Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

Best remembered today for the scandal that ended his career (and the life of a promising actress), Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a comic star in his own right, nearly the equal in popularity of Chaplin and Keaton in the late 1910s. Arbuckle began his career in vaudeville, entering films around 1907. Corpulent and baby-faced, he joined Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios in 1913 and his star began to rise, both as a performer and director of rowdy slapstick comedies.Falstaffian in size, if not subtlety, Arbuckle wrote, produced and directed a host of short films, several of which featured neophytes Buster Keaton ("The Butcher Boy", "Fatty at Coney Island") and Charlie Chaplin ("Tango Tangles", "The Rounders"). His most popular partner was Mabel Normand, with whom Arbuckle made a series of films in the late 1910s.At the height of his fame in 1921, when he was reportedly earning $1,000 a day, Arbuckle was charged with the death of a young actress named Virginia Rappe at a San Francisco party. The tabloid press alleged he had raped her, but Rappe probably died from bleeding ulcers (Arbuckle may indeed have been guilty of criminal negligence in not obtaining medical aid for her). He was tried three times (the...

Best remembered today for the scandal that ended his career (and the life of a promising actress), Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a comic star in his own right, nearly the equal in popularity of Chaplin and Keaton in the late 1910s. Arbuckle began his career in vaudeville, entering films around 1907. Corpulent and baby-faced, he joined Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios in 1913 and his star began to rise, both as a performer and director of rowdy slapstick comedies.

Falstaffian in size, if not subtlety, Arbuckle wrote, produced and directed a host of short films, several of which featured neophytes Buster Keaton ("The Butcher Boy", "Fatty at Coney Island") and Charlie Chaplin ("Tango Tangles", "The Rounders"). His most popular partner was Mabel Normand, with whom Arbuckle made a series of films in the late 1910s.

At the height of his fame in 1921, when he was reportedly earning $1,000 a day, Arbuckle was charged with the death of a young actress named Virginia Rappe at a San Francisco party. The tabloid press alleged he had raped her, but Rappe probably died from bleeding ulcers (Arbuckle may indeed have been guilty of criminal negligence in not obtaining medical aid for her). He was tried three times (the first two resulting in a hung jury) and finally acquitted of manslaughter in 1923 due to lack of evidence. The mud from the scandal, however, stuck; his career was virtually over and his films were banned. As a response to this and other film-star scandals, Hollywood set up the Hays Office to self-censor itself and protect its image.

Over the next decade, Arbuckle directed a Marion Davies feature ("The Red Mill", 1924) and Eddie Cantor's first films under the pseudonym William B. Goodrich ("Will B. Good"). He returned to vaudeville, and in 1932 and 1933 made a series of two-reel comedies for Warner Brothers. He died of a heart attack in 1933, his career still in eclipse.

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