated by the police or prosecutors, had first appeared in bold print on September 11: DYING GIRL LAID BLAME ON COMEDIAN: SO CHARGES WOMAN AT BEDSIDE OF ORGY VICTIM IN STATEMENT TO S.F. POLICE. There was soon thereafter a national orgy of “orgy” headline
s. The September 5 party—originally just an informal gathering—was an “orgy,” a previous Arbuckle “orgy” was referenced (more about this in chapter 15), and the prevalence of Hollywood “orgies” was documented. A headline in Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun was typical: ARBUCKLE AFFAIR NO SURPRISE AFTER ORGIES OF FILM COLONY. Wednesday’s San Francisco Examiner said of Arbuckle, “Tales of his sickening orgies have spread from one coast to the other. Everybody who knows anything about him or his kind ought to know what a ‘party’ given by him would mean.”

  Most “orgy” headlines promised more salacious specificity than they delivered, but an article published in Philadelphia’s Evening Public Ledger was a notable exception. Positioned on the page next to two large photos of Rappe and an article entitled “Arbuckle Party Drank Forty Quarts” was “Hollywood Orgies Exposed by Police,” which purported to blow the lid off a group called “the Live Hundred,” made up of Hollywood heavyweights including, allegedly, Arbuckle. The “orgy” best detailed was reportedly attended by witnesses in the Arbuckle case, and “the host spent $20,000 for decorations” alone. There’s no telling what the host, ”a prominent male actor of the screen,” dropped on this refreshment budget:

  From without, as the group sat down at the long table in the “grotto,” the watchers [detectives] saw a maid push a wheeled tea tray in after extensive indulgence by all in drinks. On the tray was an assortment of needles, opium pipes, morphine, cocaine, heroin and opium. Each guest hilariously helped himself or herself to liberal doses of drugs and selected needles or pipes as the individual desire demanded.