Biography

On independence day 1924, the Duncan Sisters Vivian and Rosetta, their brother Harold, cousin Antoinette Boots and their secretary Peggy Ridgway were returning from the Hawthorne race track when they were stopped by police in Cicero, Illinois for a traffic infraction. A police Sergeant, Charles Steinke took them to a station house, where Harold, accompanied by Vivian, was booked. Waiting in the car outside, Rosetta laughed at two of the cops sitting in chairs with their coats off, like small-town idlers at a general store. Officers Delaney and Whitlock noticed Rosetta kidding around and apparently not affording them their deserved amount of respect, asked "What're yez laughin' at?" To which Rosetta replied "Nothing much!" The police then threatened to run her in, too, but she told them they couldn't as they'd done nothing wrong, but Whitlock pulled her out of the car onto the sidewalk, and joined by the other cops, proceeded to beat her bloody with clubs, and striking Harold in the eye when he tried to intervene. Both were then hurled into a cell. Rosetta was left with a cracked rib, split lip, various scratches and a broken nose that a plastic surgeon later repaired with some cartilage from another rib. Put in a jail cell, Rosetta threatened to call the Mayor's wife, whom she knew, and the brutal cops swiftly backed down and let them go.

On 15 July, a Chicago court fined her $1 and $5 costs on a disorderly conduct charge, and Harold fined $2 and $5 costs after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct and the the violation of the automobile ordinance.

But far from letting it go, insult to injury followed on 17 July, when Edward J. Carmody, the town attorney for Cicero filed six damage suits charging assault and slander for $10,000 each against Rosetta and her brother Harold on behalf of police Chief Theodore Svoboda. But the Duncans' claims had enough weight that on 30 July, a grand jury indictment caused the arrest of Svoboda and policemen Delancey and Mondick on 22 August by Evanston Magistrate Henry Williams.

Interred at Forest Lawn (Glendale), Glendale, California, USA, in the Whispering Pines section, right next to the Finding of Moses statue/pond.

Entered films in 1926.

Sister of Vivian Duncan and Evelyn Duncan.

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. Pg. 144-145 (article "The Duncan Sisters"). New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387