“An entirely collateral and stupid matter”: Arbuckle’s pongee PJs.
In defending the indefensible, so to speak, a plausible explanation had to be invented for Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s wearing silk pajamas and a purple bathrobe as he greeted female guests in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel on Labor Day 1921. After all, two assistant district attorneys, in their closing arguments for convicting Arbuckle…
The surgical abdomen (and an offer of proof)
The narrative of the second trial will not have the same blow-by-blow detail as the first in Spite Work. The second trial, which could be called the “medical trial,” saw more emphasis on the medical expert evidence (rather than the “moral” evidence of the third), for both sides had more time to digest the report…
Virginia Rappe’s Green Jade Bracelet
The Arbuckle trial transcripts provide a few clues about this bangle as to what it looked like and how it was worn. The prosecutors made little issue of the so-called armlet or arm bracelet. Arbuckle’s lawyers, however, wanted juries to see the bruises on Virginia Rappe’s right bicep attributed to the bracelet and not caused…
All work and no play make . . .
. . . is no excuse to run so silent and deep. Furthermore, there hasn’t been a post in two months and a progress report must be dashed off. Of course, the holidays and family obligations took place. But, during that time, the manuscript was hardly neglected. The third part, devoted to the first trial…
The Celtic prose poem: Gavin McNab’s argument for the defendant
A new version of the arguments is being drafted (as I write) delivered before the jury near the end of the first Arbuckle trial of November–December 1921. The first draft had been based on very detailed reportage. The trial transcripts, however, differ markedly from the paraphrased versions in published in newspapers. What follows is the…
A note on Aunt Kate Hardebeck
Those who followed the Arbuckle case from the beginning were surprised that Virginia Rappe had no family members—or even an extended family. No one came forward to claim her body in a San Francisco mortuary. By the time she was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery on September 19, 1921, ten days after her death, Virginia…
Inclusivity: the authentic and inauthentic working together
This is a progress report on the book and photo research. Over the past few days, I have been reworking real story behind the so-called war nurse Irene Morgan, Virginia Rappe’s masseuse and personal nurse from March to October 1920. I discussed her in an earlier post and have new information about her that makes…
Arbuckle’s “girlie,” Kate Brennan
Imagine, if you will, having a little editorial voice in the back of your mind, looking over the first 300 manuscript pages and complaining about the size of my tableau, “Why are you painting the ‘Creation’ around a clown?” I will let that question hang there and discuss one of the pleasures of my work,…
Fred Fishback: carrying Arbuckle’s water
What has challenges anyone giving serious thought to the Arbuckle case—from lawyers and reporters in 1921 to this writer over a century later—is to reimagine the sequence of events that comprise Virginia Rappe’s crisis in room 1219 of the St. Francis Hotel as well as Roscoe Arbuckle’s culpability or innocence. The trial transcripts provide some…
“Bad People”: Did an eminent San Francisco physician have a book in mind?
Slipped between the pages of the Arbuckle trial transcripts are some folded sheets of papers. One letter caught my eye. The letter writer seemed like a very serios fellow given his strong opinions on the Arbuckle case. Miley B. Wesson (1881–1981) was a pioneering urologist, especially new field of urologic roentgenology in the treatment of…
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Spite Work: The Trials of Virginia Rappe and Fatty Arbuckle 