THE PRINCE OF WHALES HARPOONED FOR HENIOUS CRIME
For more than a month, a young star of the pictures, a beauty and a charming young thing, the “best-dressed girl in movies” who was beloved by all who knew her, has lain lifeless in the ground following the most horrible of deeds. One Virginia Rappé perished after attending a party hosted by a giant man whose greed and demand of instant gratification knows no bounds. The exact circumstances of her death remain shrouded in mystery, due to the reprehensible fact that this clown of the pictures fails to confess and atone as any decent American might, and instead claims an entirely different set of circumstances to those reported by the shattered friends who bore witness to the tragedy.
What is known, is that over Labor Day weekend this year, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco in his brand new $25,000 Pierce-Arrow in order to host a debauched party at the Hotel St. Francis in that Bay City. Anyone who wondered at his choice to celebrate his new Paramount Contract so far from home had their questions swiftly answered. Merely one day later, young actress Virginia Rappé , a guest of the giant comedian, died in agony in a sanatorium. Those are the facts that cannot be disputed, despite the protestations of the Hollywood community, ever closing in protection around one of their own.
If I were to share even half of the goings on at such parties as this one, your dear minds might never recover from the shock, so I shall spare you. You may rest assured though, that the Volstead Act was most certainly broken with relish, not to mention other even less savoury substances that were in attendance; altogether conspiring to create an atmosphere that rivals the worst of debauched Rome and Babylon in its excess. How might any decent citizen so much as imagine a party in which the host received guests in his pyjamas? Or one in which young ladies removed their tops so that they might dance free from the constraints of decency and clothing?
This week I spoke with bereaved Maude Delmont, a close friend of the victim, who did all she could to save her. Through her tears, Mrs Delmont did her best to tell me her story.
At a quarter to three in the morning, a time when no good can happen, this bright young starlet of impending fame, undoubtedly shocked at the behaviour she had been forced to witness, began to feel unwell, and retired to a quieter room to rest so that she might recover sufficiently to make her way home to her fiancé who had been unavoidably prevented from accompanying her. Henry Lehman, a director at Mack Sennett’s Keystone studios, had entrusted the care of his dearest possession, his Virgina, to a dear friend of both Maude Delmont. Struggling to control her grief, Maude told me how she was powerless to protect her friend, when, moments later this “Fatty” Arbuckle followed Miss Rappé into her sanctuary, and announcing to guests that “this is the chance I’ve been waiting for for a long time,” he locked the door behind him. Concerned for the honour of her friend, but not wishing to insult the generous host of the festivities, Maude did nothing, a choice she will now have to live with for the rest of her natural days.
Even this degenerate party was halted in shock at the shrieks of terror that suddenly emanated from the bedroom in which lay the comedian and the starlet, and, following furious battering on the door by Virginia’s friends, Fatty emerged giggling. His torn pyjamas were testament to Virgina’s desperation to defend herself, her hat perched at a crazy angle on his head testament to the humour this comedian finds in his own actions, even the detestable ones. Mr Arbuckle announced that Miss Rappé was making altogether too much noise and suggested that they might throw her out of the window, as her friends brushed past him.
The sight that greeted Maude Delmont and Alice Blake is too shocking to disturb the sensibilities of my dear readers with. Suffice to say that there was blood, lots of it, and a sobbing, terrified, dying girl who begged her friends not to allow the star to get away with what he had done to her.
“I am dying Maudie,” sobbed Virgina. “He did this. Fatty Arbuckle hurt me.”
Her prediction proved correct, when, two days later, Virginia indeed died in a San Francisco Sanatorium, her bladder ruptured by the terrible violence that she had endured.
Mr. Arbuckle’s trial begins next month. I beg the jury to fulfil this dear girl’ dying wish: don’t let him get away with it.
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William Desmond Taylor, world’s greatest director, British Army captain, art connoisseur, traveller, dilettante, divorcée, bon vivant, occultist, et cetera, et cetera, as well as sole proprietor of the finest, best appointed, most frequently visited and most generously occupied love nest in the city of Los Angeles – William Desmond Taylor, Love Avalanche of Alvadoro is found dead! - Seattle Union Record, 15 February 1922
On the morning of February 2, 1922, the Los Angeles police arrived at the home of William Desmond Taylor in a wealthy suburb of the city to find the prominent film director dead on the floor of his study. With the agreement of Police Lieutenant Ziegler, a doctor from the crowd of onlookers made a preliminary examination of the body and declared death from natural causes, possibly heart trouble. The case was closed.
However, moments later when the body was turned over to reveal a pool of blood and a neat bullet hole puncturing his left lung, the case was re-opened, and it remains so today. The identity of the doctor was never discovered, nor was he seen again and ultimately his existence was questioned. He formed just the first of many mysteries concerning the murder of the man described in the memoirs of Los Angeles Special Investigator Ed C King as: “a cultured, dignified gentleman with a charming personality and considerable magnetism.” The investigation into the untimely death of this ‘cultured, dignified gentleman’ spanned decades; it ruined the careers of two of the most prominent actresses of the day, left countless reputations in tatters and caused the Seattle Star to remark: “every time there is a shooting scrape in the movie colony some screen star finds out where the rest of her clothes are.” Risqué stuff for 1922: the murder became the first instance of trial by tabloid and reveals a Wild West Hollywood almost forgotten today.
