Hollywood Memorial

At the time of her death, Virginia was best known as the face on the sheet music cover of ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart,’ a popular song of that time. Virginia won an award as ‘Best Dressed Girl in Pictures’ but unfortunately she was better known within the Hollywood community for something else. She came to know comedic great Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle who had worked at Keystone Studios with her then fiancée. She went to a hotel party with Arbuckle to celebrate his multi-million dollar contract with Paramount but was soon screaming in his bedroom and rushed nearly naked to the hospital where she died. Arbuckle was charged with her murder. The first two trials ended in hung juries, Arbuckle was finally acquitted in the third trial with an unprecedented apology from the jury although his career was permanently ruined. Imagine the OJ Simpson Trial times three and that’s what a media sensation it was, Hollywood’s first but certainly not the last. No one ever really knew what happened that day in 1921. All that is for sure is that Virginia died in a hospital on the Friday after, of the injuries sustained at that party, allegedly from having sex with Arbuckle and a wine bottle. She is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.