Room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood (16 page)

With radio still in its infancy and no general-interest newsmagazines, newspapers were the
only
news medium of note in September 1921.
*
Newspaper editors, columnists, and publishers were celebrities, the equivalent of television commentators today, and none were bigger than publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who had a nationwide media empire of twenty-four newspapers. His Los Angeles and San Francisco
Examiners
shared information on the fast-developing Arbuckle story, and they reveled in the salacious.

The news industry had recently begun a trend toward greater sensationalism, and this development would be greatly accelerated by the Arbuckle case—to Arbuckle’s detriment. In part, the transformation was the result of competing wire services. The United Press Associations (later UPI) was formed in 1907 to take on the Associated Press. Hearst formed the more sensationalistic International News Service in 1909 and spun off the morning-edition Universal Service in 1917. Thus, by the time of the Arbuckle trial, papers around the world could use content from multiple wire services as well as the content of other papers (transmitted via leased wires). Each wire service vied for greater sales largely by promulgating stories that could run with startling headlines.

Another factor in the shift was the rapid success of New York City’s
Daily News,
launched in June 1919. America’s first modern tabloid adopted the subheading “New York’s Picture Newspaper,” and its emphasis on photos, scant text, and provocative headlines appealed to the same working-class immigrants who had long been Arbuckle’s core audience. Lured in by bold headings and the bark of newsboys, many such workers
scooped up a copy to graze on the subway going to or from their jobs. At its one-year anniversary, the
Daily News
had over a hundred thousand readers, and a year after that, as Arbuckle’s arrest loomed, the number had blossomed to nearly four hundred thousand, spurring imitators.
*

To meet the growing demand for headline-worthy provocation, crime reporters (colloquially called “hot crime men”) got into police headquarters, jails, hospital rooms, coroner’s offices, morgues, and law offices. They had paid sources everywhere; their newspaper expense accounts allowed them to outbid the police for details. Frequently, they arrived at a crime scene before the cops, and they followed leads that took them to the doors of witnesses, suspects, and victims, often before detectives could make an official inquiry. They weren’t merely ambulance chasers; they were also ambulance leaders. Sometimes they even detained suspects and obtained confessions. As A. J. Liebling wrote, “In making ‘arrests,’ the reporters, who had shiny badges and pistol permits, usually represented themselves as detectives, but when printing the story their papers invariably said they had ‘made the arrest as citizens.’” They shared tips with police, defense attorneys, and prosecutors, and they paid those officials to throw their competitors off the trail. Especially in New York City, where the print competition was fiercest, the police tailed the best newsmen just as reporters tailed the best detectives, and each might wear a disguise recognizable to only those with whom they had a working relationship.

Less scrupulous reporters might make up a story or report one of dubious veracity. (Six days after the Rappe story broke, the
Los Angeles Evening Record
would report, per anonymous sources, that members of a “Hollywood dope ring” made up of minor actors and other studio employees planned to kill Arbuckle, because the negative light shining on their industry since his arrest hurt their “dope peddling.” Logic be damned.) When a newspaper devoted its resources to a story, it would include not just twenty-five-dollar-per-week hot crime men but also freelancers paid by the column inch who received bonuses for cover stories.

On September 10, the feeding frenzy began.

Los Angeles Times
reporter Warden Woolard beat the police to Roscoe Arbuckle’s Los Angeles mansion on Friday evening, September 9, and informed the comedic superstar of Virginia Rappe’s death hours earlier. The movie star told the reporter that Rappe had grown ill at his hotel party but he knew of no injuries that could have caused her death. “After Miss Rappe had a couple of drinks she became hysterical, and I called the hotel physician and the manager,” he said. He denied having hurt her. “This is assuming serious proportions,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Woolard agreed.

Around that time, a reporter for the
San Francisco Chronicle
called. Arbuckle lied, saying “there were no closed or locked doors” to room 1219. Futher, he implied that Rappe “threw her fit in the presence of everyone” in 1220 before being moved to 1219.

Arbuckle telephoned Joseph Schenck, the executive of his production company, who called for a midnight meeting with the unofficial suspect and the three potential witnesses then in Los Angeles: Arbuckle’s suitemates, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback, and Virginia Rappe’s friend Al Semnacher. The location: Sid Grauman’s office at Grauman’s Million Dollar Theatre.

On his way there, Semnacher stopped at the home of Kate and Joseph Hardebeck. “His face was grave. Something terrible had happened. And I knew before he spoke that my Virginia had died,” Kate Hardebeck stated later.

In addition to the unofficial suspect and the three potential witnesses, the Million Dollar Theatre meeting likely included Sid Grauman and Arbuckle’s manager, Lou Anger. The men discussed Rappe’s death. “We all thought it was very unfortunate, and we could not understand it,” Semnacher later testified. As a friend of Rappe’s and no friend of Arbuckle’s, Semnacher was the group’s outsider. Did the men coordinate a strategy, agreeing on what the witnesses would and would not say to the press and authorities? It seems likely this was the reason for the meeting.
Was the promise of money or movie career advancement made to Semnacher for his cooperation? Possibly.

From Grauman’s office, Arbuckle telephoned a San Francisco detective and offered his outline of events, including the falsehood that he was never alone with Rappe. He also asserted that those saying he bore responsibility for her death were motivated by “ill feelings” toward him. He was told to report to the San Francisco Hall of Justice. He then tracked down his attorney, Milton Cohen, who was out of town. Cohen called his partner Frank Dominguez, who agreed to represent Arbuckle in San Francisco.

After the meeting, Arbuckle told his actress friend Viola Dana he had to return to San Francisco but couldn’t say why, adding, “For God’s sake, don’t die on me.”

Around 3
AM
on the morning of September 10, Arbuckle’s Pierce-Arrow headed north again, its owner behind the wheel. Along for the ride were Lou Anger, Frank Dominguez, and Joe Bordeaux, a bit player on both sides of the camera during Fatty productions and a steadfastly loyal friend whom the movie star could depend on (he called Arbuckle “chief”). Witnesses Fred Fishback, Lowell Sherman, and Al Semnacher headed north in Fishback’s car. The two groups stopped at a diner in Bakersfield for breakfast.

The press pounced on the story throughout that Saturday, and “Fatty’s car” was easy to track. When it stopped in Fresno, Arbuckle was quoted as saying he had never met Rappe before Monday. “She had a few drinks, and then it became necessary to call a physician and to have her removed,” he said, leaving out virtually everything. The same article listed Rappe’s age as twenty-three and quoted San Francisco’s night captain of detectives, Michael Griffin: “No charges will be placed against [Arbuckle], but he will be detained until after the inquest.” The Pierce-Arrow reached Oakland at 7
PM,
and, waiting there for a ferry to San Francisco, a weary Arbuckle made a more diplomatic statement to the press, no doubt at attorney Dominguez’s behest: “I am coming here to
do all I can with the investigation of the case.” At the ferry dock, he bought a newspaper from a newsboy while Dominguez made a phone call.

“They’re saying some rotten things about you, Fatty, but I’m for you,” the newsboy offered.

“Thanks, son, I’m glad to know it,” Arbuckle replied as he scanned the paper’s account of the St. Francis party.

“I don’t know why they are saying these things. I wasn’t with Miss Rappe alone at all,” Arbuckle offered up for the press at the ferry. “There was someone else in the room during the entire affair. These tales of me dragging her into another room are false. She had two or three drinks and became hysterical. We did everything we could to revive her.”

Arbuckle clammed up when Dominguez returned to the car. Born into one of California’s original Spanish families, Frank Dominguez resembled an older version of Arbuckle, every bit as rotund but with white hair rimming his bald head. Regarded as one of the premier attorneys in Los Angeles, he had the wealth and celebrity friends to show for it. He enlisted Charles Brennan, an experienced lawyer who knew San Francisco’s authorities and reporters. Brennan met Arbuckle and Dominguez outside San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. So did police detectives. And so did the press, firing a barrage of questions that went mostly unanswered.

Ushered by the detectives, Brennan accompanied Arbuckle and Dominguez when, at 8:30 that Saturday evening, they pushed past reporters and photographers and climbed the steps to the San Francisco Hall of Justice. In case the worst happened and Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter, Brennan carried in a briefcase $5,000 in hundred-dollar bills, more than enough for any bail. But all were confident the spectacular show of wealth would be unnecessary.

Arbuckle released a statement regarding the events in room 1219. In it he contradicted his previous quote by saying, “[I] have known Miss Rappe for the last five years.” (He would later claim he was initially misquoted.) He otherwise reiterated his previous recollection of events: After “a few drinks,” Rappe became hysterical and complained of difficulty
breathing and began ripping off her clothes. Two “girls” disrobed her and placed her in a tub. When that failed to help, he called the hotel manager. “I was at no time alone with Miss Rappe.”

He and his attorneys were ushered into room 17, where assistant district attorneys Milton U’Ren and Isadore Golden informed them they had sworn affidavits from witnesses Alice Blake, Zey Prevost, and Maude Delmont, all claiming Arbuckle had assaulted Rappe and was responsible for her death. Dominguez had instructed his client to admit to only Prohibition violations and not answer the assistant DAs and detectives. It’s unlikely the movie star could have talked his way out of arrest, not in San Francisco with the rabid press just outside the door, but as the interrogation progressed, the assistant DAs grew angered by Arbuckle’s stoicism. Sworn witnesses had said one thing; Arbuckle said nothing. He was as silent as his movies.

“Roscoe Arbuckle will not even admit that his name is Roscoe Arbuckle,” Dominguez declared.

After three fruitless hours, Arbuckle was allowed to leave room 17. He consulted with Dominguez while the assistant district attorneys conferenced. Shortly thereafter, just before midnight, Roscoe Arbuckle was arrested for the murder of Virginia Rappe.

Murder.

The charge: violating section 189 of the California Penal Code, which defines first-degree murder to include a killing “which is committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate … rape.” There would be no bail, as it was forbidden for a murder charge in California.

Murder.

There was his life before the arrest and his life after. From that moment on, nothing would be the same.

In the hallway, reporters crowded him, demanding a statement, but the stunned movie star offered none. Photographers fired off boxlike cameras while holding up trays of magnesium flash powder that ignited with bursts of light and smoke, like bombs exploding, over the hats of shouting, jostling men. When photographers asked Arbuckle to smile, he replied, “Not on an occasion of this sort.”

He is unsmiling in his mug shots, which label him inmate number 32052. His bow tie is woefully uneven. His weight was 266 pounds; his height was 5’83/8”; occupation “actor,” hair “medium chestnut,” eyes “blue,” complexion “ruddy.” Two distinguishing marks were noted: a scar at the root of his nose and another on the fourth finger of his right hand.