Room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood (40 page)

Much of the press coverage of the trial focused on Arbuckle’s reaction to testimony. The
Los Angeles Times
repeatedly broke up the most dramatic parts of Friedman’s opening statement to cut to the defendant’s nervous tics:

• “Arbuckle dug into his pocket, extracted a gold pencil and began to play with it, his eyes gazing downward.”
  
• “Arbuckle took an open letter from his pocket and began to scribble on it.”
  
• “Arbuckle turned the envelope over and scribbled some more.”
  
• “Arbuckle’s eyes dropped and he ceased scribbling.”
  
• “Arbuckle wrinkled his brow and squinted at Friedman.”
  
• “Arbuckle was busily engaged tearing paper into tiny bits.”
  

Often he was said to look disinterested, but when Prevost spoke of his applying ice to Rappe, he seemed to be purposefully distracting himself and perhaps other observers: “Arbuckle balanced his chair on two legs, leaned over and took a thumb tack from The Times’ [Los
Angeles Times’]
section of the press table…. Arbuckle stuck his thumb with the tack, winced, and then the noon recess was declared.”

If every mannerism of Arbuckle was news, so was every item of clothing worn by Minta Durfee. She and her mother sat behind the defendant, sometimes joined by his brother Arthur, and the daily outfit
of the estranged-yet-loyal wife demanded an exorbitant amount of news ink. On the second day of state testimony, the
San Francisco Examiner
noted, “There was but one feature of importance to yesterday’s proceedings. Mrs. Minta Durfee Arbuckle wore her black velvet hat.” Prevost and Blake were also covered as if models at a fashion show.

Female fashion was featured so prominently in newspapers because women were so enthralled by the case. In San Francisco, the trial was the hottest ticket (actually, a blue card) in town, and it was free. One report noted:

Society women continue to make up the majority of spectators as the trial progresses. Seats are at a premium, and the little blue cards bearing the magic words of admission to the “scandal theater,” are highly prized and sought after. The social register is not alone in seeking entrance, for there is a good sprinkling of everyday women. “I saw Fatty today,” seems to be as much the topic of the drawing room as in the backyard gossip.

The trial was a chance for a Pacific Heights patrician as well as an Alameda housewife to learn all she wanted to know (and more than the newspapers could print) about Jazz Age coed booze parties and Hollywood’s culture of excess.

One trial spectator specialized in the seamy side. Gouverneur Morris, the author of numerous crime stories and novels,
*
sat behind Arbuckle, near the two Durfees. The pulp writer was on assignment for the movie fan magazine
Screenland,
for which he would write an article sympathetic to Arbuckle that appeared in the November 1921 issue. Demonstrating how sensational even fan magazines got in the wake of the Arbuckle arrest, the next issue of
Screenland
asked on its cover, I
S
V
IRGINIA
R
APPE
S
TILL
A
LIVE?
Their answer was: sort of, as Rappe reportedly appeared “in a materialized form” at a seance and proclaimed Arbuckle’s innocence.

“The state has miserably failed to prove its case,” Gavin McNab pronounced in his opening statement. Judge Louderback struck the assertion from the record and asked him to merely state what he intended to prove. Roscoe Arbuckle’s innocence, McNab told the jury in many more words.

The defense’s first witness was George Glennon, formerly the house detective at the St. Francis, to whom Rappe had supposedly made a statement absolving Arbuckle of guilt. The state’s objection called the statement hearsay. The judge agreed, and Glennon was excused. (The defense tried and failed again another day to get Glennon on the record.) An elderly St. Francis maid, Kate Brennan, testified that she had dusted and thoroughly polished the door of room 1219 before Heinrich checked it for fingerprints.
*
A guest in 1218 stated that she was in her room all Labor Day and heard no screaming or moaning.

A local film producer, R. C. Harper, claimed to have been lurking in the hallway outside the twelfth-floor suite for thirty-five minutes starting at two thirty or two forty-five, during which time he heard no screaming and never saw Josephine Keza. According to his implausible story, he’d come with a business proposal for Arbuckle, a man he didn’t know, only to grow bashful at the threshold and decide to linger in the hall in the hopes of ambushing the movie star instead—a plan he discarded after half an hour, all conveniently during the period most crucial to the defense’s case. His testimony smacks of someone on the outskirts of the film industry attempting to ingratiate himself with those on the inside. In his closing argument, Friedman would ask of Harper, “Is it not an insult to one’s intelligence to ask us to swallow a story like this?”

The next morning, by court order, the jury, judge, attorneys, and defendant briefly toured the three rooms in question on the top floor of the Hotel St. Francis. As closely as possible, the furniture and furnishings
had been arranged to appear as they were on Labor Day. Arbuckle made no comment and was said to appear “thoughtful” as he strode through the interconnected rooms.

Back in court, the defense called Fred Fishback, who testified that Rappe was tearing at her clothes on a bed in 1219 when he returned to the party. “She was making a noise, but I don’t know whether it was moaning or screaming or what sort of noise it was,” he said. He demonstrated to the court how he lifted her to and from a cold bath, an act which may have bruised her—though it would’ve bruised the wrong arm. He also said that Rappe did not appear pained, an assertion the state challenged on cross-examination by introducing an unsigned statement from Fishback to the contrary. He claimed to have been misquoted. Dr. Olav Kaarboe supported Fishback by testifying that as the first doctor to examine Rappe, he too had found her unpained. Bladder expert Dr. Asa W. Collins stated that a spontaneous rupture was possible with a distended bladder, but under cross-examination he admitted such ruptures were very rare and he had never attended a patient suffering from one.

On Thanksgiving, Arbuckle, his wife, and his mother-in-law feasted on turkey stuffed with oysters at the house of his brother Arthur. The twelve jurors and one alternate walked in the cold rain to a restaurant. None of them saw a family member on that holiday. They were sequestered during the trial in rooms at the stately Hotel Manx, one block from the St. Francis. They were not allowed to read a newspaper, and their mail was inspected and, if necessary, censored. Their only diversion was the occasional group trip to a movie theater or restaurant, guarded always by four deputy sheriffs.

Three weeks earlier, Dr. Melville Rumwell had been arrested for the misdemeanor crime of performing an unauthorized autopsy on Rappe. (He was subsequently fined $500.) The day after Thanksgiving, he testified
about his treatment of Rappe prior to her death. He said his patient did not recall what could have caused her injury.

Most of the other defense witnesses that day and the next broke into two categories: doctors who stated that distended bladders could spontaneously rupture and people who had previously seen Rappe in abdominal pain and/or tearing off clothing when intoxicated. In the latter group were:

• Irene Morgan, a nurse/housekeeper employed by Rappe when she lived with Henry Lehrman, who said Rappe had frequent bouts of abdominal pain and when drunk ripped off her clothes
  
• Minnie Neighbors, wife of a retired Los Angeles policeman, who told of seeing a pained Rappe at a hot springs spa the month before her death
  
• Harry Barker, who stated that he dated Rappe in Chicago from 1910 to 1915 and claimed to have seen her on several occasions “all doubled up and tearing at her clothes,” but he was foggy on details
  *
  
• Florence Bates, a clerk at Mandel Brothers department store in Chicago in 1913, who said that during a two-week fashion exhibit in which Rappe was a model, she appeared pained and publicly tore off costly clothes three times
  
• Philo McCullough, a film actor, who told of Rappe bringing her own gin to a party at his Hollywood house and, after drinking, noisily removing her stockings and shirtwaist
  

The defense’s emphasis on Rappe’s alleged proclivity to strip in public served to tarnish her character, but other than perhaps bolstering the contention that she had a prior medical condition, it was otherwise irrelevant to Arbuckle’s guilt or innocence. The state and defense agreed that
Rappe was clothed while alone with Arbuckle in 1219. Only afterward, when others were present, did she start to undress.

The defense called Edward O. Heinrich back to pummel his testimony and reputation, including a mocking jab at him for referring to himself as “Sherlock Holmes.” They highlighted that Heinrich found Rappe’s hairs between 1219’s beds. They then called Ignatius McCarthy, former investigator with the US Department of Labor. McCarthy claimed the fingerprints on the door to 1219 were forgeries, but the state successfully challenged his credentials as a fingerprint expert, invalidating his testimony.

The defense had one final witness—the only living person who could testify from firsthand knowledge about the occurrences on Labor Day behind room 1219’s locked door.