Greatest Movie Scandals

10 months ago 07th Jan 14:24

Needless to say Hollywood has a bit of a reputation of being plagued by scandal and has seen more than it's fair share of stars falling from grace after one or two too many glasses of champagne.

Over the years stars have been left red faced and embarrassed by some of their antics and other have seen their careers damaged beyond repair. So here at FemaleFirst we are taking a look at some of the greatest movie scandals.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a silent film comedian in the early twentieth century who went on to become a director and a screenwriter, giving the likes of Buster Keaton his first movie work in 1917. By 1921 Fatty Arbuckle was at the height of his career with a $1 million contract with movie studio Paramount when everything came crashing down.

On the evening on September 5th, 1921 Arbuckle was in San Francisco with actor Lowell Sherman and cameraman Fred Fischbach staying at the St Francis Hotel where they had a party. During the evening actress Virginia Rappe became serious ill but, after being seen by the hotel doctor, it was concluded that it was due to intoxication.

Two days later she checked into a hospital dying a day later from a ruptured bladder. Rappe's companion at the party accused Arbuckle of raping Rappe and police concluded that his body weight caused the injury that killed her.

Although he denied any wrong doing his trial was a media circus. Arbuckle was tried three times after two mistrials at the third it took the jury just six minutes to deliver a unanimous verdict of not guilty. But the stories that circulated in the press during this time of Hollywood orgies killed his career, retreating into alcoholism he would not appear on the big screen for another decade.

Shooting to fame in the sixties with movies such as Cul-de-Sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers director Roman Polanski has always seemed to be surrounded in some form of controversy.