Eric Stonestreet to Play Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle in New HBO Movie
Pioneering silent film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle -- whose career was ruined following charges that he raped and murdered actress Virginia Rappe in 1921 (he was acquitted) -- is getting a proper biopic treatment in the HBO movie The Day the Laughter Stopped, with Modern Family star Eric Stonestreet set to star. The tragic story will be spun by John Adams scribe Kirk Ellis, with Barry Levinson attached as director. Seems like a perfect storm of talents; I just wish HBO titled it something a little more Arbucklian, like Fatty's Big Murder or Mabel's Confounding Demise. [Vulture]
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I would have thought comedian John Pinette was a dream choice to be cast as Arbuckle. Made a decent turn in "Duets" after all.
The movie sounds good and casting Eric is great, but I agree with you, Louis. The title is lame.
Arbuckle should be remembered almost exclusively for his comic achievements on film during the silent era -- the period in which he ranked right up there with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd as the three top comedic masters. He should also be remembered for the series of first-rate sound comedy shorts he made for Vitaphone in 1932-3 -- comeback films so successful that he was contracted to make his next picture a feature. Sadly, though, he died before it could be made. As has been proven, Arbuckle was framed for the supposed "rape" -- which never in fact took place. Public sentiment turned against Arbuckle after newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst -- the era's master of yellow journalism -- decided he could sell a lot more papers by enlarging and perpetuating the "scandal." The fact that Hearst was destroying the career of one of the most loved men in show business through such lies and distortion meant nothing to the newspaper giant, who worshipped only the money required to line the swimming pool of his mansion with gold (which he did). It would be one thing if Arbuckle had been even the slightest bit guilty of something, but he wasn't -- except maybe the crime of bringing smiles and laughter to millions all over the globe. I wish Turner -- which owns Arbuckle's legendary Vitaphone sound shorts -- would finally release them on DVD.