David A. Yallop - The Day the Laughter Stopped

The definitive biography of the star who grew famous with Hollywood and did so much to make it famous in turn. Its a horrifying book. It shows precisely what a legal authority can do to wreck peoples lives and foreshadowed the welter of moralizing which reached its zenith during the McCarthy witch-hunt of the 1950s.

Its horrifying, too, because it shows conclusively that Arbuckle was innocent of the charges of rape and murder levelled at him by a politically ambitious district attorney. THE DAY THE LAUGHTER STOPPED is not just a biography of Fatty Arbuckle. Its a history of Hollywood and a damning indictment of hypocritical crusaders who tore a man to pieces in the name of morality

SUNDAY PRESS

Lifts a stone, not just on Hollywood or Prohibition America, but on mans inhumanity to man

DAILY MIRROR

The zealots and reformers saw Hollywood and its works as the new Sodom. The Arbuckle scandal gave them exactly the weapon they needed David Yallops book THE DAY THE LAUGHTER STOPPED shows that there was never a real case

THE TIMES

David Yallop has dug up much valuable new information and is the first writer to draw extensively on the records of the trials, which he enthrallingly reconstructs

NEW STATESMAN

An emotive story with a passionate exploration of the facts and fantasy. David Yallops knife-edge research has chopped through the guff and glut of the Hollywood jungle of the twenties from which censorship was born

FINANCIAL TIMES

It would appear that anybody attempting to correct the Arbuckle story would be fighting uphill all the way. David Yallop does just that, he battles his way to the top and arrives panting to plant the banner of Fattys innocence Tragic Roscoe, the poor bastard didnt have a chance

NEW YORK NEWS

Riveting the full and unvarnished story of the dreadful ordeal suffered by Roscoe Arbuckle is clearly told and fully documented It is a book that had to be written. It clears Arbuckles name, though several movie moguls of the 1920s come out of the story very badly indeed

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

Employing court transcripts once thought destroyed and interviews with the surviving principals, David Yallop meticulously tears apart the prosecution case. A fascinating work of film history which catches the social currents of the times

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Three years of fanatical research worthy of the Sacco-Vanzetti case have gone into David Yallops angry vindication of Arbuckle. Yallop makes a convincing case that the generous woman-shy and somewhat prudish comic was victimized by a posse of womens clubs, ministers and a Hearst press hungering after circulation-boosting scandals. THE DAY THE LAUGHTER STOPPED is a grim and lurid chronicle of an age. This engrossing book signals that a revival of Fatty Arbuckles funny and long-neglected films is overdue

LOS ANGELES EXAMINER

A fascinating story of a witch-hunt and a thorough vindication of a man

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

As the book unreels the sense of outrage mounts

CHICAGO NEWS

A stunning picture not only of the trials but also of Silent Hollywood and all its excesses Yallops story gives a uniquely fascinating picture of Hollywood that is both moving and unforgettable

MOVIE BOOK CLUB PREVIEW

To Encourage The Others.

he Day The Laughter Stopped.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

eliver Us From Evil.

In God's Name.

To The Ends Of The Earth.

Unholy Alliance.

How They Stole The Game.

The Power And The Glory.

Beyond Belief.

CONSTABLE

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Constable

Copyright David Yallop 1976, 1991

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-47211-659-8

Constable

is an imprint of

Constable & Robinson Ltd

100 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DY

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.constablerobinson.com

To Fletcher and Lucy

Saki observed Hors doeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me: they remind me of ones childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors doeuvres. Thank you for sharing your hors doeuvres with me.

This book would not have been possible without the cooperation of many people, some of whom agreed to help me only on the strict understanding that their names not be made public. I have respected their wishes. I am grateful to them and to the following (listed in alphabetical order):

Johnny Aitchison, Addie McPhail Arbuckle, Barbara Arbuckle, Clyde Arbuckle, Doris Deane Arbuckle, Helen Arbuckle, Minta Durfee Arbuckle, DeWitt Bodeen, David Bradley, Kevin Brownlow, Herb Caen, Chief Judge Oliver Carter, Dr James D. Causey, Betty Compson, Judge Sam Conti, Jackie Coogan, Alan De Witt, Paul Durfee, Mrs Fred Fischbach, Bill Foster (official court reporter during the Arbuckle trials), Mrs Leo Friedman, Ed Scoop Gleeson, Judge George B. Harris, Randolph Hearst, Babe London, Ben Lyon, Colleen Moore, Turk Murphy and Pete Chute of Earthquake Magoons (San Francisco), Marion Nixon, Adela Rogers St Johns, Judge Robert Schnocke, Mrs Kay Schmulowitz, Judge Albert Tharlorborg, Judge Stanley Theigee, King Vidor, and Judge Alphonso Zerpali.

The management and staff of the St Francis Hotel, San Francisco; Rev. Joseph Falanga and the Catholic Church Authorities in Los Angeles (present owners of Roscoe Arbuckles West Adams Boulevard home); G. Brokaw, Chief Customs Officer of San Francisco; port authorities in charge of Alcatraz; San Francisco District Attorney John Jay Ferdon and his staff; the staff of the district attorney of Los Angeles; Mr Burton Hayes and Mr Joe Ruocco of the County Clerks Office, Hall of Justice, San Francisco; the staff and officials of the Superior Court of the State of California, City and County of San Francisco; the staff and officials of the US District Court, Northern District of California.

The chief Librarian and staff of the University of London; the librarian and staff of the Department des Periodiques Annexe de Versailles; Tony Slide of the American Film Institute, Washington; and staffs of the following libraries and organizations: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Hollywood; the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris; the Boston Public Library; Cinmathque Franaise, Paris; the Motion Picture Country House and Lodge, California; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the New York Public Library and the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, New York City; the San Francisco Public Library; and various departments and libraries of the University of California, both at Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Mr Blackbeard and the staff of the National Newspaper Archives, in San Francisco; and the editors and staffs of Debretts, the Los Angeles Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner.

The filmography at the back of the book, the result of three years intensive research, is the most comprehensive list of Roscoe Arbuckles films ever published. Credit for this remarkable achievement goes to Samuel A. Gill, Archivist at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. Neither Sam nor I would claim that the list is complete, but that it includes 150 more titles than any previous list speaks for itself.