Roscoe Arbuckle a feature film. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. "Mollie" Gordon (d. February 19, 1898) and William Goodrich Arbuckle. He weighed in excess of at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his. Consequently, he named the baby after a politician (and notorious philanderer) whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later. When Arbuckle was nearly
Roscoe Conkling Bruce an apartment complex he managed in New Jersey and then arranged a phony burglary to explain the absence of funds. He served a year-and-a-half in prison. The legal costs bankrupted the family. The elite whites they had befriended abandoned them, and Roscoe Sr. and Clara were reduced to living on welfare. Daughter, Clara, attended Radcliffe like her mother; however, she failed to graduate when she opted to elope with a black actor instead. Clara and her actor husband avoided racism by passing for white. Bruce died in New York City on August 16, 1950 at the age of 71. He