THE SCAPEGOAT

Spotlight

On September 5,1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood and a mentor to Buster Keaton, began his afternoon promisingly enough-at a raucous party in San Francisco, cavorting with a bevy of aspiring starlets. But the million-dollar performer's success soon swerved from his grasp. Virginia Rappe, a young actress-known for playing a salesgirl in the 1916 silent film The Foolish Virgin-fell ill and died from a ruptured bladder. Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter.

Perhaps owing to the association of a giant man-child with any indecent act, the corpulent Arbuckle became a scapegoat for Hollywood's loose morals. Flapper-age media magnate William Randolph Hearst, progenitor of the likes of blogger Perez Hilton and TMZ's Harvey Levin-and a man not unfamiliar with throwing his own debauched parties involving young women-led the charge, all the while reportedly boasting that Arbuckle sold more newspapers than the sinking of the Lusitania.

In April 1922, after three trials and worldwide coverage, a jury acquitted Arbuckle, although vindication did not come cheaply for the fallen star. While the details of the notorious party remain lost to courtroom crosstalk and boozy hearsay (including one particularly salacious rumor involving a Coke bottle), one certainty did emerge: Arbuckle's career would never recover. In response to the controversy, movie executives blacklisted Arbuckle, and the head of the newly established Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Will H. Hays immediately went to work to tidy the industry's image, a move that would eventually result in the Production Code of 1930. Although hugely influential (some credit Arbuckle with creating the "throwing the pie in the face gag"-yes, someone did come up with that), the disgraced actor lived his final years directing cheap two-reelers under the nom de scanc/a/e William Goodrich.

REBECCA O'NEAL

ANDREW STOUT