Wherever there are celebrities, there will be scandal, real or imagined. Greg Merritt (Celluloid Mavericks) brings one of Hollywood's most infamous scandals to vivid life in Room 1219.
In 1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the silent screen comedian, was at the apex of his career, enjoying a lavish lifestyle and a fortune he was only too happy to spread around. He had just signed a three-year contract with Paramount for $1 million, an unheard-of amount for the time. To celebrate the occasion, Fatty and a few friends drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco to celebrate.
Arbuckle was known for his opulent, drunken parties, and his Labor Day celebration at the St. Francis Hotel was no exception. Fatty and his friends checked into three adjacent rooms and began celebrating--despite Prohibition, liquor flowed freely. Mid-festivities, Arbuckle went into Room 1219 to change clothes; a young actress named Virginia Rappe was also in the room. What happened in the next 10 minutes has never been conclusively settled, but four days later, Rappe was dead. Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter; though he was ultimately acquitted, the damage to his career was already done. (Sadly, public outrage was so vehement that many of his films were destroyed, his comedic achievements forever lost.)
The media loved the scandal, sparing no detail of what they heard from "witnesses" and anyone who would grant an interview. The graphic reportage included speculation that Arbuckle crushed Rappe under his weight--between 250 and 300 pounds--and that he raped her with a foreign object (in popular legend, a glass bottle). Autopsies determined she died of a ruptured bladder. It was well known she had undergone several abortions under questionable care--perhaps even shortly before the party. Nevertheless, Rappe was portrayed as an innocent girl and Fatty as a drunken predator. That scenario sold newspapers around the world.
"We can never know for certain what happened behind the locked door of 1219 on Labor Day of 1921," Merritt writes. "One person endured an injury there that resulted four days later in the loss of her life... the other person suffered horribly for that death, perhaps justly... most likely unjustly."
What Merritt brings to an old story is a look beyond the scandal, showing how it became a contemporary symbol of Hollywood's immorality--and a defining moment for the film industry. In response to nationwide furor over Rappe's death, the studios appointed former Republican party chairman Will H. Hays to restore Hollywood's image. Within a decade, his office created a production code, outlining the moral standards for all film content, that over time morphed into today's rating system. --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Only two people could know what happened in room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia Rappe. Merritt shows the effect the scandal had on Hollywood, then and now.