Fatty Arbuckle Rape Scandal

Maude Delmont was an extremely nasty piece of work.

This may be her death info.

Too young. She was 38 in 1921 or so.

Why haven't they made a big blockbuster film about this saga. What an epic!

This is definitely her. There was also a Maude Delmont who died in 1926. I hope that was her. She didn't deserve to live.

I remember Fatty's widow, Minta Durfree, being interview during the OJ trial. She was still around then.

How to make a movie out if that mess, R3? Movies need some sort of resolution at the end, and there wasn't one in real life.

Um, he was acquitted, moron/r6.

[quote] There was also a Maude Delmont who died in 1926.

Where?

It was rumored that she ran a hooker ring. She was also quoted as an actress. I love how she crashed the Arbuckle affair with Virginia and supposedly was a recent friend of Virginia's. Everything fell into place as if by chance. It was so insane.

I have a (now deceased) distant relative marginally connected with the trial.

R5, Minta Durfee Arbuckle died in 1975. She would have been 109-110 during the OJ Simpson trial.

Do tell, r9!

Virginia died from a perforated bladder, didn't she? Just awful. It was one of those Hollywood parties!

Weren't Virginia's insides being eaten away from the untreated STI's she had? Hence the perforated bladder?

There have been rumblings of a Fatty Arbuckle movie for years. It's supposedly a cursed project. Actors that have been said to have been slated for the role have tended to kick off prematurely; I heard John Belushi, Chris Farley and John Candy were candidates. All of them died young to their obesity and/or drug use. There were rumors that Stephen Furst was going to play Arbuckle in a movie, but that was a very long time ago. Furst recently died at the age of 63.

As for the scandal...well, an incredible amount of crazy things have been said the whole thing. Supposedly Arbuckle killed Rappe (she died from peritonitis that set in due to a ruptured bladder) by raping her violently with a Coke bottle. Or a champagne bottle. Or a jagged piece of ice. Or by slamming his huge body on top of her. Arbuckle apologists insist that he was an entirely blameless, railroaded man and that Virginia Rappe was a VD-ridden whore who came to the party already half dead from a botched abortion (talk about blaming the victim!). Actually Rappe was a movie bit player and a clothes designer (she was talented in that area) and she was no more promiscuous than any other single female in Hollywood, and probably less promiscuous than a lot of major stars were.

For anyone interested in this subject the book to read is "Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the mysterious death of Virginia Rappe and the scandal that changed Hollywood." Ir pretty much sets the record straight. Autopsies concluded that Virginia Rappe, who had a very small bladder and chronic cystitis, died from peritonitis due to a ruptured bladder. The bladder was ruptured by "some external force." The book presents this very plausible scenario. Arbuckle and Rappe, both tipsy from the booze that was flowing freely at the Labor Day party, went into a room together. Rappe later said that what they did was "not proper"; in other words, they attempted to have sex, not an easy proposition when one of the sex partners is a drunk 300 pound man. Somehow during their erotic fumbling, something happened to rupture Rappe's bladder; Arbuckle might have fallen on her, or slammed her with one of his fat limbs...who knows what occurred? But it wasn't a rape. Rappe, after the bladder ruptured, immediately blacked out. When she woke she was in excruciating pain. She lay in a hotel room bed quite some time, being tended to occasionally by a hotel nurse or doctor something. All that was done for her was giving her shots of morphine to stop her screaming. She'd be given morphine, be out for a while, then wake up screaming in pain. Eventually she was taken to a hospital, but it was too late to save her by then. Her suffering was quite horrible.

Anyway, although Arbuckle was not legally responsible for Rappe's death, he certainly did contribute to it. He had a moral responsibility. If he hadn't tried to have sex with her in his drunken state it wouldn't have happened. If Rappe had been sober it's possible she never would have gone into a room alone with him to be seduced by the fat pig. Jolly Fatty never expressed any sorrow or concern.over Rappe's death. He was basically just a typical Hollywood douchebag.

It's really terrible the way Rappe's reputation has been smeared due to Fatty's dopey supporters. She was not a prostitute, or riddled with VD; when she went to that party all she was just a young woman who got an invitation to go to a party. I guess she thought it might be a good time. How wrong she was.

Jesus, r14, you are full of shit.

R14 Rappe had a terrible untreated UTI and when her pimp Maude called a doctor he stuck a huge glass catheter into her urethra which ended up perforating her bladder.

Jesus, R15 you must be one of those idiots who believe crap like "Hollywood Babylon."

R16 is a lying nutjob. Crazy as shit.

We're going to a wild party......

And your post goes from

"Supposedly"

"plausible"

to

"although Arbuckle was not legally responsible for Rappe's death, he certainly did contribute to it"

without ANY evidence whatsoever.

r10, then it was another Arbuckle wife, as I recall.

Yes, there has been a lot of stuff published about Rappe being a whore or the studio bicycle or having multiple STDs. None of it is proven, and all of it sounds like the sort of thing attorneys and publicists always say when a wealthy man is suspected of a sexual misdeed. The first line if defense is always to blame the victim or accuser, and in a prominent case, to get the smears into the media.

Poor girl, she didn't deserve to die and she definitely didn't deserve to be kept away from a hospital when she was deathly ill. If Arbuckle was in any way responsible for her having treatment delayed then that's where his moral culpability would lie, but for all I know he had nothing to do with it. And if the autopsy was correct and s ruptured bladder was the cause of death, then it's likely the poor girl was doomed even if she'd received the finest, promptest care of the era. Surgery and anesthetics existed so they could have sewn her bladder up, but antibiotics were decades away. Infected urine in the abdominal cavity would have been very hard to survive.

Rappe had just had her FOURTH abortion, which is why she was placed in a maternity hospital and not a regular hospital and had her female bits removed and disposed before the coroner could see that she had had an illegal abortion. The person who was tending to her at the hotel was the abortion doctor. Arbuckle didn't touch her. She crashed the party, was drinking heavily and went to the bathroom and started screaming in pain. She was all butchered up from the abortion. Also, alcohol was banned due to prohibition and people routinely died from it. It was bootlegged. They originally thought she had been poisoned from it.

R14, Arbuckle was the one who kept her private life out of the trial as much as possible. He tried to spare her reputation. The jury gave him a full public apology for what he was put through.

14 is a LOON who truly doesn't know what it's talking about.

Rappe had a very well-deserved rep in Hollywood as a pass-around party slut WAY before she ever met Fatty Arbuckle. Then she had the good luck to have Henry (Pathe) Lehrman decide he had to have her, and they became "engaged." He used her death to play the bereaved spouse, then went out and got married to someone else just a few weeks later.

No one has to take the word of "Hollywood Babylon" - there are several books about Arbuckle, but the best is "The Day the Laughter Stopped," by David Yallop, which was published in 1976, when some of the people involved were still alive (for instance, Minta Durfee, who died before it came out but contributed a lot of information). The book is extremely well-researched, and anyone who wants the real story, not just the rantings of sicko, should check it out. It's far better than the piece of shit book that loony r14 recommends.

Wasn't Buster Keaton too at the party where it happened?

If you enjoy reading about the salacious doings in Hollywood during the 1920s, pick up a copy of William C Mann's "Tinseltown".

It's about the William Desmond Taylor murder, but follows many other scandals (major and minor) that occurred around the same time. It places the major and very minor players and wannabees within the whirl and swirl of early Hollywood.

Arbuckle and his trials are discussed.

R22 Prohibition or no prohibition, if you were rich enough, you could get real liquor smuggled in from other countries. No need for homemade rotgut. I'm sure those Hollywood parties had the real thing.

R25, no, but Keaton was Arbuckle's best friend. For a while, John Ritter had a deal on a TV movie about the case, and he was going to play Keaton.

No they didn't r27. They used to try and get it tested. Did you graduate high school? Jesus Christ. You probably think they had the internet and world wide web back then as well.

It was only a scandal because Fatty was fat and the girl's last name was RAPpE

The best book about the William Desmond Taylor murder is still A Cast of Killers. The author was writing a bio f King Vidor and discovered a trunk with all of Vidor's papers from when HE was going to write a book about it in 1966. So Kirkpatrick details Vidor's research and contributes some of his own. It starts with Vidor witnessing the razor jog of the bungalow court where the murder took place, and ends with a very eerie scene when Vidor goes to visit Mary Miles Minter.

Your horse has diabetes, r29.

I'm so glad I wasn't at that party.

Many, many years ago there was a game show called Win, Lose, or Draw. One team member would get a clue, and then have to draw various shapes and objects until his team guessed correctly what it was. It was timed.

Vicki Lawrence got the clue "Minnesota Fats". She first attempted to draw a coke bottle. "Soda" she wanted them to say. Then she draw a head, arm, and legs attached to a big, fat, round body.

Jamie Farr, seeing the bottle and the body, guessed "Fatty Arbuckle??" Host Bert Convey doubled over with laughter, as did Loni Anderson. I don't think anyone else understood the bottle connection.

After the scandal, he was blacklisted from acting and eventually became a director. He directed Louise Brooks's first sound film. I think she says in Kevin Brownlow's excellent documentary series HOLLYWOOD that she didn't recognise Arbuckle at first. He just seemed like a depressed man, slumped most of the day in his chair. It wasn't until later that someone told her it was Fatty Arbuckle.

To set the record straight, Fatty's third wife was Addy McPhail, who lived to 2003! It was she who was interviewed during the OJ trial.

What did she say during the OJ trial? And why would they interview her? What was her connection?

"without ANY evidence whatsoever"

Rappe's autopsy (she had TWO) report stated her cause of death as peritonitis from a ruptured bladder and that the bladder had ruptured due to "external force." So where else would the "external force" had come from except from a drunken sexual wrestling match with a man the size of a whale? She went into the room with Arbuckle and came out with a ruptured bladder. That's some evidence right there.

"Arbuckle didn't touch her."

You're full of shit. They went into a room together (that is a fact) and both of them had been drinking. Rappe, who managed to say some things before expiring, said that what on between them was "not proper." Fatty Fat Fatty wanted to fuck her; of COURSE he "touched" her, the fat drunken pig.

"No one has to take the word of "Hollywood Babylon" - there are several books about Arbuckle, but the best is "The Day the Laughter Stopped," by David Yallop, which was published in 1976, when some of the people involved were still alive (for instance, Minta Durfee, who died before it came out but contributed a lot of information). The book is extremely well-researched, and anyone who wants the real story, not just the rantings of sicko, should check it out. It's far better than the piece of shit book that loony [R14] recommends."

You're the loony, you loony Fatty lover. All the pro Fatty books are totally biased and full of lies and gossip and ALL of them attempt to smear Virginia Rappe and make HER out to be the bad one. What happened to Virginia Rappe is one of the worst cases of "blaming the victim" anyone will ever see.

"Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood" is the ONLY book on this case that DOESN'T completely make Arbuckle out to be pure as the driven snow. I'd suggest anyone who wants to know what really happened read it. It's quite a contrast to all the pro-Fatty tomes. It relies on the truth.

Virginia Rappe

Virginia Rappe dead

Back to better days

An interesting account

Looks like she had a black eye before she died r42.

R14 I've always been fascinated by the story, but never heard that version. There was a tremendous book written about it over 20 years ago, "A Cast of Killers". It would have made an amazing movie and I always wondered why it was never turned into one.

r37, I don't remember. I just remember she was interviewed and brought back the story.

She just had an abortion, that's where the rupture came from, idiot. Fatty did nothing. The doctor that was treating her had done the illegal abortion. They took her to a maternity hospital instead of a regular hospital for that reason. They destroyed her genitals and womb to hide the abortion he performed.

Has anybody mentioned that Adolph Zukor was behind it all. Apparently Fatty's pictures were losing money and Zukor wanted Fatty out of his very expensive Paramount contract.

One of the commenters @ R44 says it's almost impossible to rupture a bladder during an abortion. A rupture like that typically occurs from external force. What could that have been? A punch to the gut?

She did supposedly condemn Arbuckle after she collapsed in pain at his house by pointing to him and saying "he did this" and "he broke me". At the hospital, right before she died, she said what he did to her was "improper".

This story, especially given the previous rumored projects lead actors' fates, is perfect for Chris Christie's next act.

You're evil, r51.

I mean, who wants to see Fat Fuck on a big screen in any role, even as Fatty Arbuckle?

[quote] Arbuckle didn't touch her.

Didn't several people testify she was whimpering in the hotel room, "Roscoe hurt me"?

Arbuckle didn't touch her. Read "The Day the Laughter Stopped" - it's very clear-cut and straightforward.

The Anti-Poppins/Anti-Lange/Pro-Dunaway Loon has now morphed into the Anti-Fatty, "Virginia was a saint!" Loon. He's an aspie nightmare, and he's full of shit, as usual. He likes Room 1219, so he's decided that's the definitive account, without even reading anything else.

Beside being deeply mentally ill, he lies constantly. Three different juries exonerated Fatty - even apologized to him that he was even brought to trial - but Loon thinks it knows better than they.

"A Cast of Killers" is the best book on this era of them all, but it doesn't really deal with the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, just mentioned in passing.

The first scene, where Vidor is watching the bungalow court (scene of the murder) being torn down, and the final scene, where Vidor visits Mary Miles Minter but isn't absolutely sure that her supposedly-dead mother isn't upstairs listening in, are both chilling. It's really a brilliantly written book.

I also recommend "A Cast of Killers". I read it nearly 30 years ago. Someone definitely should make it into a movie!

Robert Towne had an option on "A Cast of Killers" for about ten years, taking it into the 1990s, but nothing came of it. Too bad, because if he could have given it the flavor of "Chinatown," it would have been brilliant.

Yes, I am evil, r52. Read the signature; I don't want to see him either.

[quote]Didn't several people testify she was whimpering in the hotel room, "Roscoe hurt me"?

No.

[quote]One of the commenters @ [R44] says it's almost impossible to rupture a bladder during an abortion.

It was a back ally abortion, and her FOURTH! She was also catheterized by the abortion doctor. The catheterization process was awful. They sometimes used glass.

"She just had an abortion, that's where the rupture came from, idiot. Fatty did nothing."

You're full of shit, Fatty lover. The ruptured bladder did NOT occur due to an abortion. The autopsy showed that. Her autopsy also showed that she had a small bladder which contributed to her chronic episodes of cystitis. In other words, she had a weak bladder, which no doubt contributed to its rupturing by "some external force." Something happened to her to rupture her bladder but it was definitely not an abortion. That's just something crazy Fatty lovers like to say about her: that it was HER fault she died, because she was a slut who had an abortion.

"It was a back ally abortion, and her FOURTH! She was also catheterized by the abortion doctor. The catheterization process was awful. They sometimes used glass."

Where did you get that information? From one of the biased, inaccurate pro-Fatty trash tomes? From a gossip rag? You're a raving pro-Fatty nutjob.

r61, r62, as other posters have pointed out, is mentally ill.

"Arbuckle didn't touch her. Read "The Day the Laughter Stopped" - it's very clear-cut and straightforward."

You weren't in the room with them (and neither was anybody else) so you have no fucking idea whether or not he "touched her." What IS known is that Arbuckle and Rappe went into a room together, both of them inebriated (I don't think they went into a bedroom just to "talk") and she came out with a ruptured bladder. So it seems very likely that he definitely "touched her."

It is quite evident that R63 is in love with Fatty Arbuckle. He is obviously, deeply, mentally ill.

The Anti-Poppins/Anti-Lange/Pro-Du - naway Loon has now morphed into the Anti-Fatty, "Virginia was a saint!" Loon. He's an aspie nightmare, and he's full of shit, as usual. He likes Room 1219, so he's decided that's the definitive account, without even reading anything else.

Beside being deeply mentally ill, he lies constantly. Three different juries exonerated Fatty - even apologized to him that he was even brought to trial - but Loon thinks it knows better than they."

Nobody ever said Virginia Rappe was a saint. You must be retarded. And just because a jury doesn't find someone guilty doesn't mean he is NOT guilty. Ever heard of O.J. Simpso? No, I guess you haven't since you're retarded.

You're a liar and a retard. And in love with Fatty Arbuckle. God help you. God HELP you.

And I repeat that Hollywood Babylon said that it was a plot by Paramount to frame Fatty because his new contract was too expensive and his pictures were not making money.

Maybe I'd still be remembered if I was involved In a sordid trial.

What's a razor jog?

Oh Mary R66!

"So where else would the "external force" had come from except from a drunken sexual wrestling match with a man the size of a whale? She went into the room with Arbuckle and came out with a ruptured bladder."

Nothing to support this story.

"That's some evidence right there."

No, it really isn't. It's conjecture on top of rumor.

Those back ally abortions are always dangerous.

I don't know how you can puncture a bladder with a penis, the bladder has very thick external elastic walls and is protected by the pubic bone. This seems fishy to me, along with the fact that she had an abortion only shortly before. I am not saying he didn't molest her, or even didn't rape her. But I have doubts she died from injuries he inflicted on her.

The days leading up to the party did not put Arbuckle in the best of moods. He was in Los Angeles having his Pierce-Arrow automobile serviced when he sat down on an acid-soaked rag at the garage. The acid burned through his pants to his buttocks, causing second-degree burns. He was tempted to cancel the trip to San Francisco, but Fischbach would have none of it. He secured a rubber-padded ring for Arbuckle to sit on, and they made the drive up the coast to the St. Francis, where Fischbach had reserved adjoining rooms and a suite.

According to Arbuckle, Fischbach arranged everything from the rooms to the guests to the liquor (despite Prohibition), and on Labor Day, September 5, 1921, Arbuckle awoke to find that he had many uninvited guests. He was still walking around in his pajamas, bathrobe and slippers when he saw Delmont and Rappe and expressed concern that their reputations might alert police to the “gin party.” In Los Angeles, Delmont was known as a madam and blackmailer; Rappe had made a something of a name for herself as a model, clothing designer, aspiring actress and party girl. But the food and booze were flowing by then, the music was playing, and Arbuckle was soon no longer focused on his exhausting work schedule, the burns on his backside or just who all those guests were. What happened in the ensuing hours would play out on the front pages of William Randolph Hearst’s national chain of newspapers, in lurid headlines, before Arbuckle had a chance to tell his side of the story.

Maude Delmont soon painted a sinister portrait of the happy-go-lucky portly prince of silent film. This is what she told the police: After Arbuckle and Rappe had had a few drinks together, he pulled her actress into an adjoining room, saying, “I’ve waited for you five years, and now I’ve got you.” After a half-hour or so, Delmont heard Rappe screaming, so she knocked on and then kicked at the locked door. After a delay, Arbuckle came to the door in his pajamas, wearing Rappe’s hat “cocked at an angle” and smiling his “foolish ‘screen smile.” Behind him, Rappe was sprawled on the bed, moaning.

“Arbuckle did it,” the actress said, according to Delmont.

Rappe was taken to another room. A doctor was summoned, and he attended to her. She stayed at the hotel for a few days before she was taken to a hospital—where she died, on September 9, of a ruptured bladder.

The Hearst papers had a field day with the story—the publisher would later say the Fatty Arbuckle scandal sold more papers than the sinking of the Lusitania. While sexually assaulting Virginia Rappe, the papers surmised, the 266-pound star had ruptured her bladder; the San Francisco Examiner ran an editorial cartoon titled “They Walked Into His Parlor,” featuring Arbuckle in the middle of a giant spider web with two liquor bottles at hand and seven women caught in the web. Rumors that he had committed sexual depravities began to swirl.

Arbuckle turned himself in and was held for three weeks in jail. Police released a mug shot of the dejected actor, photographed in a suit and bow tie, his round face showing nothing of the joy everyone saw on celluloid. He remained silent as the innuendo swelled. Arbuckle’s lawyers insisted he was innocent and requested that the public make no judgment until all the facts were established. But they quickly realized Arbuckle would have to make a statement, and the comedian told a very different story from Maude Delmont’s.

After having a few drinks with Virginia Rappe, the actress became “hysterical,” Arbuckle said. She “complained she could not breathe and then started to tear off her clothes.” At no time, Arbuckle insisted, was he alone with her, and he said he had witnesses to corroborate the point. He found Rappe in his bathroom, vomiting, and he and several other guests tried to revive her from what they believed was intoxication. Eventually, they got her a room of her own where she could recover.

Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter and scheduled for trial that November. San Francisco District Attorney Matthew Brady saw the case as the perfect opportunity to jump-start his career in politics, but he was beginning to have trouble with his star witness, Delmont. Sometimes she claimed to be a lifelong friend of Rappe’s; other times, she insisted they’d met just days before the party. She also had a criminal history of fraud and extortion, Brady discovered. Also known as “Madame Black,” Delmont procured young women for parties where wealthy male guests soon found themselves accused of rape and blackmailed into paying Delmont. Then there was the matter of the telegrams that she sent to attorneys in both San Diego and Los Angeles: “WE HAVE ROSCOE ARBUCKLE IN A HOLE HERE CHANCE TO MAKE SOME MONEY OUT OF HIM.”

Still, Brady proceeded to trial. The newspapers never questioned Delmont’s version of events, and they kept flogging Arbuckle. His reputation was in a shambles, even after his friends Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin vouched for his character.

But Arbuckle’s lawyers introduced medical evidence showing that Rappe had had a chronic bladder condition, and her autopsy concluded that there “were no marks of violence on the body, no signs that the girl had been attacked in any way.” (The defense also had witnesses with damaging information about Rappe’s past, but Arbuckle wouldn’t let them testify, he said, out of respect for the dead.) The doctor who treated Rappe at the hotel testified that she had told him Arbuckle did not try to sexually assault her, but the prosecutor got the point dismissed as hearsay.

Arbuckle took the stand in his own defense, and the jurors voted 10-2 for acquittal. When the prosecution tried him a second time, the jury deadlocked again. It wasn’t until the third trial, in March of 1922, that Arbuckle allowed his attorneys to call the witnesses who had known Rappe to the stand. He had little choice; his funds were depleted—he would spend more than $700,000 on his defense—and his career was presumed to be dead. They testified that Rappe had suffered previous abdominal attacks; drank heavily and often disrobed at parties after doing so; was promiscuous, and had an illegitimate daughter. One of them also attacked Maude Delmont as “the complaining witness that never witnessed.”

On April 12, 1922, the jury acquitted Arbuckle of manslaughter after deliberating for just five minutes—four of which were used to prepare a statement:

Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done to him … there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.

One week later, Will Hays, whom the motion picture industry hired as a censor to restore its image, banned Fatty Arbuckle from appearing on screen. Hays would change his mind eight months later, but the damage was done. Arbuckle changed his name to William B. Goodrich (Will B. Good) and worked behind the scenes, directing films for friends who remained loyal to him and barely earning a living in the only business he knew. A little more than ten years later, on June 29, 1933, he had a heart attack and died in his hotel room. He was 46.

Looks like Maude Delmont deliberately set this up to frame Arbuckle or to get some money out of him.

On her deathbed, Virginia whispered "If this means I won't have to be around to see Faye Dunaway embarrass herself as Joan Crawford, then I'm good. Take me, Lord!"

Wouldn't it be interesting to have a tv show about Hollywood scandals? The setup could be a detective who was brought in to investigate the cases. The Fatty Arbuckle scandal could run several episodes, maybe an entire season of 7 or 8 episodes.

Well, they've certainly got a lot, just from the 1920s - Fatty, William Desmond Taylor, the Thomas Ince Murder, the Wally Reid and Jeanne Eagles drug scandals, and going into the 1930s, Thelma Todd and Paul Bern to start with.

Those were the good old days!

Sad.

She was a pretty girl

[quote]The Anti-Poppins/Anti-Lange/Pro-Du - naway Loon has now morphed into the Anti-Fatty, "Virginia was a saint!" Loon.

Jeez, that was Matt, too? How many fucking trolls WAS he?

And how many times did I think his posts were Dvida's? Our trolls are all so similar. Erna sounds like AYB sounds like PPSM sounds like Matt sounds like Dvida sounds like Erna...

I know this is a couple years old but she probably had discoloration around the eyes from uremic poisoning, r45. If her bladder perforated, urine was entering her abdomen and probably bloodstream. Horrible way to die.

Listen to the You Must Remember This podcast. Check out the feed, I believe she does multiple episodes about this.

I'd really like to know where the pro-Fatty Troll got his information about the one to four abortions. It's unlikely that there would be any reliable information on th gat front available now, both the girls and their abortionists kept their mouths shut about such things, and unless things were botched there wouldnt be anything to see during the autopsy. It is also exactly the kind of rumor Fatty's attorneys would want floating around, seeing as their client was on trial in the court of public opinion even between jury trials.

But the ruptured bladder was likely to be caused by a chronic and incurable bladder infection. Remember that was before antibiotics, if her bladder infection didnt heal on its own then it would never heal. No, the infection would keep eating away at the bladder until it caused a serious injury, or until a fat man flopped onto her.

His life would be a great miniseries ala Fosse/Verdon.

Chris Farley would of won an Oscar for this.

Louise Brooks had something interesting to say about Arbuckle after acting in a film he later directed.

"He made no attempt to direct this picture. He just sat in his director's chair like a dead man. He had been very nice and sweetly dead ever since the scandal that ruined his career. But it was such an amazing thing for me to come in to make this broken-down picture, and to find my director was the great Roscoe Arbuckle. Oh, I thought he was magnificent in films. He was a wonderful dancer—a wonderful ballroom dancer, in his heyday. It was like floating in the arms of a huge doughnut—really delightful."

. . . floating in the arms of a huge doughnut . . She had a wonderful way with words.

Rappe didn't die of a septic abortion, or of organs that were punctured during an abortion. If she were septic or had perforated organs, she wouldn't been at a fucking party! She'd have been in the hospital already!

No, R86 is probably right. In the absence of valid historical sources saying she'd had an abortion or abortions, there's a very strong possibility that Arbuckle's attorneys and publicists tried to defend their client by painting the victim as a slut who'd endangered her own organs with abortions. Because they weren't just paid to defend him in the court of law, they were paid to preserve his public reputation and employability, and that'd be the easiest way to do it.

Raped her with a chunk of ice, he did! Or maybe a sody bottle. I disremember.

I think it's terrible the way they railroaded this man.

Post-mortem photos of Virginia Rappe show her with prominent bruises on her arms and legs. And what looks like a black eye. She was roughed up, no doubt during the tussle with the drunken, amorous Fatty.

How fat shaming is his nickname?

When I was in San Francisco I walked into the St. Francis and took the elevator up to the 12th Floor. Probably couldn't do it now, but this is the suite of three rooms that the Arbuckle party occupied. I wonder if guests knew the story. It's a bit blurry but I was afraid of getting kicked out.

This tragedy is almost 100 years old.

Betty White wasn't even around.

Jane Lynch named her dog after him so how bad could he really have been?

Sad.

R31 love that book. I think I still have a copy somewhere, but I always wondered if the author really had King Vidor’s papers or was he making it all up?

Rappe was a good girl, who was raped by that obese thug

Fatty wouldn’t even be considered fat today.

This is a good factionalized account from a few years ago written in Fatty’s take/version of what occurred. Short book, a quick read.

I, Fatty: A Novel - by Jerry Stahl (yes, that Jerry Stahl)

I just watched the Autopsy: Last Hours of Chris Farley episode which mentions the Fatty proposed film to be written by David Mamet. They say they wanted Chris sober for two years before production could begin which to him was impossible. Chris was a perfect double for Fatty lookswise.