My boss is giving a party tonight...

          ... and consequently I have been on the telephone all day long to all the bootleggers arranging for the provision of liquor.   Sometimes I wish we had more in the way of speakeasies in Los Angeles, as ringing round and round as I am expected to do for every gathering does become tiresome.  Four of our actors and one director have legitimate prescriptions from their doctors for one pint a day (the errand boys collect it from the pharmacy at lunchtime), so perhaps if the others catch on I will be spared a job.

          Mr Arbuckle has been dealt a blow by the news that the great lawyer Earl Rogers is suffering too much ill health to be able to take on his legal defense, despite Mr Adolph Zukor agreeing to foot the costs.  It really is too bad as Mr Arbuckle needs all the help he can get at the moment.  Why, the yellow press (led of course by the Hearst Newspapers), have all but tried and hung him before he has even been charged.

          The latest story to zip around the colony like a wildfire is that, when Mr Arbuckle finally emerged from the room in which he had been alone with Miss Rappé, the unfortunate girl was heard to shout to her friend:

“I’m hurt, I’m dying. He did it Maudie”

          Well I put this to my chum who was in attendance (she has come clean on that matter now) and she swears on her mother's grave she heard no such thing.  Her memory of the evening in question still leaves a little to be desired but she insists that she would have remembered if Miss Rappé had shouted, and she did not.

          She does admit that Mr Arbuckle was getting annoyed with Miss Rappé's complaints of feeling ill (she believes this is why he had gone into the room in the first place, to tell her to be quiet or go home as she was ruining everyone's good time at the party) and may have said some fool thing like “if she doesn't pipe down I'll throw her out of the window”, but she knows for quite sure that it was simply in jest and certainly not intended as any real threat.

Which studio head ...

          ... punched a celebrated comedian on the nose last night at a Los Angeles hotel?

          It seems that the studio head, whose strength was honed heaving scrap metal in Nova Scotia, Canada, took offence to some disparaging remarks made by the comedian (who is terribly popular, even if he isn't fond of our American custom of bathing) about his ex wife, an actress (though I use the term loosely) currently contracted to the studio run by our chivalrous maybe-Canadian, and knocked the comedian down.

           It caused quite the stir though by the following day had been hushed up and everybody present was denying it ever happened.
          Guesses?

Everybody by now...

          ... has heard that Fatty Arbuckle has been arrested and awaits trial for the rape and murder of Virginia Rappé.  I just don't know what to think.  Rumours are flying around Hollywood with their usual speed (our publicity man once remarked to me “here in Hollywood, if you sneeze on Wiltshire, someone will sell you cold medicine by Sunset Boulevard”); and their usual accuracy.

          Of course I knew Roscoe back when I was personal assistant to Mack Sennett over at Keystone, and I have to tell you that I never found him anything but gay and charming.  It really is quite incredible to me that such accusations could be true, particularly when Mr Sennett ordered I have the lot shut down and fumigated after he discovered that Virginia Rappé had contracted the sort of disease that suggests much about her character while in our employ.  It is a terrible shame that someone so young has lost her life, of course, but when you live as hard as she did, why naturally there are consequences.

          I got the dope about that party up in San Francisco straight from one of the script girls over at Paramount, who ought to know what she's talking about (though delicacy forbids me from stating precisely why).  I suspect she personally attended the party, though of course she denies this.

          It's not known why Roscoe chose San Francisco as the setting for the party he was throwing to celebrate his new Paramount contract (rumored to be worth $1million a year), but I'm told that he simply wanted to give his brand new Pierce Arrow a good run up the coast, so San Francisco it was.  The party was a typical Hollywood one – plenty of booze, dope, and the sorts of girls who claim they are unable to Charleston freely while fully dressed.

          I know it all sounds terribly shocking, but believe me I've known wilder ones here in Hollywood, some involving names you would be very surprised to hear associated with such behavior.  After some years “knocking about” here in Hollywood, I've come to the conclusion that one must suspend the usual moral judgements when considering movie folk: they are simply of a different breed and subject to a different set of rules than you and I.

          So far, my script girl friend has confirmed that neither Virginia Rappé nor her friend Maude Delmont (well known in these parts for being a “professional correspondent” for blackmailers) were invited to the party, but they arrived nevertheless.  She claims to have been too inebriated to recall much more than that (a claim I'm wont to believe given what I know of her activities) but I suspect that as time goes by and our mutual friend Mr Arbuckle's trial looms, her memory will begin to clear. I shall keep you informed of developments.