20140921

The Fatty Arbuckle Scandal

At a raucous, three-day party in 1921, a young starlet became severely ill and died four days later. 

Newspapers went wild with the story: popular silent-screen comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had killed Virginia Rappe with his weight while savagely raping her. 

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.

What happened at that party and why was the public so ready to believe "Fatty" was guilty?

William Randolph Hearst, the symbol of yellow journalism, had his San Francisco Examiner cover the story. 

According to Buster Keaton, Hearst boasted that Arbuckle's story sold more papers than the sinking of the Lusitania. More