Can Anyone Give This Guy a Break? : Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

[Augalv]

R.I.P Mr. Arbuckle.

[paxandrews]

coltrane and ellington sure pass the the test of time..

[Waitingforriki]

That was excellent & informative..Thanx for posting !! Peace! Rx

[DieGoldelse]

My God, I just noticed that it was today 90 years ago that Arbuckle was arrested. A strange coincidence. Very well done informative video by the way.

[lioness7582]

The lie of the'coke bottle death'is so ingrained in the american psyche,my mother told me about it,i didn't know the truth until i looked it up on the internet,poor guy,i feel so bad for him.

[BaronVonPenguin]

Paul Merton's "Birth Of Hollywood" on BBC2 just did an absolutely brilliant job about this case. It ran on Friday 3rd of June 2011 and really blew the doors open on the whole charade. Ain't no doubt Arbuckle was stitched up and buried by gossip mongering.

[spinout3]

@BaronVonPenguin really enjoyed the birth of hollywood with paul merton...i didnt really no anything about roscoe but felt sorry for him the way he was treated by hollywood..

[BaronVonPenguin]

@spinout3 Same here, I really only knew the lurid details myself. Infact, on Friday night I was down with some friends and more or less twisted their arms to stick on BBC2. The second and I mean the SECOND Arbuckle's name was mentioned we were all glued. This was because we thought we'd hear all the sordid shit we've come to expect but I was blown away by Merton's other side of the story. Spent all day yesterday trawling the net for more details I'd never heard. Next weeks is the last one.

[spinout3]

@BaronVonPenguin ye its been a great series..cant wait 2 see the last one.

[ChorltonBrook]

To smear the girls name, by mentioning her abortions, as a defence says it all. Guilty.

[ra83clement]

For the last 6 months of Michael Jacksons life he kept a framed picture of Fatty Arbukle next to his bed. It seemed he felt he had something in common with a star who had been falsely accoused of a crime that had been sensationalised buy tabloids and haters and even after been proven innocent people still not beliving it because they like a scandel. Feel sorry for both of them but it's better to know the truth and ignore the liars and remember them both for the entertainment they gave to so many

[1Heart4MJ]

@ra83clement Both men where builde up by KIllerwood only to have them

eatten alive. Its very sad.. maybe that what Michael mean when he said

"a lie becomes the truth"...

[ra83clement]

@1Heart4MJ Well said. Go to the BBC iPlayer site and watch PAUL MERTONS BIRTH OF HOLLYWOOD episode 2. He talks at great length about Roscoe Arbuckle. Really good series a real must see.

[lagarritadelaguila]

Gracias por este tributo a Fatty, es realmente hermoso. Me ha dejado pensando en cómo una vida desgraciada y otra exitosa chocan para invertir su suerte: una encuentra la paz en la muerte y la otra empieza su largo camino hacia la devastación total.

[TheKimdunn]

When I first started watching silent movies when I was a teenager,I remember talking to my mother about them and one of the first things she said was that Fatty Arbuckle killed a girl by raping her with a Coke or champagne bottle.That's how prevelent that rumor was.She remembered hearing it when she was a kid And Chaplin refused to pay income tax because he wasn't a citizen.Both were were rubbish.She was shocked when I told her the truth.It's a shame that is what Roscue is best remembered for.

[cynthiacher]

I'm sick of hearing what a great guy Arbuckle was and what a worthless slut Virginia Rappe was. SOMETHING happened to her at that party and no one has been able to prove what it was. She died of perotonitis due to a ruptured bladder; illness doesn't cause a ruptured bladder. Nobody can prove that Arbuckle DIDN'T do something to injure her, so I'm sick of hearing how innocent he was. He didn't seem that innocent to me. He was having a wild, drunken party. Not too innocent.

[JimmyDaKoik]

@cynthiacher Nobody has to prove Arbuckle didn't do anything. If you are claiming he did something wrong, then the burden of proof is on YOU to show he did. In America, you are innocent until PROVEN guilty. Since Arbuckle was tried three times by three different jury's and found innocent ALL three times, I'm going with innocent. And the third jury did something unheard of....they apologized to Arbuckle.

[cynthiacher]

@JimmyDaKoik No one really knows what happened, so I'm not going to proclaim Fatty Arbuckle entirely innocent of wrongdoing. In fact, that's the reason he was found innocent at his trials; nobody knew what went on. There was no credible testimony, since everyone who was there was roaring drunk. And he had a team of high-priced lawyers trying to get him off. And the jury no doubt was bowled over by his celebrity, making them less inclined to convict him. Kind of reminds me of the O.J. trial.

[dannandstacey4eva]

@cynthiacher "illness doesn't cause a ruptured bladder." Umm, yes it does. Several doctors testified at the trial that her bladder ruptured due to chronic inflammation (possibly due to cancer), and showed ZERO signs of it being damaged from any outside force.

After a life of drinking, drugs, and several turn of the century back-alley abortions, your body's going to give out on you.

[cynthiacher]

@dannandstacey4eva You're a member of the "Virginia was almost dead from alcoholism, VD, and a botched abortion before she got to the party" club. The truth is that the majority of bladder injuries are caused by "blunt or penetrating trauma", according to a doctor from this era. I wouldn't take much stock in what doctors for Arbuckle said at the trial. They were probably paid off. The truth is no one knows what happened at that party except a girl died at it. And was blamed for her own death.

[dannandstacey4eva]

@cynthiacher Part 1: To the contrary. I couldn't care less about either parties personal lives. However, you said "illness doesn't cause a ruptured bladder.", but it absolutely can and does. And according to the doctors, that's exactly what happened, and it showed no signs of trauma from external forces. Surely this condition was aggravated (or even caused by) the several back-alley abortions she received, one of which she had gotten just before she died. (continued in next post)

[dannandstacey4eva]

@cynthiacher Part 2 (cont. from previous post): Abortions at the time weren't the safe and sterile routine procedures of today. They were illegal coat-hanger jobs. Even professional medical care at the time was dangerous and substandard. Add in the fact where she was drinking toxic bathtub alcohol, and there's trouble brewing. Point being, regardless of weather or not Arbuckle or others DID assault her, it was an absolute non-issue in regards to her death. There was no external trauma

[rhombus77]

Look, there was no bottle. One of the men present saw Arbuckle putting ice on Virginia Rappe's abdomen to help with the pain from her ruptured bladder. Somehow that got transmuted in the press into him inserting a coke bottle into her vagina. This isn't funny; the poor girl died (likely as the result of a botched abortion and the high toxicity of the illegal alcohol they were drinking) and Arbuckle was wrongly accused of murder and had his life ruined. All because of an ambitious lawyer.

[mrmoofle]

From what I always heard, it was a champagne bottle and let's say the cork popped at the wrong moment.

[thishandisfine]

Have never been a Arbuckle fan, but you have to feel sorry for the guy - acquitted after three trials and now widely acknowledged by biographers and historians to be completely innocent of the charges levelled against him and yet he is still tainted by what happened that night -it's just too damn sad