Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Fatty Arbuckle again

As I wrote the title for the last post I realised I had no idea who Fatty Arbuckle was. I thought he might be a fictional character. It turns out he was a Hollywood star and initially one of the Keystone Cops. In 1921, Arbuckle signed a three-year contract with Paramount for $1 million - that must have been the equivalent of - oh, a lot - these days. He threw a party to celebrate, after which a young starlet died and he was accused of her rape and murder.

He was eventually, after three trials, cleared of all blame, but his reputation had been tarnished and he never really worked again. In 1933, on his first wedding anniversary, he died of a heart attack.

3 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Yes, a very strange case, that.

MaryB said...

Huge (literally and figuratively) star back in the day. Sad case that totally destroyed his career. Who knows what the truth of the situation was? Still, truth is what people think the "truth" is.

jomoore said...

I have stayed in the very hotel in which that murder took place!

And very lovely it was too. (The hotel, not the murder, obviously...)