Fatty Arbuckle has screwed Virginia Rappe ,
with a bottle neck , and chunks of ice .
He's blind drunk as usual ,
and now she is dying of peritonitis .
On the bed , right before his eyes .
In the St Francis Hotel in 'Frisco .
But Fatty doesn't realize .

The news breaks overnight ,
hits Hollywood real hard .
Mack Sennett makes no comment .
Labor day , September , 1921 ,
scandal in the movie mogul's own back yard .
Happy Sams makes his move ,
through Arbuckles lawyers ,
once Fatty is conveniently behind bars .

Happy will build his legend .
Arbuckle will die broke .
You dumb fat son of a bitch with no prick .
I made 87 pictures , and one oscar .
I did the same as you .
But I never got caught .
Fatty , I hope you fuckin' choke .

The worst thing in Hollywood
is to be in obscurity when you die .
In 1927 , Happy secretly kills two girls,
buries them in his rambling mansion garden
with several other complete unknowns .
In 1991 the remains are found ,
after Eve visits the mansion ruins
and claims the old house as her own .

Eve is just thirty , and relatively unknown .
Blonde and tanned and dusty silver-pink .
Heavy gold and whispering white .
Married to an older , richer man .
Both alcoholics . Tangled vines .
But Eve dreams about Happy's house ,
every single night of her ruined life .

The house was obscene and obsolete .
Dripping with abandonment ,
and whispering hidden charm .
Eve owned it for two hours , without papers ,
took the lonely treasures with her .
Then came the man of arms .

Bought by a munitions dealer , for his daughter .
Based in the south of France .
The Beverly Hills design firm
began intensive renovations ,
according to faxed plans .
Five skeletons unearthed in the garden ,
three more under dusty cellar shelves ,
The macabre secrets of long gone Happy Sams
now finally reveal themselves .

Through the decades , this was the place to be .
Cocktail parties , shootings , rustling taffeta .
Dressing up three times each day .
Cadillacs , vast and gleaming , and hot .
Jacaranda blossom and peacocks .
The film industry at work and play .

There are still echoes here .
Of women who married men for their money .
And walked through marbled halls of opulence
in stiletto-clicking icy-execution .
Rhythmic with the pulsing crystal fountains .
Exercising quiet control .

Happy Sams is no Chaplin as such .
But he works hard at Keystone studios ,
gets paid really well , has a good filmstar life ,
and nothing really bothers him too much .
In 1921 he marries a starlet , Constance MacMurray .
Six months later she dies in a hospital
from internal haemorrhaging .
Happy appears distraught .
But some people are beginning to worry .

Happy lives in his mansion house .
His young dead wife soon forgotten .
Vaulted ceilings and frescoed walls .
Florentine mantels and marble columns .
Onyx and gold bathrooms ,
blue tiled swimming pool ,
private small theatre .
The prizes of decadence .
The trappings of a wayward fool .

Happy's second wife is Iris , a Zeigfeld showgirl .
He met her at the Tijuana races .
She is no real beauty .
Just a sexual gymnast par excellence
who keeps Happy amused
as he shows her what real pain is .
Two years later , on Valentines day ,
she is found drowned ,
dressed in an evening gown ,
floating in Santa Monica bay .
Happy acts utterly despondent .
At the funeral , mauve roses ,
and nothing much to say .

Betty and Cara , adorable 17 year-old twins ,
in 1927 pose a problem for Happy ,
with their young looks , red hair and white skin .
They , and their mother , know of Happy's passion ,
for rope ties and painful oral arts .
Quarter million dollars of bribery ,
or else , they will expose him .
Three months later the mother is dead .
Found gagged and stabbed
in a boarding house in Culver city .
Happy is in the desert ,
filming with Laurel and Hardy ,
pretends to know nothing of it .

The twins are frantic
and decide to confront Happy at his house
with a hidden tape recorder .
But Happy locks the doors
and shoots them both full in the face ,
committing bloody double murder .
Buries them in his garden ,
plants white rose bushes above them ,
goes to their house ,
removes all traces of their existence .

Eve dreams about being ' in that bracket ' .
Sat on the terrace in a bamboo chair ,
drinking only to forget ,
as the scirroco of evening blows through her hair .
In the right bracket she wouldn't count for her sins .
In the right house , at the right time .
To do as she pleased .
To fall and not have to climb .

What terrifies Happy Sams is sound .
His own voice , shrill and high .
And the new talking movies
that threaten his silent career
at Warner Brothers in 1929 .
So he changes his style ,
chatters and shrieks ,
wears pinstripes and hat .
Makes movies with Garbo and Harlow
and somehow remains at the top .

Enter Happy's third wife , highly-bred Mary Ellen .
Through the thirties to the fifties ,
an ideal movieland couple ,
a match that appeared made in heaven .
But Happy had secrets that he kept well hidden .
Until Mary Ellen unearthed skulls in the garden
and Happy resorted again to unlawful killing .
The coroner said his wife died from a stroke ,
but the old party circuit were sick of the joke .
Happy just turned on the sprinklers
and smoked another expensive cigar .
Some men are born lucky .
And some never are .

1975 and Happy recieves an Honorary Oscar .
He does the old comedy routine for the crowd .
Watching him is his young wife , Yvonne , 29 .
Prostate cancer had rendered him impotent .
Yvonne was young and beautiful , quite divine .
Happy was beyond 70 , running out of time .
By 1986 he's in a wheelchair
and suffering from severe emphysema .
Yvonne suffocates him one sunny afternoon ,
kisses him farewell ,
calls him her old dreamer .
The obituaries called him a star .
Yvonne got one hundred million dollars .
The tables got turned
on the old killer schemer .

Eve runs her hands over the old photographs .
She was one of Happy's women
in another life .
A hooker with a gag in her mouth ,
or a fresh faced wife ,
sitting next to Clark Gable at a party ,
wearing a ruby brooch and a silk turban ,
being watched by Happy ,
and paying the price for certain .

You can own whatever you want .
It's yours for the taking .
For fifty years or two hours .
You can take someone elses life
and bury them amongst the flowers .
And no one will care .
There will always be someone
who knows more about you
than you thought possible .
You will never meet them .
But they will know .
Everything .