"Nobody Loves a Fat Man?"
June 13, 1914 - MOVIE PICTORIAL, courtesy of Mr. Bruce Long
Roscoe Arbuckle was busy tying the helpless and hapless
Mabel Normand to a dreadful-looking contrivance that apparently contained
a dynamite bomb when I first saw him. But even as he completed the task
he was set upon by a squad of police officers. When the melee was over Director
Mack Sennett expressed his satisfaction and Mr. Arbuckle was free to rest.
He lumbered toward me, rolled a cigarette with a one-armed
sweep, lit it, took a puff and sighed contentedly.
I gently assured him that I would not ask how much he weighed,
that I knew already.
"How much did they say I weighed?" Mr. Arbuckle
asked alertly.
"A little over 300 pounds."
"What! Three hundred! I don't weigh a pound over one
hundred and eighty, and, what's more, I never did," Mr. Arbuckle asserted
with something like a glare.
"Indeed," I remarked, making a note of the point.
"And--please pardon my curiosity -- but you're married, aren't you?"
"Yes," Mr. Arbuckle admitted, "I am married
but don't tell them that."
"You see," he added hastily, "my wife and
I do have such times reading the love letters I receive. Being single does
make for popularity, you know.
Mrs. Arbuckle's stage name is Minta Durfee, if you want
to know. But don't tell them that."
"I wouldn't think of it," I said solemnly.
"And another thing," Mr. Arbuckle continued.
"Don't say that I played in 'The Round Up.' I never did.* It was Maclyn
Arbuckle. I like well enough to plead guilty to having done it but my habitual
integrity forbids. Besides there are too many people who know it was he
and not me. Of course I don't agree with him when he says nobody loves a
fat man. I know better as I have hinted."
"You were on the legitimate stage for a while, weren't
you?" I asked.
I knew very well that he was but you have to be respectful
to the man who is giving you an interview.
"Yes," Mr. Arbuckle answered, "I was. Outside
of the few sweet years on the Loop circuit, I spent nine months with Ferris
Hartman and "The Campus" company, on an oriental tour. We toured
China, Japan, India, Honolulu, the Philippine Islands and even some civilized
places. I pasted up notices and appreciations in fourteen different languages
and I might have had more if I could have been sure whether the writers
in some of the other languages were roasting me or praising me. The tour
ended in January, 1913. Since then I have been in the pictures.
"My first experience in motion pictures was at Universal's
Hollywood studio, under Director Al Christie, to whom I had been introduced
by Robert Leonard. I had been with Universal four weeks when Fred Mace left
Keystone and I was taken on to fill the vacancy. I have been with Keystone
ever since.
"I have done my worst in 'Two Old Tars,' 'A Noise
from the Deep,' 'The Riot' and 'The Gangsters.' But outside of falling on
my ear, being surrounded by snakes, chased by bears, and made to do forty-five
foot dives off the long wharf at Santa Monica, my work has been rather uneventful."
With that Roscoe Arbuckle ceased to talk in favor of enveloping
himself in clouds of cigarette smoke through which he peered at me like
one of the genii of the Arabian Nights.
"As you were going to say?" I ventured to ask,
encouragingly.
"I'll say just this," he began with a sudden
burst of enthusiasm. "I am a member of Keystone's baseball team and
a finer little aggregation of ballplayers never existed in this immediate
vicinity, nor for a good distance around."
"Let me see," I mused. "Wasn't that the
team that was beaten so badly last week by a bunch of boys from the high
school up on the--"
"Excuse me," Mr. Arbuckle said hurriedly. "I
hear the director calling me. I must get back to my work. Give them all
my regards, will you?"
Whereupon he returned to the fray, pounced upon Ford Sterling
and his squad of policemen, dispersed them, took possession of the helpless
and hapless Mabel Normand and dragged her away while the camera clicked
steadily.
Since his first stage experience ten years ago as super
for a hypnotist, he has been steadily rising. He has been gaining in weight
for a good deal longer than that, for he weighed only sixteen and a half
pounds when he was born.
* Arbuckle did later appear in the 1920 version of
"The Round Up"
