Spite Work: The Trials of Virginia Rappe and Fatty Arbuckle

Mrs.

The following extract from the work-in-progress is a narrative of the prosecution witness Jesse J.

An earlier version of this section was adapted for a blog post.

The following passage is from the narrative of the second Arbuckle trial of January–February 1922, which gets little attention in other books.

The comedy director Fred Fishback and his extended second-trial testimony occupied most of last week.

In defending the indefensible, so to speak, a plausible explanation had to be invented for Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s wearing silk pajamas and a purple bathrobe as he greeted female guests in his suite at the St.

The narrative of the second trial will not have the same blow-by-blow detail as the first in Spite Work.

The Arbuckle trial transcripts provide a few clues about this bangle as to what it looked like and how it was worn.

. . . is no excuse to run so silent and deep.

A new version of the arguments is being drafted (as I write) delivered before the jury near the end of the first Arbuckle trial of November–December 1921.