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| George Grantham Bain |
Model and silent film actress Virginia Rappe: born 7 July 1891 and died under horrible circumstances, officially as a result of a ruptured bladder, 9 September 1921, four days after a Labor Day party in San Francisco, held in the hotel suite of one of the silver screen’s most famous and beloved actors of the day, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle. Arbuckle was tried three times on charges of rape and manslaughter in connection with Rappe's death, but was unanimously acquitted by a jury at the third trial. Though Arbuckle’s public reputation was salvaged, his career was hampered to a great extent by the scandal, and he himself would die relatively young (though, realistically, not especially young for a man of his size and habits), of a heart attack, aged 46.
As for Virginia Rappe, unfortunately she was not a particularly prolific model and actress, only beginning in earnest when she moved to Los Angeles in 1917, then already 26 years old. Most of the films on her thin résumé are considered lost, leaving the question of what might have been very much unanswered. We simply do not know what kind of actress she was, or what she might have become. Regardless, she was a human being, and it is unfortunate that she is remembered chiefly for a scandal which, in the end, may not have been much of a scandal at all.
After all, the jury in Arbuckle's third and final trial went so far as to issue him a formal apology.
🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
