Back to :-    Hollywood Forever    -    Celebrity Graves.

 The Final Resting Place of Virginia Rappe.

Virginia Rappe    
1896 - 1921
Located north side of the lake in section 8.

Virginia Rappe was an American silent film actress. She was allegedly raped by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, dying days after the incident occurred, although the details of the event are unclear, due to conflicting eyewitness accounts. Roscoe Arbuckle was later acquitted.
At age sixteen, she worked as an artist's model. This led, in 1916, to her pursuit of a career in silent film with a small role in a production for the Clara Kimball Young Picture Company run by Lewis J. Selznick. The following year she had a small part in "His Wedding Night", a comedy directed by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. In 1920, she began working for the production company run by director/producer Henry Lehrman and the two began a relationship that led to their engagement. Never a major star, Virginia Rappe appeared in only eleven films before her life was cut short at the age of twenty-six.
The circumstances of Rappe's death in 1921 became a Hollywood scandal and were published widely by the media of the time. The official cause of her death was listed as peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder a few days after attending a September 5th party at a hotel in San Francisco, California hosted by Arbuckle. The exact events of that infamous party are still unclear, with witnesses relating numerous versions of what happened. It was alleged that she died as a result of a violent sexual assault by Fatty Arbuckle. 
After three murder trials, Arbuckle was formally acquitted of any charges, although his reputation and career were permanently ruined.