Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (ˈɑrbʌkəl; March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933) 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 mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope. He was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s and one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, signing a contract in 1920 with Paramount Pictures for $14,000 (equivalent to approximately 175,000 in dollars). Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the alleged rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in September 1921, and she 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 Buster Keaton defended him in the third trial, which acquitted him, and the jury gave him a formal written statement of apology. Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. His films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays after the trial and he was publicly ostracized. Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. Keaton made an agreement to give him 35 percent of his profit from Buster Keaton Comedies Co. He later worked as a film director under the pseudonym William Goodrich. He was finally able to return to acting, making short two-reel comedies in 1932–33 for Warner Bros. Arbuckle died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, reportedly on the day that he signed a contract with Warner Brothers to make a feature film.

Bio from Wikipedia - See more on en.wikipedia.org Text under CC-BY-SA license