Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle — Roscoe the Great (1916) 🇺🇸

His greatness can be measured with one eye on his accomplishments and the other on his waist line

by W. P. Lecky

Something short of thirty years ago, in a little, fresh-water town in Kansas, was born a male child: weight sixteen pounds eight ounces. He was naturally fat; indeed, this characteristic so outweighed all others that he at length became known as Fatty, and Fatty he remains to-day. And with every dawning of the sun in the east, and the setting of the same in the west, it is just so much more certain that he will be Fatty all his days. Which, by the way, is not so much of a laughing matter as it might seem, in spite of the fact that the owner of this two hundred and eighty-eight pounds of natural ballast is a comedian.

Now it sometimes happens, as all men know, that in spreading our intellectual nets for the elusive idea, we occasionally capture what is best described as a notion. It is neither fish nor flounder, but rather a sort of bulbous jellyfish that, because the day’s catch is small, we kid ourselves into calling the prize of the whole piscatorial population. It was a nondescript of this kind, a hallucinatory notion, that I drew squirming out of the ether that pervades the editorial sanctum, and conveyed very carefully to the subway, thence across the One Hundred and Thirtieth Street ferry to Fort Lee, New Jersey, by surface car to the Key stone studio, and finally into the sacred dressing room of the hospitable Fatty himself.

“Now, this Arbuckle person,” thinks I, feeling the notion tickling me by way of encouragement, “this Arbuckle person is probably one of the few people in the whole world who is glad he is fat. He makes more money than any circus fat man who ever lived.

His name is known in every town that has a moving-picture theater. Millions adore him. Indeed, with John Bunny he is spoken of as one of the only two examples, extinct or extant, who proved the exception to the rule that nobody loves a fat man. He is cheerful and healthy, likes his work, and knows he will never have to hide from the rent man for the rest of his natural life. Why shouldn’t he be glad he is fat?”

This perfectly logical train of thought led to other considerations. Would not a man possessed of such treasure take care to. preserve it well? Would he not be jealous of every ounce of his person, every inch of his girth, and, perhaps, lose weight through sheer worry over the prospect of too much exercise in his next picture? And would he not, carrying the process to its evident conclusion, keep a large food supply at all times handy, even in the studio, and spend the time between scenes reposing on a portable couch, munching chocolates with coconut filling? Would he not be not merely fat, but fat and lazy?

“Certainly,” whispered the notion. “Fat is the goose that laid his golden egg.” Which curious figure of speech I accepted as further proof of my adviser’s genius. I drew out my notebook and the interview began.

“Ever sorry you were fat, Mr. Arbuckle?” I inquired.

“Once, yes.” His eyes took on an expression of pained reminiscence. Our Fatty is a sympathetic body, for all his rough stuff on the screen.

“It was like this,” he continued.

“Hartman [Ferris Hartman], now my assistant director, and I were touring the Far East with a comic-opera troupe. We arrived in Yokohama, and Yokohama, you know, is very hilly. As luck would have it, our hotel was at the bottom of the steepest hill in the town. That wouldn’t have mattered much, though, if our theater hadn’t been on top!

“Well, when we came out of the hotel, every one climbed into a rickshaw and started up the hill. That is, every one except me. The remaining coolies — I suppose there were half a dozen left — cut me cold. In the end, I employed three of them — “two pushee, one pullee” — and was obliged to pay three fares. Of course, I walked down the hill after the show. But I did feel sorry for the poor little Japs, and I weigh forty pounds more now. Japan is a beautiful country.”

He sighed. I gathered that he never expected to see it again.

Fat, however, is not what got Fatty his job. When he started with Keystone, his salary to begin was three dollars a day — the usual stipend for an extra— and this, too, after he had gained a sizable reputation on the coast as a stage comedian. Mr. Sennett’s verdict, however, was to the effect that a stage reputation, unless extraordinary, was no good in pictures, and it was three dollars for Fatty, or quit. After three weeks of hard work playing the part of a slapstick policeman, he was put in stock at forty dollars a week, and the rest is an old story. Through it all, he has never allowed himself to be tempted away from the farce comedy, his first love.

“I do not think polite comedy will ever amount to much,” he confided to me, ‘‘certainly not for a long time. The technique is too transparent. The situations are necessarily few, and the majority of the scenes merely build up to them. The audience guesses what is coming, and interest lags.”

He confessed that this was largely the fault of the writers, and even admitted that there are people who can write polite comedy that will hold attention and bring the necessary laughs, but he did not believe the time had yet come when the producers were willing to pay such writers their price.

‘‘The companies are waking up now,” he said, “but not much. Farce is still way in the lead. In the first place, the polite comedy has too much plot. The characters get tied up in it so that it is impossible for them to pick up spontaneous laughs as they go along. They simply have to stay with the story, for there are only two or three big laughs to be depended upon in a polite comedy. and if they fail, the picture falls flat.

“Now, my idea of comedy” — he was quite serious now, and I knew that he was expressing an ideal as much as an idea — ‘‘my idea of comedy is to fit the picture to women and children; to keep it clean for the women and broad for the children. I think it is well, too, to work in some love interest at times, also for the women. Never mind the men — they bring the women, and have to come, anyway. But all children like things exaggerated, broad, so that they can appreciate them without effort. This is why the movements and expressions of the farce comedian are so much more unnatural than those of the actor in polite plays. They have to be, if they are to make the children laugh, and I’d rather see the youngsters have a good time, than please every critic under the sun. It isn’t as delicate, of course not, but it gets across, and I’m for it.”

This was the first time I had met Mr. Arbuckle — I won’t call him Fatty any more — and I was frankly surprised.’ Fancy ideals in slapstick comedy; yet here they were, and plausible, clean, straightforward ideals at that. It is never easy to accustom oneself to a new point of view, and here was an angle I had never thought of.

“What hurts me most,” he went on, “is the idea some people have that I owe my success to being fat. It is the hardest tiling I have to overcome. I never play on my weight; in fact, I am constantly trying to make the audience forget it. I spend as much time and thought and money on a two-reel comedy as is put into the average five-reel picture, yet you hear people say that my gags would not get over if I were small and thin instead of as I am.”

As every picture fan knows, Mr. Arbuckle writes his own plays, and, in addition to this, directs, cuts, edits, assembles, and titles the film personally. Many a fat man has applied to Mr. Sennett for a job because of the size of his stomach; Mr. Arbuckle holds his because of the size of his brain. In this direction there is less competition.

And although Fatty’s duties might warrant a statement that he is, everything considered, practically an entire motion-picture company, it would be a very hard matter to find him sitting in a corner complaining about too much work. He sits in a corner, yes, and he looks very serious and thoughtful; sometimes he even frowns. But immediately after that you may not see him again for four or five days, and a: week later he will have “the funniest comedy ever made” to show you. When Fatty sits in a corner, it is because he wants a story, and stories without plots aren’t being made in his studio these days, so he has to think of a plot. Does he work too hard? Ask him, and he’ll say: “Complain? Why should I complain? I’m big enough to do a good day’s work.”

Instead of preserving his surplus avoir dupois, I learned that he takes a five-mile run every morning before breakfast. He plays handball, boxes, tosses the medicine ball, and is particularly fond of the Swedish bench exercises. His muscles, you may take my word for it, are hard as a half back’s. His other exercises include playing the guitar and “rollin’ his own.” He is one of the few men of his size to be accepted for life insurance, of which he carries policies aggregating fifty thousand dollars. The accident-insurance companies refused to chance him on account of his occupation.

“Then you aren’t glad you are fat, after all, are you?” I questioned slyly.

“Lord, no!” ejaculated the patient Mr. Arbuckle, with emphasis. “Certainly not!”

I grinned.

When the interview was over I performed a necessary ceremony. I took my notion out into the studio yard and set my foot on what I imagined would be its neck. All that was left was a small, oozy spot on the ground.

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Roscoe uses Al St. John as a weight reducer, in spare time.

—

Evidently Fatty didn’t throw that pie straight enough to suit. He’ll say “retake” in a minute and then pity on somebody.

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It isn’t because warped wood is used that the sides of the staircases in Fatty Arbuckle’s pictures bulge out — here’s the cause. The person sitting on about six inches of step, for a large and obvious reason, is trying to figure out how he is going to get all of Roscoe’s face into a close-up.

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Fatty may not be quite limber enough for a pitcher, but when it comes to a backstop — shoot ‘em over!

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“What?”

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, November 1916

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Roscoe Arbuckle

dear to the hearts of the laughter-loving fans as “Fatty,” put Smith’s Center, Kansas, on the map, by selecting it for his birthplace in the year 1887. His early actions seem to have been prophetic of the future, for he distinguished himself early in life by falling into a custard pie which had been left within reach of his chubby hands by mistake. His screen career began in 1913 when Mack Sennett caught sight of Fatty’s dimples, and engaged him on the spot. Some of his recent releases are The Bell Boy, Out West, “A Country Hero,” “Oh, Doctor,” “Fatty at Coney Island,” and “His Wedding Night.”

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, May 1918