introducing readers to writers since 1995
August 24, 2004
More from the Sex-Mad Gray Lady
by Ron Hogan"Hearst invented the tabloid on the ample back of Fatty Arbuckle," Mr. Stahl said. "He made Virginia Rappe into this virginal victim, when in fact she had given half the Keystone Cops gonorrhea and the other half lice and had been a prostitute since she was 14. People love to see a hero squirming and kicked in the face, because they hated the fact he was partying on a weekday afternoon and they had to work for a living."
Jerry Stahl gives up the goods to NYT reporter Andréa Vaucher.
It's made me want to buy Stahl's book. I'm glad to hear about this.
I had heard about the scandal long ago, but it took Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, for all of its sensational photos and prose creeping on the edge of libel to kick this interest into overdrive. Poor guy.
I used to go to high school in East San Jose, where Arbuckle's brother Clyde settled; his widow is supposedly in her nineties and still going strong. Their house still stands near the intersection of King and Story Roads. There's a couple of schools named for Clyde who became a historian and state bigwig, and I think, a library and even a park. Roscoe just has this scandal to his name, and now this book, though when he died, he was about to make a comeback.
Posted by: Gabrielle Daniels at August 25, 2004 10:43 AMyour PayPal donation
can contribute towards its ongoing publication.
