Room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood (51 page)

This time there were no predictions of guilt or acquittal, no assurances that the good citizens of San Francisco would make the correct decision—or any decision. After one ten-to-two deadlock one way and another ten-to-two deadlock the other way, no one could be confident of either outcome or any outcome from another group of twelve.

Forty-four hours. That’s approximately how long each of the first two juries was out, and neither reached a consensus. The third jury left the courtroom at 5:10 on Wednesday, April 12. They selected Edward Brown as foreman and reached their verdict by acclamation. At 5:15 came a rap from inside the jury-room door. To the astonishment of all in the courtroom, the jury had reached a decision.
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Spectators who had left for a break rushed back in, refilling the seats and standing where they could. Judge Louderback warned everyone against any vocal expression of sentiment.

Acquittal.

Arbuckle let out a giant sigh. His wife sobbed quietly. After the judge gaveled the case finished and retired to his chambers, spectators erupted in a cheer. People stood on their chairs and on the railing to better see Arbuckle as he rushed to the jury box. He shook hands with the jurors, who crowded around him, patting his back, affirming their belief in his innocence, some dabbing away tears. Then Arbuckle, his attorneys, and the jurors fought through the grasping, congratulating crowd and made their way into the jury room. There a statement was read for the benefit of the press and, as camera flashes exploded, signed by each of the twelve jurors and two alternates. It read:

Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him. We feel also that it was only our plain duty to give him this exoneration, under the evidence, for there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of this crime. He was manly throughout the case, and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. We wish him success, and hope that the American people will take the judgement of fourteen men and women who have sat listening for thirty-one days to the evidence,
*
that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.

Acquittal merely means the state did not prove Arbuckle guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The unusual posttrial statement went much further in declaring Arbuckle “entirely innocent and free from all blame” and asking the American people to believe it. The jury did not have time to draft such a document during their few minutes in the jury room, nor, presumably, would they have had any inclination then to care so deeply about the beliefs of their fellow Americans. It was written before
the verdict, likely by Arbuckle’s lawyers at the behest of Arbuckle and/or the movie producers whose bottom lines were dependent on resuscitating his image and career. It was, however, referred to only as the jury’s statement, so not even Edward Heinrich could trace a fingerprint to its origin.

Brady later issued his own statement: “I am an American citizen, and I take off my hat to the verdict of an American jury. The District Attorney’s office has done what it deemed to be its duty in this case, nothing more nor less. And I intend always to do my duty as I see it.”
*

If Brady’s comments were intended for the voting public, Arbuckle’s were tailored foremost toward moviegoers, for their verdict awaited him next. His statement declared:

This is the most solemn moment of my life. My innocence of the hideous charges preferred against me has been proven by a jury of the best men and women of San Francisco—fourteen in all—rendering a verdict immediately after the trial. For this vindication I am truly grateful to God and my fellow men and women. My life has been devoted to the production of clean pictures for the happiness of children. I shall try to enlarge my field of usefulness so that my art shall have a wider service. It is the duty of all men to use the lessons that have been given them by experience and misfortune for the benefit of all—to make themselves more useful to humanity. This I shall do. I can only repay the trust, confidence and loyalty bestowed upon me during my trouble by millions of men and women throughout the world by rendering service in justification of their faith.

He also spoke to the press about his weight gain during the trials and his future in movies: “I am going to take a good rest and get rid of some of this surplus flesh. I must get back into physical shape before I even
think of pictures. Then I will be able to go on with my work, if the public wants me. If the public doesn’t want me, I’ll take my medicine. But, after the quick vindication I received I am sure the American people will be fair and just. I believe I am due for a comeback.”

The night of the verdict, Paramount’s Jesse Lasky said, “Our contract with Arbuckle expired at the time of his trouble. Whether or not this contract will be renewed will depend on the public. The public makes or breaks all stars. If the public receives favorably the Arbuckle pictures which we have on hand, one of which will be released at once, then we will be ready to consider the matter of a future contract.”

Arbuckle did not escape all legal consequences. He pleaded guilty to a federal charge of unlawful possession of alcohol and was fined the maximum: $500. That amount would have been of no consequence to him eight months earlier, but the trial expenses (attorney fees, private investigation fees, hotel bills, travel bills …) coupled with his loss of income had devastated his finances. It was reported that his defense at the three trials cost more than $110,000
not including attorney fees.
The inclusion of the substantial latter category may have ballooned his bill to over $750,000. Dream team, indeed.

Arbuckle, who returned to his Los Angeles mansion on April 15, refused an opportunity to speak to paying spectators on theater stages, saying, “I do not wish to capitalize on my good fortune so soon after achieving it…. I will return to my profession when I consider it proper to do so.”

Crazy to Marry
and
Gasoline Gus
began playing again in Los Angeles, and to strong business. Both had barely been released the previous August.
Skirt Shy
and
Freight Prepaid
had never been seen by American audiences, and Paramount was raring to get them on-screen. But the public began weighing in even before Fatty’s image reached their local theaters. In the days immediately following Arbuckle’s acquittal, a battle ensued between censors and their foes, between those who believed Arbuckle innocent
and those who remained certain of his guilt—if not of manslaughter then of the sort of licentiousness that callously fostered a woman’s death.

On the evening of April 18, six days after Arbuckle’s acquittal, all Paramount movies featuring Roscoe Arbuckle were effectively banned from American theaters. It was the first proclamation by the new president of a new organization. So began the reign of the “czar of the movies,” Will H. Hays.

*
It came to thirty-four dollars.

*
In the wake of the scandal, Fishback began directing under the name Fred Hibbard. He died of lung cancer in 1925 at age thirty.

*
Between his marriage and his divorce, Lehrman filed for bankruptcy. His directing career subsequently sputtered, resuscitated, and ended with the sound era. He died of a heart attack at sixty-five in 1946 and was buried beside Virginia Rappe in what is today Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

*
Actually, she turned seventeen that year.

†
The difference between the length of the jury’s deliberation and the length of time the jury was out of the box caused news reports to estimate the minutes needed to reach a verdict from less than one to as many as six.

*
Including voir dire, the trial lasted thirty-one calender days, but there were only eighteen days of testimony.

*
Matthew Brady never ran for higher office as many expected. He remained San Francisco DA until defeated in 1943 by future California governor Pat Brown.

H
AYS TO
P
UT
F
ATTY THROUGH
F
OURTH
T
RIAL

—L
os A
NGELES
E
VENLNG
H
ERALD,
A
PRIL
19, 1922,
FRONT
PAGE

F
or almost as long as there have been movies, there have been movie censors. In 1896 one of the first publicly screened films, Edison’s forty-seven-second
The Kiss
(spoiler alert: a man and woman kiss) sparked editorial writers’ demands for police department suppression, surely boosting its popularity. Investigations into the purportedly negative social influence of nickelodeons on the working class commenced in 1906, and some of the same forces that were aligning to pass Prohibition—fundamentalist morality, Progressive reform, rank nativism—conspired to regulate motion pictures. In their condemnations, temperance crusaders highlighted the intoxicating and addictive properties of movies.

In November 1907 the Chicago City Council passed the nation’s first motion picture censorship law, prohibiting “immoral or obscene” movies and requiring the city’s police department to issue a permit for every film shown. The law was enforced soon thereafter when two ordinary westerns were banned because the portrayal of bandits was said to promote crime. Other municipalities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, followed Chicago’s lead and drafted censorship committees,
and between 1911 and 1916, state boards were established in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, and Maryland.
*

After New York City closed all nickelodeons for two days in December 1908 and then barred children under sixteen from movie theaters unless accompanied by an adult, exhibitors countered by enlisting “surrogate” parents to escort kids inside and then by forming the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures to ferret out inappropriate movies before they were banned. The unfortunate name was changed to the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures in 1915, and by then the organization had spread to over 250 local groups throughout the country. They reviewed virtually every film America produced, classifying them “passed,” “passed with changes as specified,” or “condemned.” Via the NBRMP’s ratings, the movie industry hoped to avoid censors, but nonpassing grades flagged films for censors and forced producers to cut the objectionable material.

D. W. Griffith’s 1915 blockbuster
The Birth of a Nation
was frequently banned. The NAACP challenged its screenings because of its depiction of African Americans, and it was outlawed by some communities for fear it would spark race riots. When the producers contested its Ohio banning, the case raced to the United States Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous decision comparing movies to “the theater, circus, and all other shows and spectacles.” Films were “a business pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit” and thus not shielded from censorship by the First Amendment.
^†