The front-page sexual harassment stories upending government and media executives has dominated headlines and created a fury. A few of those accused have been rightfully ousted from their positions or resigned in disgrace. Famous names keep appearing daily in the media dragnet, as men and women come forward with new allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. Some accusations are decades old, which create legitimate problems for investigators and raises questions about the motivations behind an accuser’s silence that enabled predatory behavior to continue.
Television actor Jeremy Piven is among the few holding his ground and publicly fighting back in the feeding frenzy. He reportedly contracted a firm to administer a polygraph test and passed it – countering the claims made against him. Accusations always have to be taken at face value, especially in the court of public opinion. It’s a common story in Hollywood that’s as old as the industry itself.
At a Labor Day party in 1920s San Francisco, Hollywood icon Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and two friends booked rooms at the St. Francis Hotel. Prohibition was in force, but bathtub gin and other assorted alcohol flowed freely. Several people were invited. Among them, was clothing designer and actress Virginia Rappe, who was accompanied by Hollywood gadfly Maude Delmont. Arbuckle found Rappe violently ill in the bathroom and helped her to a bed thinking she had drank too much and summoned help. Party goers also tried to bring her around and, when the hotel doctor was summoned, he confirmed it was heavy intoxication and left her to sleep it off.
Actress and artist’s model Virginia Rappe circa 1920.
Rappe never recovered. She was taken to a hospital where she died three days later. An autopsy determined a ruptured bladder and peritonitis caused the tragedy, which was aggravated by alcohol consumption. It was at the hospital where Maude Delmont, who had a criminal history of procuring young girls for parties then extorting wealthy men who attended, accused Arbuckle of savagely raping Virginia Rappe. Allegations that led San Francisco’s politically ambitious District Attorney Matthew Brady to jail the actor without bail for murder. While a quick review of Delmont’s past and her changing stories kept her off the prosecution’s witness list, she had unfettered access to reporters at William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, who made her salacious accusations about Arbuckle front-page news across the nation – bolstered by sidebar stories on Hollywood’s decadent culture.
Delmont’s public accusations grew more depraved with each telling making an impartial jury in the city seem like a pipe dream. Arbuckle’s defense team’s only play against her outlandish allegations was remaining silent until evidence could be presented to a judge and jury. The case resulted in two trials with hung juries and finally an acquittal on manslaughter charges with the jury unbelievably sending a letter to Arbuckle apologizing for the charges ever being brought against him. The court of public opinion, however, had convicted Arbuckle. The vaudeville star who discovered Bob Hope and Buster Keaton, pioneered early film entertainment, and helped put Hollywood on the map was in ruins. The media accusations completely assassinated his character destroying his life and career and saddling him with more than $600,000 in legal debt.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle seated third from the left circa 1921 at his first trial on rape and manslaughter charges.
The only judgment levied was a $500 fine for the illicit alcohol present at the party, which violated the Volstead Act. No charges were ever filed against Delmont, who went across country doing a one-woman show on the evils of Hollywood. The biggest winner was the Hearst newspaper empire’s never-ending coverage of the case. The story was tailor made for the father of yellow journalism, who made a fortune with banner headlines, exaggerations, half-truths and speculations – even boasting the Arbuckle scandal sold more papers than the sinking of the Lusitania.
William R. Hearst publisher of the San Francisco Examiner who would eventually build Hearst Communications into the largest magazine and newspaper business in the world.
Little has changed since. In fact, media scandal-mongering has gone mainstream evolving into a world-wide multi billion-dollar industry with speculating and titillating stories of affairs, casting couch careers, divorces, and out of control behavior. Red-carpet careers are even launched now with amateur sex tapes and all of it driving sales of magazines, newspapers, or being cause for viewers to linger over a broadcast or internet site.
It doesn’t have to be Hollywood or political figures to grab headlines and it’s not always men. While still rare, a growing number of women are being outed in similar spotlights, especially in education where one doesn’t have to look far to find lists of illicit teacher-student relationships. There are dozens of lower profile cases where the accused walk free because allegations alone are not enough to convict and too many times have been proved wrong, deceptive, or shown outright criminal intent.
The court system can charge a person with perjury for falsely accusing someone, but bearing false witness in the press or on social media carries no penalty. Libel and slander are notoriously difficult to prove and most people too financially damaged from defending their careers to pay the legal costs of such cases. Unlike the judicial system, there are no checks and balances in the press. Lives are ruined and the not guilty verdicts, dismissals, or vindications of the accused rarely find their way back to the front pages where they started or restore the losses incurred.