Go West, Young Women!

by Hilary Hallett

  Not long after Parsons began writing her 1915 series “How to Become a Movie Actress” in Chicago, Rappe went west to break into the movies. Rappe worked mostly as an extra-girl during her first few years on the coast. In 1916 she appeared in her first bit part, as a salesgirl in The Foolish Virgin, a Clara Kimball Young production that also featured an unaccredited appearance by Rudolph Valentino. The following year, she won a more substantial role in Paradise Garden (1917), playing Marcia Van Wyck, a temptress who almost succeeds in luring the rich and handsome hero, played by actor Harold Lockwood, into succumbing to a life of decadent fun. Bad luck destroyed the chance that a more substantial role in the war picture Over the Rhine (1918) offered. Starring the famous female impersonator Julian Eltinge, Rappe and the unknown Valentino were again featured together, this time in bigger parts. But the film was pulled as the box office for war films plummeted after the Great War's end.4 A badly recut version appeared as An Adventuress (1920).5 By this time, Rappe's prospects seemed to be looking up. Shortly after the New Year of 1919, Parsons featured a picture of the actress, announcing she had “recently joined the Henry Lehrman Company to make Sunshine Comedies.” Although she played a few leading comedic roles, the unpredictable alchemy that makes a star eluded Rappe.6 Her name became known throughout the world only when she died of a ruptured bladder that resulted in peritonitis, four days after falling ill at a party hosted by slapstick star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

  FIGURE 24. Virginia Rappe seduces Harold Lockwood poolside in Paradise Garden (1917). Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills.

  FIGURE 25. Virginia Rappe takes a ride with Rudolph Valentino in Over the Rhine (1918). Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills.

  The scandal that resulted from Rappe's death made her “A STAR AT LAST,” one who symbolized the hazards confronting the “millions of pretty girls” who turned “their faces to the gilded west” and imagined going “after the pot of brass at the end of the Cooper-Hewitt rainbow.”7 The press shaped a succession of melodramatic narratives out of the contradictory and constantly changing testimony of witnesses, story lines that explained the event's significance before Arbuckle ever set foot inside a courtroom. The first story offered a modernized romantic melodrama of sexual danger, featuring Rappe as a spirited if virtuous victim and Arbuckle as a ghastly beast. The second made room for imagining the event as a consensual “orgy” and blamed middle-class cultural custodians for allowing dangerous moral changes to proceed unchecked. Ultimately the story that won out reverted to a traditional melodrama of sexual danger that cast Rappe as a degraded fallen woman and Hollywood as the villain. Standing in as modernity's scapegoat, Hollywood represented the most powerful force luring the nation's daughters too far outside the home. By the time the periodical press caught up with newspapers whose daily coverage first shaped the meanings given to the event, the Literary Digest could already assert its outcome. “What the demand for censorship has been unable to accomplish . . . the revelations of the Arbuckle case” “most thoroughly accomplished,” the Digest declared.8 A cartoon illustrating the article succinctly communicated what the “clean up” of “movie morals” entailed. In the foreground, a matronly “ma” confided, “Oh, pa, Tilly has given up wanting to be a movie star,” while her daughter, tucked in the kitchen, lightened a load of dishes by singing a song. Here lay the message of this morality tale: “THE GOOD THAT COMES FROM EVIL,” proclaimed before any jury's verdict. No longer would the industry's celebrity culture spin such unabashedly romantic adventure stories about the glories awaiting ambitious female migrants who went west to make their fortunes, and to remake themselves, along Hollywood's streets.9

  I

  “S.F. BOOZE PARTY KILLS YOUNG ACTRESS” wailed a two-inch headline across the San Francisco Examiner’s masthead on Saturday, September 10, 1921. “GIRL STRICKEN AFTER AFFAIR AT S.F. HOTEL: Virginia Rappe Dies after Being Guest at Party Given Here by ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle; Film Comedian, When Told of Girl's Death, Telephoned S.F. Police He Would Be Here Today.” These headlines, descending in size, announced the media event that reshaped the picture of young women's place in Hollywood. By the time the Rappe-Arbuckle scandal slipped from the front pages of newspapers, images of young women corrupted and destroyed by the stars in their eyes would blot out those of savvy, self-sufficient bohemians. A large, eye-catching composite photograph that combined publicity portraits of the event's two protagonists sat beside the story, visually linking the “GIRL WHO DIED AND HER HOST.” At its center, Rappe cocked her head and threw a sly, sideways glance out from under a large hat. Inserted under her shoulder lay a small, oval picture of Arbuckle dressed as a cowboy, looking straight at readers with a devilish grin.10

  Since the coroner's inquest had yet to begin, the report said little about Rappe's cause of death—beyond the allegation that a “BOOZE PARTY KILLED” her.11 It also barely mentioned Arbuckle, counting on readers’ familiarity with the slapstick comedian whose success at offering children good, clean fun was rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin.12 It ignored the statement Arbuckle had given reporters the night before when they surrounded him after a screening of his latest film, Gasoline Gus (1921), at Sid Grauman's new “million dollar theater” in Los Angeles.13 Only the Los Angeles Times, published by William Randolph Hearst's great rival Harry Chandler, printed Arbuckle's account in one of the few stories that broke the news on Saturday.14

  Instead, the coverage in Hearst's Examiner introduced readers to “Virginia Rappe, beautiful young movie actress of Los Angeles,” and described “the circumstances surrounding” her “tragic denouement.”15 The paper identified her as “a leading woman” for comedy producer Henry Lehrman and “a woman of financial means because of investments in Texas oil.” Although not “engaged professionally of late,” Rappe remained a popular figure in Hollywood and “a favorite” at hot spots frequented by “film folk” where she “took costly prizes” in dance contests. “Noted in the film colony” for “the richness of her taste in clothes,” Rappe was called by some “the best dressed woman in the movies.” She had arrived in San Francisco on Sunday morning with “Al Senneca, her manager, and a friend, Mrs. B.M. Del Monte.” She “was apparently in the best of health” when the trio went up to the hotel suite shared by Arbuckle, actor L. Sherman, and director “Fred Fishbeck.” Except for Sherman, the paper mangled the other attendees’ names. “A number of other women” filled out the “afternoon party” at the St. Francis, San Francisco's finest hotel. After the hotel fulfilled Arbuckle's request for a phonograph, with “the understanding that there was to be no dancing,” nothing was heard of the “gay occasion” until a woman called the front desk asking that “someone be sent up” because “a woman had become hysterical and was tearing off her clothing.” Assistant Manager H.J. Boyle responded to the call. Entering the suite, he found “Arbuckle in pajamas and a bath robe” in the suite's reception room along with “several women and two men.” Rappe was in an adjoining room “lying on the bed in a partially nude state and unconscious.” Since “several bottles were in evidence,” Boyle judged Rappe's condition “the result of a drinking party” and moved her to a different room. “Arbuckle was asked by the management to leave” and returned “at once to Los Angeles”—one of many assertions later disproved.

  “ARBUCKLE CHARGED WITH MURDER OF GIRL; ACTRESS’ DYING WORDS CAUSE STAR'S ARREST,” screamed the Examiner’s headline the next day. The lead article took the scant evidence released the previous day and fashioned several conclusions about the event. Rappe's death from peritonitis was “superinduced [sic] by an internal injury sustained at a wild party in Arbuckle's suite at the St. Francis hotel.” The “charge of murder was laid” because “the evidence of the various witnesses clearly indicated that [a criminal assault] had been committed and was the superinducing cause of the injury that ended in the girl's death.”16 Arbuckle “passed through the ordeal of que
stioning, arrest, and incarceration without uttering a single word” and now sat in a solitary cell, denied bail. As the headline's hook promised, the three pages devoted to the story offered readers the chance to eavesdrop on a séance with “the dead beautiful young motion picture actress,” or the “dead girl,” as the paper repeatedly referred to Rappe.17 Like much of the early reporting, the tale seemed designed to evoke a kind of necrophilia that incited readers’ desire for posthumous intimacy with Rappe. A large photomontage of Rappe's face surrounded by tiny shots of the actress dressed as the “characters she played in film comedies” sat in the center of the second page. Rappe communicated through multiple mediums, including an omniscient narrator and voices attributed to “Mrs. Jean Jameson, nurse who cared for Virginia Rappe and heard her moanings and accusations of Roscoe Arbuckle” Alice Blake, identified only by her local address; and “Mrs. Delmont,” the woman who “laid the accusation” of murder at “Arbuckle's door.” Over the next few weeks the degree of Delmont's closeness to Rappe shrank dramatically—from “bosom friend,” to “protectorix” and “chaperon,” to an “acquaintance” who met her on the drive up the coast to San Francisco.18

  Early reporting crafted a romantic melodramatic narrative about a battle between virtuous modern girls and libertine men.19 The fact that these accounts initially included only the opinions of women partygoers strengthened this impression. “I am used to seeing people die. That is my business. I see them die all the time,” began the testimony of Nurse Jameson, which formed the narrative's spine. “Nevertheless,” the nurse, “who saw the beautiful girl pass away with the words on her lips—'Get Roscoe—follow this to the finish'—last night betrayed distinct emotion in telling of the death of her latest ‘patient.’ “ Explaining that Delmont was “too exhausted” to speak for herself, the nurse spoke for the complaining witness who had reportedly watched over the stricken actress until her death and then told the police that Arbuckle had “forcibly taken Virginia Rappe into his room” and “abused her. Mrs. Delmont said that Virginia was screaming and yelling and that she, Mrs. Delmont, went to the door and found it was locked,” so she “kicked on the door several times” until “Arbuckle opened it,” revealing Rappe “pulling at her clothes.” Alice Blake's claim that she saw Rappe “lying on the bed,” “moaning and crying, ‘I am dying! I am dying!’ “ finished the account. Although Jameson's account was riddled with contradictions, including Rappe's alleged comment that “she took three drinks, and then knew nothing,” the nurse made one point clear: Rappe “said she blamed Arbuckle for her injuries and wanted him punished for it. . . . Just before she died,” she “placed her hand on her abdomen, and said: ‘He broke me inside—with his weight.’”20

  The last page of the coverage focused on the state of Rappe's corpse and the spirit that animated it before her death. A biographical piece, “MISS RAPPE WAS DESIGNER, FILM ACTRESS,” sat at its center. “Well-known as a motion picture actress, artists’ model, and designer of women's clothes,” Rappe lived in Los Angeles with an “aunt who acted as her chaperone.” Rappe “first came to prominence” in her hometown of Chicago in 1913 when, as “a traveling art model earning $4,000 a year,” the paper featured her advice that “American girls” should “choose original ways of making their living and not slip into the usual, stereotyped” occupations. “Reputed to have independent wealth,” she had recently appeared as a leading woman in two films produced by her fiancé, Henry Lehrman of New York. The description of this bright past contrasted sharply with the details of her brutalized present in stories that lingered upon her lifeless remains rather than assessing the cause of her death. “MANY BRUISES ARE FOUND BY THE CORONER ON GIRL'S BODY,” blared the headline.21 A smaller one beneath it declared “NO EVIDENCE OF ASSAULT: DR. W. OPHULS.” Dr. Ophuls, the pathologist who performed Rappe's first, unofficial postmortem, stated that “natural causes” had ruptured her bladder and her body showed “absolutely no evidences of a criminal assault.” Another story revealed the illegality of Ophuls's examination, since the law required the coroner's office to conduct all autopsies of suspicious deaths. After her move from the St. Francis to Wakefield Sanitarium, Dr. Rumwell had attended Rappe before Ophuls performed his illegal autopsy. Under Rumwell's care at Wakefield, Rappe reportedly rambled continuously of Arbuckle's attack in a delirium produced by drugs and excruciating pain.22 One nurse at Wakefield quit the case, complaining that by “any opinion it had been handled negligently.”23 Yet Rumwell, who performed an initial postmortem before requesting the pathologist's services, claimed that he failed to notify the city coroner because he “considered the case one of death from purely natural causes.” The Examiner let stand Rumwell's bewildering statement about the death of an apparently healthy twenty-six-year-old, a statement that blatantly contradicted the paper's own picture of Rappe's death at Arbuckle's hands. Although District Attorney Brady called Rumwell's behavior “the most suspicious part of the whole case,” he never called him to the witness stand in subsequent trials. Moreover, when Dr. Arthur Beardslee, who first treated Rappe at the St. Francis before going out of town, returned two weeks later to testify in court, he stated that it was plain to him by Tuesday that she suffered from a ruptured bladder.24 Rather than uncovering the truth about her medical treatment, the paper focused instead on creating stories out of the sensational claims of the complaining witness, Maude Delmont.

  The focus on the “beautiful dead girl”—minus the medical facts surrounding her death—and a particular construction of her past allowed Hearst's media empire to construct a melodrama of sexual danger in which Rappe played the victimized innocent, Arbuckle the rapacious fiend. The fact that Arbuckle and his attorneys “surrounded themselves with a wall of silence” after his arrest aided the ability of newspapers to retain total control of the first narrative about the event.25 Here was a rousing melodrama of sexual danger in which a beautiful, refined, upper-class, and defenseless young woman walked into a wild party that resulted in her death at the hands of an enormous “beast” of a man.26 As in all stirring melodramas of virtue assaulted, the motivation for the star's evildoing was less important than conveying the pathos of the victim who embraced the code of death-before-dishonor. This coverage of the scandal in the Hearst papers composed a kind of virtual play, featuring performances by Rappe, Delmont, and Arbuckle—individuals who could not or would not speak for themselves. Stories overflowed with fictive dialogue and hearsay, offering readers an emotion-rich, visceral experience of “ARBUCKLE'S DEATH PARTY.”

  The Hearst papers were not alone in reporting the scandal this way. Dailies across the country made and shaped the event into sensational national news. By Sunday, typically the largest circulation day, the story sat on front pages from coast to coast.27 In the coming week, even more typically staid papers like the New York Times ran headlines that shrieked, “ARBUCKLE DRAGGED RAPPE GIRL TO ROOM, WOMAN TESTIFIES.” But William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, estimated to reach one in four families that year, outdid all others in length, intensity, and storytelling ability.28 Located at the epicenter of the event, Hearst's flagship newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, often broke what passed for the latest developments in the case throughout September—the period in which the scandal daily produced pages of copy in the multiple editions published. The Examiner set the formula for how to tell the story of the scandal, devising a blueprint followed not just by other Hearst-owned dailies but in news organizations across the country. And after papers like the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the New York Times backed off the story or began to employ a more skeptical tone, Hearst papers tempted readers with headlines promising the latest “news.” In a telegraph responding to Adolph Zukor's entreaty that he act responsibly so as to prevent unfair publicity from damaging the industry, Hearst declared his intention to make the most of the event. “It is difficult to keep the news out of the newspaper,” Hearst replied by telegraph, adding, “The people who get into the courts and coroners offices are
responsible[;] the newspapers are no more responsible than the courts are.”29 Hearst's belief that Zukor was ruining the career of his mistress, actress Marion Davies, likely played a role in his eagerness to launch the wholesale assault he had threatened two months earlier against Zukor by attacking his new star Arbuckle.

  Hearst reporters favored participants with expertise in employing the melodramatic mode, and no one among them excelled in this art like Rappe's “fiancé,” Henry Lehrman. Known to members of the film colony as “Pathe” rather than “Henry,” Lehrman had moved to New York from Vienna as a teenager, and then worked as a streetcar conductor until talking his way into his first job at Biograph in 1909. By posing as an experienced Parisian player, Lehrman piqued D.W. Griffith's interest. Here was a “student of the motion picture art” who had “learned all there was to learn from the Pathes,” the French brothers who were the era's most successful, innovative pioneers. Though his co-workers quickly recognized his biography was a fake, Lehrman proved himself a “genuine funny man with an instinct for comedy,” according to Mack Sennett.30 Moving from acting to directing and writing, and, eventually, with Sennett to Los Angeles, he became a principal director and gagman at Keystone. Yet his career floundered after he left the studio in 1915—the reverse trajectory experienced by his two former Keystone underlings, Charles Chaplin and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

  “My prayer is that justice be done. I don't want to go to the coast now; I could not face Arbuckle. I would kill him,” opened the first of several interviews Lehrman gave to Hearst's New York American.31 The reporter took pains to emphasize the high-browish setting in which he had found Lehrman: a study surrounded by “Japanese prints” and books like “H.G. Wells’ ‘Outline of History.’ “ Lehrman's account read like dialogue printed on intertitle cards in one of the many traditional melodramas favored by Griffith—films Lehrman had expertly mocked as a slapstick director and writer. “Before she knew she was going to die Virginia kept saying: ‘Don't tell Henry. Don't tell Henry.’ “ “That means one thing. She had lost the battle she made to defend herself. She didn't want me to know. She knew what I would do.” Arbuckle was “a beast” who “boasted” to him in the past that “he had torn the clothing from an unwilling girl and then outraged her.” “That's what comes from taking vulgarians from the gutter . . . and making idols of them,” he continued. “Arbuckle was a bar boy in a San Francisco saloon. Not a bartender, a bar boy; one of those who wash glasses and clean cuspidors.” Lehrman denounced Arbuckle and his bohemian friends as a “disgrace to the film business. They are the ones who resort to cocaine and the opium needle and who participate in orgies that surpass the orgies of degenerate Rome. They should be swept out of the picture business.” “Virginia always had a violent, physical aversion for Arbuckle,” and her accusation, through Nurse Jameson, showed her determination to “rise from the dead to defend her person from indignity.” “I can see now in my mind's eye how she must have fought him like a tiger, even if she had had a couple of drinks.” In short, Lehrman ensured that readers knew she observed the death-before-dishonor code of true womanhood. Shortly before the fateful party, he reported, Rappe had read a story about a sexual assault and had confided: “ ‘Henry, if anyone tried to do a thing like that to me, he'd have to kill me.’ Well, she's dead.”32