What His Peers Had To Say

"All who have ever known the real Roscoe Arbuckle will always treasure the memory of the great, generous heart of the man, a heart big enough to embrace in its warmth everyone who came to him for help, stranger and friend alike. It was this quality which led to his downfall, after he had struggled from poverty to a fame in which the children throughout the world worshipped him. Those who knew him for the great artist he was admired him. His was the tragedy of a man born to make the world laugh and to receive only suffering as his reward. And to the end he held no malice."

Paramount producer and co-founder of 20th Century Fox Joe Schenck

"In all the years that Roscoe worked for me, he didn't do a thing anyone could point a finger at. Fatty wouldn't hurt a fly. I never knew him to be mixed up in any brawls or to do an ungentlemanly thing toward any girl. He was a kind, good-natured fat man and a good comic."

Keystone studio chief Mack Sennett

Call Me Fatty!

What His Peers Had To Say

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"At the time of Roscoe's arrest, Charles Chaplin was in London...The press recorded his views on everything, so when news of Roscoe reached London, reporters rushed to Chaplin for a statement. he told them that the murder charge was 'preposterous.'

'I know Roscoe to be a genial, easygoing type who would not hurt a fly,' Chaplin said, and added more in a similar vein. Not a word of his opinion was printed. His views on a friend facing a murder charge, the views of the world's top comedian on his only serious rival for the crown, did not merit a line. One wonders what the press reaction would have been had his opinion been critical of Arbuckle."

Excerpted from "The Day the Laughter Stopped" by David Yallop

"Arbuckle was conscientious, hard-working, intelligent, always agreeable and anxious to please. He would invent priceless routines and also had a well-developed directorial sense...I don't know of another star who would have submitted to such exorbitant demands on his energy. But Fatty Arbuckle wasn't one to grumble. There were no temperamental displays in his repertoire."

Paramount co-founder Jesse Lasky (from his autobiography, "I Blow My Own Horn")

Will Rogers

"Those who demand their pound of flesh finally received their satisfaction. Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle accommodated them by dying, and from a broken heart. He brought such happiness to many, and never knowingly wronged a soul. The lord will pass [judgement] on his innocence or guilt now, and not the reformers."

Will Rogers, July 1933; Rogers gave the eulogy at Arbuckle's funeral

Buster Keaton and Arbuckle in "The Garage" (1920), their final film together

"The longer I worked with Roscoe the more I liked him. I respected without reservation his work both as an actor and a comedy director. He took falls no other man of his weight ever attempted, and he had a wonderful mind for action gags, which he could devise on the spot. Roscoe loved all the world, and the whole world loved him in those days. His popularity as a performer was increasing so rapidly that soon he ranked second only to Charlie Chaplin. Arbuckle was that rarity, a truly jolly fat man. He had no meanness, malice, or jealousy in him. Everything seemed to amuse and delight him. He was free with his advice and too free in spending and lending money. I could not have found a better-natured man to teach me the movie business, or a more knowledgeable one. We never had an argument. I can only remember one thing he ever said that I disagreed with. 'You must never forget,' he told me that day, 'that the average mentality of our movie audience is twelve years.' I thought that over for a long time, for three whole months in fact. Then I said to Roscoe, 'I think you'd better forget the idea that the movie audience has a twelve-year-old mind. Anyone who believes that won't be in pictures for very long, in my opinion.'...On thinking it over, Arbuckle said I was right. But the low estimate of the audience's mind, I notice, survives to this day in Hollywood."

Buster Keaton (from his autobiography, "My Wonderful World of Slapstick")


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