Hollywood scandal

Roscoe Arbuckle: the death of actress Virginia Rappe

The case of Roscoe Arbuckle, following the death of actress Virginia Rappe in 1921, is the first of what will be called the great Hollywood scandals. The actor and Director Roscoe Arbuckle, at the time at the peak of his fame, is accused of the rape and death of the actress. The press for months is taking on the various facts and gives it such an impact that the American film industry decides to adopt codes of good conduct to moralize the profession and the production of films. Despite his acquittal, Roscoe Arbuckle is forbidden to work and this is the brutal end of his career.

A party that ends badly

For the Labor Day weekend, three friends, Roscoe Arbuckle, Lowell Sherman, and Fred Fischbach are organizing a party on the twelfth floor of the San Francisco Hotel San Francisco. In this period of Prohibition where the sale and transport of alcohol are forbidden, these meetings, which are pretexts for consumption, are frequent. The festivities take place in the suite 1220, the two adjoining rooms (1219 and 1221, Arbuckle and Frischback in the first and Sherman in the second) housing the guests. The three friends, escorted by two show-girl girlfriends, arrive from Los Angeles in Roscoe Arbuckle's custom Pierce-Arrow and settle into their suites on the afternoon of Saturday, September 3, 1921, for a three-day celebration.

Everyone agrees that a lot of alcohol is consumed during these three days. It is more difficult to know who participates and when.

There are two versions explaining the presence of Virginia Rappe at these celebrations on September 5th. The first is that Fred Fischbach meets fortuitously in the lobby of the hotel, Ira Fortlouis. He is accompanied by Virginia Rappe, Al Semnacher, his agent and Maude Delmont. Frischback invites them to join them. The second states that Roscoe Arbuckle knows Virginia Rappe and Ira Fortlouis and himself launches the invitation. This second version is contradicted by Arbuckle's statements at the trial.

All this world comes after 1220 around noon, quickly joined by Alice Blake and Zey Prevon, two showgirls, also acquainted with Fred Fischbach. Mae Taub, a friend of Roscoe Arbuckle whom he must accompany during the afternoon visit, picks up the latter and arrives around 1:30 pm.

According to a first version, around 2 pm, having drunk, Virginia Rappe feels bad (Her autopsy will show moreover that she suffers from a crisis of acute peritonitis followed by intestinal perforation, this inflammation is due to the bursting of her bladder attributed according to the experts either to the syphilis of which the young woman was suffering, or to an attempted abortion or forced and violent sex forced by Roscoe Arbuckle), leaves the suite 1220 and joins one of the adjoining rooms to rest. Roscoe Arbuckle, in turn, leaves after 3 pm to go change before leaving with Mae Taub. Roscoe Arbuckle claims to have found Virginia Rappe lying on the floor of her bathroom. She was obviously under the influence of alcohol and sick and he would have laid her on the bed, returning to the bathroom to change. It was coming out of the latter that he found the actress agitated and that he would have warned the other participants. According to the prosecution, it is Roscoe Arbuckle who allegedly dragged Virginia Rappe into her room with the intent to rape her. Twenty-five witnesses claim to have seen her follow her and that she seemed at first consenting for intercourse. She would later become "hysterical" and would have finally resisted Roscoe Arbuckle without being able to stop her from continuing the forced and violent sexual intercourse.

In the wake of the state of agitation of Virginia Rappe, the participants in the party are convinced that she suffers only from an excess of drink. She screams, pulls off her clothes and rolls to the ground, apparently suffering from severe abdominal pain. They try to calm her, make her take an icy bath, apply ice to her body. Finally, the management of the hotel is warned9, Virginia Rappe is driven to a neighboring room (1227) and the doctor of the hotel is called. The versions diverge to know who gives the alert. For the prosecution, it is at the request of Maude Delmont, worried to hear the cries of the victim through the door, for the defense it is Mae Taub who calls at the request of Arbuckle.

On Tuesday morning, Arbuckle, Fischbach, and Sherman return to Los Angeles by boat after boarding their car. Virginia Rappe stays at the hotel with Maude Delmont, consulting various doctors. She was finally taken to hospital11 on Thursday and died the following day, Friday, September 9, 1921.

The Characters

- Virginia Rappe

Virginia Rappe was born on September 18, 1895, in New York. Her mother from Chicago moved there when she was pregnant to flee her family and the scandal because her child is conceived out of wedlock and without a declared father. Virginia returns to Chicago when her mother dies in 1906. The young orphan begins an early modeling career.

She began in the movies in secondary roles and meets in 1919 Henry Lehrman, the producer of the film in which she turns and becomes engaged with him in 1920. Lehrman will rotate Virginia Rappe in the five films he produced with his company in 1920 and 1921.

During this trial, the earliness of the young teenager is often put forward to describe the personality of the latter, many abortions practiced as a teenager are supposed to explain his health problems and a life dissolute to light manners.

- Roscoe Arbuckle

Born in 1887, Roscoe Arbuckle is at the height of his glory when the scandal comes. A former vaudeville actor, singer and dancer, he debuted at the cinema in 1909. But it was at the Keystone Company directed by Mack Sennett that Roscoe Arbuckle gained notoriety as an actor in making burlesque comedies. Overweight, he embodies the character of "fatty", plump and resourceful boy, who quickly becomes, in terms of popularity, the equal of Charlot. Director of his own films in 1914, he created his own production company in 1917 and he embodies one of the most spectacular achievements of the film industry of that time.

In late 1919, he signed a one million dollar contract a year with Paramount Pictures to shoot feature films. With seven of them already out when the case breaks out, he managed to be the first actor of popular short films to reach the rank of the star of the rising Hollywood cinema alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford or Charlie Chaplin.

Rich, beloved and famous, nothing seemed to predestine him to play a leading role in a scandal. His image of bonhomie was confused with that of the character he played and the actor had never made headlines.

- Maude Delmont

Maude Delmont, presented as the chaperone of Virginia Rappe even if she only knows it for a few days when the affair broke out, is a troubled person involved in cases of mores, extortion or blackmail and repeatedly condemned by American justice. The accusation is essentially based on his testimony. She changes the latter many times. It is a witness with morality so doubtful that the prosecutor does not call him to call at the bar. Her charge for bigamy at the time of the second trial will be the reason given by the prosecution for not bringing her to court.

The other protagonists

• Mattews Brady. This is the district prosecutor charged with the charge. He has often been criticized for his virulence. The latter intends to use advertising around the Arbuckle trials for his own political career.

• Fred Fischbach. It is a longtime friend and director of Roscoe Arbuckle met at the Keystone Company. Instigator and organizer of the weekend. After the affair, he takes the pseudonym of Fred Hibbard.

The Media Campaign

The Power of the Press in the United States

The American press is inseparable from the concept of the fourth power. The counterweight to the powers of the state (legislature, executive power, and judiciary) the power of the American press is often presented as the expression of the popular voice, a form of direct democracy framing representative democracy. In the Roscoe Arbuckle case, public opinion plays a leading role. The limits of such a counter-power are reached with the manipulation of opinion or the regrouping of the press in the hands of partisan interests. Similarly, lobbies, pressure groups, leagues of virtue and morals, religious powers over civil society are the direct consequences of such power of the press.

The history of the American press is intimately linked to this fourth power. From the nineteenth century appear the major press groups and their magnates Joseph Pulitzer. The power they wield over the US government's policy and executive is well established. A particular type of press is born in this context, which has been nicknamed The Yellow Journalism. More populist than popular, he focuses on the sensational of the event he reports, not hesitating to swell the line, flout privacy and take a lot of freedom with journalistic ethics.

The role of the tabloids in the Roscoe Arbuckle affair is unavoidable. William Randolph Hearst, originally from San Francisco, is the counterpart on the West Coast of the United States of Joseph Pulitzer. With the San Francisco Examiner, he is the orchestrator of the press campaign organized around the case and relayed throughout the country. The scandal press has the particularity of serving as a defaulter and repoussoir. More than favor the unhealthy curiosity of the reader, it also represents the means to highlight and denounce a behavior that denounces it in an ambiguous position where moralism and voyeurism mingle.

The first goal remaining of "selling paper", William Randolph Hearst will boast to Joseph M. Schenck to have made more prints with Roscoe Arbuckle, than in the case of Lusitania whose press campaign will lead to entry into the war of the United States in the first world war.

Proponents of the moralization of the film industry will rely on this press that it would be a caricature to reduce to the denunciation of the morals dissolute of Hollywood society. To take into account only the moral and ethical dimension in the attempt of the film profession to change its image without putting it in parallel with the colossal sums involved in the entertainment economy conceals the dimension of the true industry that has taken cinema booming.

Journalism and Cinema

As the film industry develops, the place of cinema and its stars in the American popular press is linked to the phenomenon of stratification. An association between the personality of the actor and the film, beyond the interpretation of a role in the service of work, eventually assimilating the latter to the main performer. We will see a film "of" Rudolph Valentino, obscuring the work of dozens of people. Even if stardom is not an invention of cinema, the extreme popularity of the cinema will amplify this confusion through the press.

Very early movie stars are going to be the best way to sell a movie and, very early, their privacy will be spread in the newspapers. Max Linder, Mary Pickford or Theda Bara also owe much to the press their notoriety and status. A star becomes the insurance of selling a film and downstream the possibility of producing it. The development of cinema in commercial activity brews huge amounts of money, the first consequence of which is the stellar cachet of the stars.

The display of wealth and social success in the newspapers defines these modern fairy tales. There are naturally mixed stories of hearts and episodes more intimate but just as publicity. It's a double-edged sword and it's not just "rose water" that makes "sell paper". The sulfurous reputation of theatrical actresses of the previous century naturally finds its development with the cinema. Close to the Roscoe Arbuckle affair, Olive Thomas' poisoning death or the dissolute life of her husband, Jack Pickford, hit the headlines.

Roscoe Arbuckle is the illustration of this phenomenon. Committed to $ 40 a week in 1913 to play in Mack Sennett's films, he increased his salary by a few months thanks to the success of his character Fatty. In 1917, it is $ 1,000 a day and an incentive to 25% of the profits that are proposed to him in the contract he signs with Joseph M. Schenck. In 1920, he was the first actor to sign a contract reaching the symbolic sum of $ 1,000,000 a year. Coming from a very modest background, he embodies this dream in the popular press where his lifestyle often appears. Her physique has so far preserved some manners and her marriage to Minta Durfee is a good facade. He is presented as a facetious good man, but the good nature of the character he embodies on the screen protects him.

The Arbuckle case and public opinion

The trials

On September 28, Judge Sylvain J. Lazarus, finding that the evidence against Roscoe Arbuckle is insufficient, turns the charge of homicide into manslaughter and Roscoe Arbuckle is released on 29th bail. He appears free at the hearing of the first trial which begins Monday, November 14, 1921.

The first trial

The charges against him are based on evidence emanating either from celebrities who or not participated in the party or from members of the police. None are conclusive and the statements of the police investigators amount to "Arbuckle fingerprints with the blood of the victim" on one of the doors of the room and are swept away by the testimony of the hotel staff who made cleaning between the day of the holiday and the inquiry. Some witnesses return to their statement, others disappear and the only main prosecution witness remains Maude Delmont. Its implications in stories of blackmail and extortion in previous cases discredit it. The medical experts quoted conclude that Virginia Rappe died as a result of a bladder rupture. Signs of acute peritonitis suggest that it is well before the party and according to medical experts, bladder rupture was not caused by an external source. The jury could not agree on its verdict (10 votes for acquittal and two votes for guilt) of December 4, 1921, the case must be retried.

The second trial

The second trial, which took place on January 9, 1922, gave a verdict opposite the first (ten votes for guilt and two for acquittal). It also ends with a blocked situation, lack of unanimity of the jury.

The third trial

The dissolute life of Virginia is exposed during the third trial and its peritonitis attributed to chronic cystitis, a degenerating condition with the ingestion of alcohol. The jurors of the third hearing give their verdict in six minutes, April 12, 1922. It is without appeal and accompanied by the following statement: "The acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We believe that a great injustice has been committed. We also believe that it is our duty to give him this exemption, by virtue of the evidence, because there is not the slightest charge to be held against him, nor in any way to detain a crime. He was brave throughout the affair and told the witness a simple story that we all believed. What happened at the hotel is an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, as the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. We wish him every success and hope that the American people will pay full attention to the judgment of fourteen men and women who have sat for 31 days and concluded that Roscoe Arbuckle is completely innocent and free from blame. "

Roscoe Arbuckle is just fined $ 500 for violating the Volstead Act (alcohol consumption in Prohibition Time). He is further ruined by the three lawsuits.

The "lawsuit" of Hollywood

On April 18, 1922, Roscoe Arbuckle became the first actor to be blacklisted. William Hays states, "After consulting extensively with Mr. Nicholas Schenck, representing Mr. Joseph Schenck, the producers, and Mr. Adolph Zukor and Mr. Jesse L. Lasky of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, the distributors, at my request, canceled all screenings and all bookings of Arbuckle's films.

"WilliamHays is a Republican senator, Postmaster lorsqu'éclate the Arbuckle / Rappe case. President of the National Party Bureau from 1918 to 1921 and Campaign Director of United States President Warren G. Harding in 1920, he is heavily involved in American politics. In the case, he will often take a stand alongside the supporters of order and morality. He is actively involved in the creation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) which will try to give a new image of the film industry. It is a censorship committee responsible for overseeing the content of films in order to replace censorship committees specific to each state. Created in the wake of the Arbuckle / Rappe affair, it is a non-governmental organization that intends to show that the profession is able to "clean the house".

On January 14, 1922, William Hays announced his resignation from his ministerial position to take over the presidency of the MPPDA. Roscoe Arbuckle's ban is the first decision that explains (but does not justify) the rigidity and stubbornness of William Hays and the MPPDA to try to establish their credibility. It shows if it was necessary that it is the manners of the artists who are put in the pillory and that Roscoe Arbuckle serves as a scapegoat.

The need for "moralization" within the film industry is prior. Adolph Zukor enacted in 1920 a "list of imperative recommendations" and "the prohibition of unseemly situations, the triumph of virtue over vice, the assertion that a useless nude exhibition is dangerous". He fights to impose morality in the production of Paramount putting pressure on the people he leads. Above all, he is the employer of Roscoe Arbuckle and is at odds between the scandal and the image of his stars, the display of their alleged escapades in the press and his moralizing speech.

On the morning of February 2, 1922, the body of William Desmond Taylor was found shot in the back. Taylor is a popular actor and director also working for Paramount. The sensation press in which the "Arbuckle scandal" begins to run out of steam can once again ride on this news item. The murder is never solved and keeps the readers looking for months. Many of the many suspects are close to Paramount. Mary Miles Minter, the young star of the moment and mistress of Taylor, but especially Mabel Normand close friend of the victim whose name is closely associated with Roscoe Arbuckle. The MPPDA's decision comes as this second big Hollywood scandal hits the headlines and is another reason to explain the rigor and unfairness of Roscoe Arbuckle's ban.