1933 Obituary
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Roscoe Arbuckle
LesterFester — 12 years ago(December 16, 2013 11:39 AM)
The New York Times, June 30, 1933
FATTY ARBUCKLE DIES IN HIS SLEEP
Film Comedian, Central Figure in Coast Tragedy in 1921, Long Barred from Screen
ON EVE OF HIS "COME-BACK"
Succumbs at 46 After He and His Wife Had Celebrated Their First Wedding Anniversary
Roscoe C (Fatty) Arbuckle, film comedian, died of a heart attack at 3 o'clock yesterday morning as he slept in his suite in the Park Central Hotel. A few hours before he and his third wife, Mrs. Addie McPhall Arbuckle, had celebrated their first wedding anniversary. He was 46 years old.
The comedian and Mrs. Arbuckle went to bed about midnight. She awoke three hours later and spoke to him. She got no answer. A few minutes later the house physician had pronounced Arbuckle dead.
"Only yesterday," said Macklin Megley, a friend of the actor, "he finished the last of a series of shorts for Warner Bros. He came off the set in the studio in Astoria and said to Ray McCarey, the director, 'do you mind if I knock off for a few minutes? I can't get my breath; I want a breath of fresh air.' "
He finished the picture, however, and came home to prepare with Mrs. Arbuckle, for the party. At dinner they were the guests of William La Hiff, restaurant owner, along with Johnny Dundee and Johnny Walker, prizefighters, and other Broadway folk. From the dinner they returned to their suite.
CALLED IT HIS "HAPPIEST DAY."
Joseph Rivkin, Arbuckle's manager, seemed broken up over the news. "He said to me only yesterday, 'this is the happiest day of my life, Joe; it's a second honeymoon.' "
Megley and other friends spoke with some bitterness of "the bad break" that put Arbuckle out of the films at the height of his career, when he was making $1000 a day.
The body was moved To the Campbell Funeral Church at 66th St. and Broadway. It will lie in state in the Gold Room of the establishment in a gray cloth casket until the funeral service is held tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon at 1 o'clock. Rudolph Valentino, Jeanne Eagles and June Matthews occupied the same room and death.
Falstaffian in size, if not insubtlety, Fatty Arbuckle had figured in many minor escapades before the fatal party at which he was host in the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, on September 5, 1921. It was one of his specialties to b16d0e arrested for speeding: he was known the world over by his nickname, but every police court appearance added more publicity and the public last indulgently.
His popularity was universal, especially with the children. Arbuckle went to Paris and was much fted on the boulevards. He placed a wreath on the Tomb Of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe. He returned to this country in triumph, hailed as a sort of fat, funny man of good, clean fun.
HELD $3 MILLION CONTRACT
Arbuckle's last contract in 1921 called for 22 films for which he was to receive $3 million. Some of the pictures had been completed, but was scrapped by Paramount Pictures Corporation after the San Francisco affair.
Virginia Rappe, young actress and model, died as the result of injuries she received during that drinking party and Arbuckle was arrested and charged with murder on September 10. After he spent 18 days in a death cell, the grand jury past an indictment for manslaughter, and Arbuckle was tried three times. Twice juries disagreed upon the verdict; the third trial resulted in an acquittal.
Then came long years of Fatty Arbuckle's trial before public opinion. His efforts at rehabilitation were entirely unsuccessful until quite recently, when he had been working hard on four comedy "shorts" for Warner Bros. The Arbuckle affair resulted in his pictures being banned everywhere.
Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born at Smith Ctr., Kansas, on March 24, 1887.
In 1913 he was very fat and comparatively affluent. Then he met Max Sennett of bathing beauty fame, and he played in comedy films with the late Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Ford Sterling and others. In 1917 he formed a partnership with Joseph M Schenck for the release of his comedies through Famous Players Lasky Corporation.
Arbuckle is reputed to have made $1000 a day in his heyday. He returned to the stage in 1927 as Jimmy Jencks in "Baby Mine," and was tolerably well received at Chanin's Theater in this city. Later he made several vaudeville appearances.
The comedian was married three times. Aminta Durfee Arbuckle, his early vaudeville partner, after standing by him for two years after the tragedy, sued for divorce in 1923. His second wife Doris Deane Arbuckle, obtained a divorce in 1929. He married Addie Oakley Dukes McPhall last year.
' Fighting A Never Ending Battle For Truth, Justice & The American Way '