Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) was an American silent film actor, director, and screenwriter.

He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd as well as with his nephew, Al St. John.

He also mentored Charlie Chaplin, Monty Banks and Bob Hope, and brought vaudeville star Buster Keaton into the movie business.

Roscoe Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. Gordon and William Goodrich Arbuckle.

He weighed in excess of 13 lb at birth and his father believed that he was illegitimate, as both parents had slim builds.

Consequently, he named him after Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, a notorious philanderer whom he despised.

The birth was traumatic for Mary and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death eleven years later.

Arbuckle was nearly two when his family moved to Santa Ana, California.

He first performed on stage with Frank Bacon's company at age 8 during their performance in Santa Ana.

Arbuckle enjoyed performing and continued on until his mother's death in 1898, when he was 11.

Arbuckle's father had always treated him harshly and now refused to support him, so he got work doing odd jobs in a hotel.

He was in the habit of singing while he worked, and a professional singer heard him and invited him to perform in an amateur talent show.

The show consisted of the audience judging acts by clapping or jeering, with bad acts pulled off the stage by a shepherd's crook.

Arbuckle sang, danced, and did some clowning around, but he did not impress the audience.

He saw the crook emerging from the wings and somersaulted into the orchestra pit in obvious panic.

The audience went wild, and he won the competition and began a career in vaudeville.

In 1904, Sid Grauman invited Arbuckle to sing in his new Unique Theater in San Francisco, beginning a long friendship between the two.

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.

Arbuckle became the main act and the group took their show on tour.

On August 6, 1908, Arbuckle married Minta Durfee (1889–1975), the daughter of Charles Warren Durfee and Flora Adkins.

Durfee starred in many early comedy films, often with Arbuckle.

They made a strange couple, as Minta was short and petite while Arbuckle tipped the scales at 300 lbs (136 kg).

Arbuckle then joined the Morosco Burbank Stock vaudeville company and went on a tour of China and Japan, returning in early 1909.

Arbuckle began his film career with the Selig Polyscope Company in July 1909 when he appeared in Ben's Kid.

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 $ million in ).

He appeared sporadically in Selig one-reelers until 1913, moved briefly to Universal Pictures, and became a star in producer-director Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops comedies.

Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s.

In their deal, Keaton promised to give him 35% of the Buster Keaton Comedies Co. profits.

He later worked as a film director under the pseudonym William Goodrich.

Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe.

Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel in September 1921, and died four days later.

A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her.

The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third trial acquitted Arbuckle.

The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system.

Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian.

At the behest of Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players–Lasky, his films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays after the trial, and he was publicly ostracized.

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.

While Arbuckle saw a resurgence in his popularity immediately after his acquittal, Zukor decided he had to be sacrificed to keep the movie industry out of the clutches of censors and moralists.

He was finally able to return to acting, making short two-reel comedies in 1932–33 for Warner Bros.

Arbuckle died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, reportedly on the day that he signed a contract with Warner Bros. to make a feature film.