The role: Fatty Arbuckle In 1997, Chris Farley began planning his first dramatic film, a biopic about silent film star Fatty Arbuckle, a heavyset actor who was falsely accused of. [citation needed], The 2021 French graphic novel Fatty: le premier roi d'Hollywood, by Nadar and Julien Frey, portrays the period from Arbuckle's early days in Hollywood to his death. He had recently signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for a whopping $1 million (about $13 million today), an unheard-of sum at the time. Consequently, he named him after Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, a notorious philanderer whom he despised. Raquel Welch portrays his mistress, who ultimately goads him into shooting her. After three trials Arbuckle was finally acquitted on April 12, 1922 but not until his reputation was destroyed and his movies were banned. He also said: "The American nation prides itself upon its spirit of fair play. In 1921, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was the highest-paid actor in the world. ThoughtCo, Sep. 2, 2021, thoughtco.com/fatty-arbuckle-scandal-1779625. The 12th floor hotel suite at the Westin St Francis where Arbuckle and friends partied on Labor Day, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born into poverty in Kansas, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal. Arbuckle researcher Joan Myers describes the political climate and the media attention to the presence of women on juries (which had only been legal for four years at the time) and how Arbuckle's defense immediately singled out Hubbard as a villain; Myers also records Hubbard's account of the jury foreman August Fritze's attempts to bully her into changing her vote to 'not guilty'. Paramount had just signed a giant $1 million ($13 million in today's money) deal with Fatty,.
[52], The James Ivory film The Wild Party (1975) has been repeatedly but incorrectly cited as a film dramatization of the ArbuckleRappe scandal. Although Arbuckle was never tried for sexual assault, this notion has endured, largely because of how the trial was reported at the time. What happened in the following ten minutes is disputed. Now that illusion was shattered and studio bosses were terrified it would destroy Hollywood itself.". He was often heckled in the street. The first two trials . It is reported that the jurors voted in favour of the indictment by twelve votes to two.
Fatty Arbuckle | shadowplay The doctor examined Rappe but found no evidence of rape. The service at East Lawn Memorial Cemetery was arranged by Gable's sister, Kayley, who. Photo: File photo. Little or no effort was made to preserve original negatives and prints during Hollywood's first two decades. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but Keaton testified for the defense in the third trial,[citation needed] which acquitted Arbuckle. In view of Delmont's constantly changing story, her testimony would have ended any chance of going to trial. ThoughtCo. These rumors were proven false by autopsy. Arbuckle's lawyers found physicians in San Francisco for authority and physicians in Chicago who would state for the record that they treated or may have treated Virginia Rappe between 1908 and 1914. The jury began deliberations April 12 and took only six minutes to return with a unanimous not-guilty verdict; five of those minutes were spent writing a formal statement of apology to Arbuckle for putting him through the ordeal, a dramatic move in American justice. Sharing the Spotlight A young British stage actor. Zukor was faced with the moral outrage of various groups such as the Lord's Day Alliance, the powerful Federation of Women's Clubs and even the Federal Trade Commission to curb what they perceived as Hollywood debauchery run amok and its effect on the morals of the general public. [11] He was 46. But it was such an amazing thing for me to come in to make this broken-down picture, and to find my director was the great Roscoe Arbuckle. [citation needed], This article is about the actor Roscoe Arbuckle. During cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Leo Friedman aggressively grilled Arbuckle over the fact that he refused to call a doctor when he found Rappe sick, and argued that he refused to do so because he knew of Rappe's illness and saw a perfect opportunity to rape and kill her. [3], On September 17, 1921, Arbuckle was arrested and arraigned on charges of manslaughter. While Arbuckle saw a resurgence in his popularity immediately after his third trial (in which he was acquitted) Zukor decided he had to be sacrificed to keep the movie industry out of the clutches of censors and moralists. Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding his possible guilt and the case as a whole continues on. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s. The Fatty Arbuckle trial was marked by little strong evidence and dominated by unpre dictable testimony. [11], On August 6, 1908, Arbuckle married Minta Durfee (18891975), the daughter of Charles Warren Durfee and Flora Adkins. During cross-examination, Norgard's testimony was called into question when he was revealed to be an ex-convict who was currently charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, and who was also looking for a sentence reduction from Brady in exchange for his testimony. One of the rooms occupied by Arbuckle and his guests in the days after the infamous party. [3] The defense had also obtained a letter from Delmont admitting to a plan to extort payment from Arbuckle.
. However, his father no longer encouraged his acting when his mother passed away. A second Fatty Arbuckle's restaurant was opened in Bournemouth in 1985. Working mostly in bit parts, Rappe died after attending a party with actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who was accused of manslaughter and rape in connection with her death, though he was ultimately acquitted of both charges. It was then that she was taken to a hospital where doctors originally thought she had alcohol poisoning from the bootleg liquor. Search instead in Creative? His first part was with the Webster-Brown stock company. By 1930, Arbuckle sold his interest and it became known as George Olsen's Plantation Caf, later The Plantation Trailer Court and then Foreman Phillips County Barn Dance. The trial was thorough and Arbuckle took the stand to share his side of the story. His family moved to California when he was one year old. 2023 BBC.
Roscoe Arbuckle - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Arbuckle was later acquitted by.
Maude Delmont Calisphere "The "Fatty" Arbuckle Scandal." He had merely carried her to the bed and she had fallen off, insisted Arbuckle. One newspaper even dubbed her an amateur call-girlwho used to get drunk at parties and start to tear her clothes off.. She died four days later on September 9 from a ruptured bladder and secondary peritonitis. But overnight, the roly-poly buffoon adored by children across America was public enemy number one, and people were spitting in his face outside court. Newspapers across the country went wild. 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 a crime. And as for the events of September 5, 1921, the accounts of the night vary wildly. McPhail, whose most recent . had grocery-store gags reminiscent of Arbuckle's 1917 short The Butcher Boy, with vaudeville comic Fritz Hubert as his assistant, dressed like Buster Keaton. Arbuckle's rehabilitation was finally complete when Warner Bros offered him a feature-film contract in 1933. Funnyman FATTY ARBUCKLE was the biggest thing in Hollywood literally but when he was accused of the heinous rape and murder of a notorious party girl his adoring public wanted him strung up! That night he died of a heart attack in the arms of his third wife. [6], Arbuckle disliked his screen nickname. Today we continue with the ruination of Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, circa 1921. [61] The 1963 novel Scandal in Eden by Garet Rogers[62] is a fictionalized version of the Arbuckle scandal. A day later Rappe died from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder. An infection that developed on his leg became a carbuncle so severe that doctors considered amputation. When he was a teenager, Arbuckle traveled the West Coast on the vaudeville circuit.
Addie McPhail, 97; Actress, Last Wife of 'Fatty' Arbuckle After a small one-year anniversary party with his new wife on June 29, 1933, Arbuckle went to bed and suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep. The audience went wild, and he won the competition and began a career in vaudeville. According to party guest Maude Delmont, after a few drinks, Arbuckle strong-armed Virginia Rappe into his room with the sinister utterance Ive waited for you five years, and now Ive got you. After 30 minutes or so, Delmont became concerned upon hearing screams from behind the closed door of Arbuckles room and started knocking. The funeral of Earl Hamilton Frye, of whose death at St. Paul, Jan. 18, we reported last week, was held last Thurs Delmont was touring the country giving one-woman shows as, "The woman who signed the murder charge against Arbuckle", and lecturing on the evils of Hollywood. On the heels of million-dollar comedian Fatty Arbuckle's manslaughter charge, and actor Wallace Reid's drug-related death, Taylor's murder spurred a newfound interest in Hollywood scandal. To calm Rappe down, they placed her in a bathtub of cool water.
Fatty Arbuckle Scandal - FoundSF He moved gracefully, threw pies, and humorously tumbled. The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system. He thought a victory in the Arbuckle case would send him on his way to . "Arbuckle was just a film star who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," says Pearson. The Day the Laughter Stopped by David Yallop and Frame-Up! After the reading of the apology statement, the jury foreman personally handed the statement to Arbuckle, who kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life. Arbuckle sang, danced, and did some clowning around, but he did not impress the audience. During the deliberations, some jurors joined Hubbard in voting to convict, but they all recanted except for Thomas Kilkenny. Delmont claims that Rappe managed to gasp Arbuckle did it before she was taken away into a different hotel room. By Friday of that week, Virginia had died in the hospital and Arbuckle was charged with her murder. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had long been a performer. We feel that a great injustice has been done him.
Silent film star Fatty Arbuckle arrested for murder - HISTORY Guests to San Francisco's Westin St Francis Hotel still ask to see the room where an infamous bootleg-booze-soused party took place 90 years ago. Farley's film was signed with Vince Vaughn as his co-star. Film Comedian, Central Figure in Coast Tragedy in 1921, Long Barred From Screen. [65], The 2020 remake of Perry Mason features a minor character named Chubby Carmichael who is based on Arbuckle. He was 46. For Tinseltown, of course, the show went on - it survived the Arbuckle affair, just like it has weathered many other scandals since then. [55], In the Gumby movie entitled Gumby: The Movie, the supporting character Fatbuckle is an affectionate reference to Arbuckle. Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. [4][5] At 18, she began working as a commercial and art model. By 1916, at the age of 21, she was earning $4,000 a year ($66,000 today) from her dress designs. [citation needed] In December of the same year, under public pressure, Hays elected to lift the ban. [24] By the time the story was reported in newspapers, the object had evolved into a Coca-Cola or champagne bottle rather than a piece of ice. Read about our approach to external linking. He had been very nice and sweetly dead ever since the scandal that ruined his career.
Virginia Rappe And Fatty Arbuckle: The Facts Behind The Scandal At a raucous, three-day party in September 1921, a young starlet became severely ill and died four days later. [66], Arbuckle is referred to in a nonsensical fashion in "Have You Seen Me? ", "Arbuckle case first true scandal in Hollywood", "Interesting facts about Roscoe Arbuckle", "When the Five O'Clock Whistle Blows in Hollywood", "Testify Regarding Early Life of Virginia Rappe", "Miss Rappe's Manager Tells Worst He Knows of Arbuckle", "Excerpts of Interview with Minta Durfee Arbuckle by Don Schneider and Stephen Normand", "Arbuckle, Star Film Comedian, Dies in Sleep", "More on Fatty Arbuckle: His Films and His Legacy", "Valentino. [59], In April and May 2006, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a 56-film, month-long retrospective of all of Arbuckle's known surviving work, running the entire series twice.
Roscoe Arbuckle - Wikipedia The sexual assault case that shocked Hollywood almost a century ago Arbuckle became the main act and the group took their show on tour. As Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan says: "Stars still get into trouble and they still need help managing crises. It was alleged that Rappe had died as a result of a violent sexual assault by Arbuckle. Why Alex The Parrot May Have Been The World's Smartest Bird [VIDEO], Bill Gates Funds Diabolical Plot To Eliminate Malaria Using Genetically Modified Mosquitoes, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Los Angeles-based film historian Cari Beauchamp says: "This was the first scandal in Hollywood with box office implications. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. Arbuckle told them - it was a story he always stuck to - that he had gone to use the bathroom where he found Rappe in a drunken faint on the floor. But by this time, the scandal had so devastated Arbuckles career that the jury who acquitted him felt obliged to read an apologetic statement that concluded with We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.. When Arbuckle portrayed a female, the character was named "Miss Fatty", as in the film Miss Fatty's Seaside Lovers. She was 97. Will H. Hays, who served as the head of the newly formed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) censor board, cited Arbuckle as an example of the poor morals in Hollywood. In early 1917, she was hired by director Fred Balshofer and given a prominent role in his film Paradise Garden, opposite screen star Harold Lockwood. Rosenberg, Jennifer. Fatty Arbuckle got his first break while working at the hotel. But the first two trials ended with hung juries and the third ended with an acquittal. Rooms 1219 and 1221 were for them, and room 1220 was to be used for a party room. Weekly quiz: Which house are Harry and Meghan vacating? [3] As in the first trial, Arbuckle testified as the final witness and again maintained his denials in his heartfelt testimony about his version of the events at the party. The case led to the establishing of a Hollywood censorship board, which ruled that Arbuckle should never work in the industry again. The scandal that followed her death had nothing to do with the fame, or lack of it, of the pretty actress - it was her link to the man who was known as "America's Funnyman . Fatty Arbuckle's mug shot. Silent-film comedian Al St. John (Arbuckle's nephew) and actors Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard appeared with Arbuckle. Mugshot of Fatty Arbuckle. In response to the Arbuckle scandal, Hollywood established a self-policing organization that was to be known as the "Hays Office.". But her condition worsened and when she was finally taken to hospital three days later her friend, Bambina Maude Delmont, told the doctor Arbuckle had raped Rappe. From then until 1913, Roscoe was on the stage, performing as an . Allegedly, during the party, Rappe made several drunkenly statements such as, Arbuckle did it and He hurt me. The Fatty Arbuckle case Ocr ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Page-progression lr Pages 168 Ppi 350 Scandate 20150707143654 Scanner scribe6.nj.archive.org Scanningcenter nj Sponsor-mhdl University of South Carolina Libraries Year 1962 Year_end 1962. 168 Fatty Arbuckle Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images All News Archival Browse 168 fatty arbuckle stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. The grand jury yesterday evening indicted Roscoe Arbuckle on a charge of manslaughter. Arbuckle's accuser, Bambina Maude Delmont, had accompanied Rappe to the party; she had first met Rappe only a few days earlier. Im a writer and a copy editor with experience in editing science and engineering articles. The main prosecution witness, Zey Prevon, had escaped house arrest and left the country. Virtually the only indisputable facts seem to be that on September 5, 1921, there was a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco where alcohol was in abundance (despite Prohibition laws) and that both Arbuckle, then age 33, and a woman named Virginia Rappe were in attendance. On Eve of his Comeback. Virginia Rappe was a 26-year old aspiring actress and model, originally from Chicago, who had a reputation as something of a party girl. Are you sure Roscoe Arbuckle is getting one today? At the behest of Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players-Lasky, his films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays[1] after the trial, and he was publicly ostracized. He eventually began directing under the name William B. Goodrich (similar to the name his friend Buster Keaton suggested -- Will B. Dear Mick: You state, regarding the Fatty Arbuckle alleged rape-murder incident, "That crime never happened." However, since you were not there, you can't truthfully say it "never happened." The first two trials ended in hung juries, indicating that the evidence was not open and shut. Wikipedia, 25 Jan. 2012. Although Arbuckle was able to keep his leg, he was prescribed morphine against the pain; he would later be accused of being addicted to it. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $1,000,000 a year (equivalent to $13,527,000 in 2021). In 1913, at the age of 26, Arbuckle hit the big time when he signed with Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company and became one of the Keystone Kops. View our statement on digital primary resources. [3], The scandal and trials had greatly damaged Arbuckle's popularity among the general public. Fatty Arbuckle Nome completo Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle Outros nomes Fatty Arbuckle, William Goodrich Nascimento 24 de marode 1887 Smith Center, Kansas, Estados Unidos Nacionalidade norte-americano Morte 29 de junhode 1933 (46 anos) Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos Ocupao Ator, comediante, diretore roteirista Atividade 1904at 1933 Cnjuge Best remembered for the scandal surrounding the death of an aspiring actress that ended his career, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was actually one of early Hollywood's biggest stars even before the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton earned a similar stature. Party guests tried a number of strange treatments, including covering Rappe with ice, but she still wasn't getting any better. Keaton co-wrote, directed and starred in the picture; consequently, Hart refused to speak to Keaton for many years.
A lot on their plate: Fatty Arbuckle's - Let's Look Again The death of an actress in San Francisco. What happened in room 1219? Virginia Rappe was born in Chicago in 1891 to Mabel Rapp, who died when Virginia was 11. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born into poverty in Kansas After it was signed, he. After being called, Arthur Beardslee, the hotel doctor, concluded that her condition was a result of intoxication. However, the name Fatty identifies the character that Arbuckle portrayed on-screen (usually a naive hayseed), not Arbuckle himself. The Eureka High girls' baseball team was in contention to win the title in 1923, following . Rappe died four days later after being examined. In the summer of 1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was on top of the world. Posters for his movies billed the 266-pound comedian as worth his weight in laughs. But before the year was out, he was accused of a crime so monstrous that he would never appear onscreen again. Arbuckle denied any wrongdoing. On Monday, September 5, the party started early. Arbuckle hated the nickname "Fatty" and insisted that his friends and acquaintances always address him by his real first name, Roscoe. In spite of the acquittal and the apology, his reputation was not restored and the effects of the scandal continued. most memorably, enables a scene in which a funeral procession passes out a window while a wedding goes on in the foreground. What happened in room 1219? [6], In 1904, Sid Grauman invited Arbuckle to sing in his new Unique Theater in San Francisco, beginning a long friendship between the two. Both Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia Rappes names were dragged through the mud in the competition to print the most salacious rumors. Jury Nullification: Definition and Examples, Charles Manson and the Tate and LaBianca Murders, How Conservative Hollywood Became a Liberal Town, Profile of Death Row Inmate Brenda Andrew, Overview of the Jury Trial Stage of a Criminal Case, Profile of Husband Killer Kelly Gissendaner, Murder of Helen Jewett, Media Sensation of 1836, B.A., History, University of California at Davis. Perhaps even more than the specific charges of rape and murder, Arbuckle became a symbol of Hollywood's immorality. William Randolph Hearst, the symbol of yellow journalism, had hisSan Francisco Examinercover the story. [3], On November 28, Arbuckle testified as the defense's final witness. She died one day after her hospitalization from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Though the newspapers of the day reveled in the gory, rumored details, juries found little evidence that Arbuckle was in any way connected with her death. [30] At the beginning of the trial Arbuckle told his already-estranged wife, Minta Durfee, that he did not harm Rappe; she believed him and appeared regularly in the courtroom to support him. Dr. Heinrich's claim to have found fingerprints was cast into doubt after McNab produced a maid from the St. Francis Hotel who testified that she had thoroughly cleaned the room before the investigation took place. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, onscreen, discovered an empty whisky bottle and gives it a decent burial, using flowers he had gathered for his girlfriend.
Throwback Thursday | No more 'Fatty' Arbuckle films, actor says after And the man charged with her death was Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Hollywood's first one-million-dollar star. But when Arbuckle left the room, Rappe remained lying on the bed writhing in pain. Four days later, she was dead of a ruptured bladder. To celebrate just having finished three pictures at the same time and to celebrate his new contract with Paramount, Arbuckle and a couple of friends drove up from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Saturday, September 3, 1921, for some Labor Day weekend revelry. Rappe was not taken to the hospital on that day. "Fatty" had also been Arbuckle's nickname since school; "It was inevitable", he said. He retreated into alcoholism. [9][10] He then joined the Pantages Theatre Group touring the West Coast and in 1906 played the Orpheum Theater in Portland, Oregon, in a vaudeville troupe organized by Leon Errol. The conflicting accounts, tabloid exaggerations, and general furor surrounding the crime that ended Arbuckles acting career make it difficult to determine what actually happened that fateful day. Though as Fatty Arbuckle was taking the world by storm with his movie career, a new face was just beginning to make the rounds in Hollywood. Louise Brooks, who played the ingenue in Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931), told Brownlow of her experiences in working with Arbuckle: He made no attempt to direct this picture. Girls win big. I'm not. The pun being too obvious, Arbuckle adopted the more formal pseudonym "William Goodrich". His lawyer, McNab, made no closing argument to the jury. [48] That night he went out with friends to celebrate his first wedding anniversary and the new Warner Bros. contract when he reportedly said: "This is the best day of my life." Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection. The management are happy to show visitors the suite, if it's unoccupied, but they don't know exactly what happened in there on Labor Day in 1921 - no-one does. The papers went wild with thestory. He just sat in his director's chair like a dead man. [7] Arbuckle enjoyed performing and continued on until his mother's death in 1898, when he was 11.
What was the Fatty Arbuckle Scandal and how did it influence Hollywood In the second Arbuckle trial, the defense did not present a very thorough case and Arbuckle did not take the stand. A medical examination found no evidence of sexual assault. [6] Arbuckle then joined the Morosco Burbank Stock vaudeville company and went on a tour of China and Japan, returning in early 1909. One of Arbuckle's feature-length films known to survive is Leap Year, which Paramount declined to release in the U.S. owing to the scandal. 1921. [12] Delmont had a police record for extortion, prostitution and blackmail. [8] Rappe appeared in at least four films for Lehrman: His Musical Sneeze, A Twilight Baby, Punch of the Irish and A Game Lady. Evidence can be lost, witnesses change their stories, and criminals can lie, making cases very difficult to decide. [n 1] Although his large size was undoubtedly part of his comedic appeal, Arbuckle was self-conscious about his weight and refused to use it to get "cheap" laughs like getting stuck in a doorway or chair. He died of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, having never fully restored his reputation. Another partygoer soon accused Fatty Arbuckle of raping and killing her and he was tried three different times for those crimes. [58] Like Farley, comedians John Belushi and John Candy also considered playing Arbuckle, but each of them died before a biopic was made. No one seems to remember the comedic genius of Fatty Arbuckle.
If you weren't in the room, how can you say Fatty Arbuckle - Datebook Further, in contrast to the first trial, Rappe's history of promiscuity and heavy drinking was detailed. Specializing in excellent craft cocktails with over 200 different Whiskeys and a large selection of. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle's attorneys. They were on the twelfth floor in a suite that contained rooms 1219, 1220, and 1221 (room 1220 was the sitting room). Norgard said he refused to give him the key.
'Fatty' Arbuckle and Hollywood's first scandal - BBC News [35] The divorce was granted the following January. After this news was released, the public went wild with rumors about how Arbuckle was involved. Arbuckle's rehabilitation was finally complete when Warner Bros offered him a feature-film contract in 1933. The earliest known pie thrown in film was in the June 1913 Keystone one-reeler A Noise from the Deep, starring Arbuckle and frequent screen partner Mabel Normand. On December 4, 1921, the jury returned five days later deadlocked after nearly forty-four hours of deliberation with a 102 not guilty verdict, and a mistrial was declared. In fact it is loosely based on the 1926 poem by Joseph Moncure March. One thing is clear: In Room 1219 that afternoon, an actress by the name of Virginia Rappe was screaming in agony on a bed. But as it turned out, she had peritonitis resulting from a ruptured bladder likely caused by her pre-existing condition. What fueled the scandal at the time and what has remained a mystery ever since is just what role, if any, Arbuckle played in Rappes death. . [46], In 1932, Arbuckle signed a contract with Warner Bros. to star under his own name in a series of six two-reel comedies, to be filmed at the Vitaphone studios in Brooklyn, New York. [17], In 1914, Paramount Pictures made the then unheard-of offer of US$1,000 a day plus twenty-five percent of all profits and complete artistic control to make movies with Arbuckle and Normand. Virginia Caroline Rappe (/rpe/; July 7, 1891 September 9, 1921)[2] was an American model and silent film actress.