Roscoe Arbuckle

Known for ActingBorn 1887-03-22Died 1933-06-29Smith Center, Kansas, USA

Roscoe Arbuckle (March 24, 1887 - June 29, 1933), widely known to audiences as “Fatty” Arbuckle, was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He started at the Selig Polyscope Company and eventually moved to Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd as well as with his nephew, Al St. John. He also mentored Charlie Chaplin, Monty Banks and Bob Hope, and brought vaudeville star Buster Keaton into the movie business. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood at the time. In one of the earliest Hollywood scandals, Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel in September 1921, and died four days later. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third acquitted Arbuckle. The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system. Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal largely halted his career and has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian.Read more

Movies & web series

The Chaplin Puzzle

Marriage Rows

The Back Page

That's My Line

The Tamale Vendor

Take 'em and Shake 'em

Home Cured

The Fast Freight

The Sheriff

Where Hazel Met the Villain

The Milk We Drink

Wine

His Sister's Kids

Making It Pleasant for Him

Mrs. Jones' Birthday

Happy Times and Jolly Moments

Hey, Pop!

Keep Laughing

It's a Cinch

Moonlight and Cactus

Hollywood Luck

Stars of Yesterday

Si Si Senor

The Casting Couch

Peaceful Oscar

Cleaning Up

Hollywood

Charlie Chaplin, The Genius of Liberty

Twixt Love and Fire

A Bath House Beauty

Anybody's Goat

So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM

How've You Bean?

Niagara Falls

Up Pops the Duke

Smart Work

Won by a Neck

The Cuckoos

The Tourist

Stupid, but Brave

Gasoline Gus

Traveling Salesman

Buster Keaton: The Shorts Collection 1917-1923

Help! Help! Hydrophobia!

Safe in Jail

Two Old Tars

A Voice from the Deep

Ben's Kid