You Tube Gold: A Forgotten Name In Hollywood

Most of our You Tube finds are basketball or sports related, but sometimes we like to mix it up..

One of the great forgotten stars of Hollywood is Fatty Arbuckle. He set up most of the early templates of Hollywood and also helped to discover and mentor Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and later Bob Hope.

A large man as you might guess from his nickname, weighing nearly 300 lbs, Arbuckle was astonishingly nimble. His physical comedy remains among the best ever filmed.

He had other talents too. The singer Enrico Caruso told him that he was wasting his time with film and that with training he could have the second greatest voice in the world.

His career came to a screeching halt in 1921 after a party in his hotel suite ended with a young actress named Virginia Rappe in agony and then before long, dead.

Arbuckle was accused of raping her and causing her death. After three trials, he was finally exonerated but his career was destroyed.

He did do some directing under a pseudonym but didn’t get a contract again until 1933 and reportedly told someone it was the happiest day of his life.

He died of a heart attack that evening.

Here’s a brief film he made with Keating and the two of them do astonishing things here. The man was brilliant and deserves to be remembered. Keep in mind that special effects at this point were minimal. Most of the magic here is done by two geniuses.