Rudolph Valentino

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Rudolph Valentino
Born May 6, 1895
Castellaneta, Italy
Died August 23, 1926
New York City, New York, USA

Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor. Nicknamed "The Great Latin Lover", he was one of the first true male movie sex symbols. [citation needed]


Contents

[edit] Childhood and youth

Rudolph Valentino
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Rudolph Valentino

He was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy, to a middle-class family - the same year (1895) as the invention of the cinema. His mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin (1856–1919), was French, and his father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fidele Guglielmi (1853–1906), a veterinarian, was Italian. He had an older brother, Alberto (1892–1981), a younger sister Maria and an older sister Beatrice who died in infancy.

[edit] New York

In 1913 he left for the United States, following the advice of his friend Domenico Savino. He arrived in New York City on Christmas Day, 1913. After exhausting a small family legacy, he endured a spell of poverty during which he supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing tables in restaurants, and gardening.

Eventually he found work as a taxi dancer and instructor, and later as an exhibition dancer. He gained attention for his rendition of the Argentine tango.

[edit] Hollywood and first marriage

Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah where it disbanded. From there he traveled to San Francisco where he met the actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, still in the silent movie era.

In 1919, after small parts in a dozen films (in which he typically played "heavies" and gangsters), he married Jean Acker, a part-Cherokee film starlet (who was later revealed to be a lesbian). Their marriage was rumored to have never been consummated - Acker reportedly locked him out of their hotel room on their wedding night - and despite Valentino's efforts at a reconciliation, the two separated shortly afterward, and were divorced in 1922.

[edit] The Sheik

Valentino with the Arabian Stallion Jadaan. Publicity photo for Son of the Sheik, 1926
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Valentino with the Arabian Stallion Jadaan. Publicity photo for Son of the Sheik, 1926
Rudolf and Natacha, his second wife. Portrait by James Abbe.
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Rudolf and Natacha, his second wife. Portrait by James Abbe.

Valentino met screenwriter June Mathis who had been impressed by his role as a "cabaret parasite" in The Eyes of Youth. She suggested to the director Rex Ingram that Valentino be cast as one of the male leads in his next film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Released in 1921, the film was a commercial and critical success, and made Valentino a star. It also led to his iconic role in The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik.


[edit] Second marriage

Valentino first had sex with Natacha Rambova (a costume designer and art director who was a protégé and possibly the lover of actress Alla Nazimova), on the set of Uncharted Seas in 1921. The two also worked together on the Nazimova production of Camille, by which time they were romantically involved. They married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico. This resulted in Valentino being jailed for bigamy, since his divorce from Acker was not finalized; California law at the time required that divorcing couples wait a full year before remarrying. Valentino and Rambova remarried a year later.

Blood and Sand, released in 1922, and co-starring Lila Lee and the popular silent screen vamp Nita Naldi, further established Valentino as the leading male star of his time. However, in 1923, a dispute with Paramount Pictures resulted in an injunction which prohibited Valentino from making films with other producers. To ensure that his name remained in the public eye, Valentino, following the suggestion of his manager George Ullman, embarked on a national dance tour, sponsored by a cosmetics company, Mineralava, with Rambova, a former ballerina, as his partner.

During this time he also traveled to Europe and had a memorable visit to his native town. Back in the United States, he was criticized by his fans for his newly cultivated beard and was forced to shave it off.

In New York City on May 14, 1923, he made his first and last record, consisting of "Valentino's renditions" of Amy Woodforde-Finden's Kashmiri Song featured in The Sheik and Jose Padilla's "El Relicario," used in Blood and Sand.

[edit] United Artists

In 1925, Valentino was able to negotiate a new contract with United Artists which included the stipulation that his wife not be allowed on any of his movie sets (it was perceived that her presence had delayed earlier productions such as Monsieur Beaucaire). He separated from Rambova shortly afterwards and had an affair with the Polish actress, Pola Negri.

During this time he made two of his most critically acclaimed and successful films, The Eagle, based on a story by Alexander Pushkin, and The Son of the Sheik, a sequel to The Sheik, both co-starring the popular Hungarian-born actress, Vilma Bánky (with whom he had a brief relationship prior to his involvement with Negri).

[edit] Chicago Tribune episode

In July of 1926, Valentino was attacked in an anonymous editorial published by the Chicago Tribune in which the author, incensed by a powder dispenser he had seen in a men's public washroom, blamed him for the supposed feminization of the American male. Furious, Valentino responded with a challenge to a boxing match that went unanswered. Shortly afterwards, Valentino met for dinner with the famed journalist H.L. Mencken for advice on how best to deal with the public slur. Mencken later professed that he found Valentino to be likable and gentlemanly and wrote sympathetically of him in an article published in Photoplay some months after Valentino's death.

[edit] Death

On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City. He was hospitalised at the Polyclinic in New York and underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. The surgery went well and he seemed to be recovering when peritonitis set in and spread throughout his body. He died eight days later, at the age of 31.

[edit] Funeral

An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York City to pay their respects at his funeral, handled by the Frank Campbell Funeral Home. The event was a drama itself: windows were smashed as fans tried to get in and Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini, but which later turned out to have been a publicity stunt.

His funeral Mass in New York was celebrated at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, often called "The Actor's Chapel," as it is located on West 49th Street in the Broadway theater district, and has a long association with show business figures. Actress Pola Negri collapsed in hysterics while hovering over the coffin.

After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd, and his remains were interred in the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now the Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, California.

[edit] Trivia

Falcon Lair
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Falcon Lair
  • His Beverly Hills mansion, called Falcon Lair, was later owned by heiress Doris Duke until she died there in 1993. (As of August 2006, Falcon Lair is slated for demolition).
  • To this day many fans, some dressed as sheiks, flappers or women in black, make an annual pilgrimage on the day of Valentino's death to his crypt at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
  • For several years, on the anniversary of his death, a woman dressed in black was seen laying flowers on his grave. Some believe that she was Pola Negri or Ditra Flamé (who claimed Valentino had boarded with her family during his early days in New York). After a few years, she revealed that Valentino visited her when she was an ill little girl. He promised her that she'd get through it and, possibly, live longer than him. Since then, there have been several Women in Black.
  • An animal lover and owner of several dogs and horses, Valentino had an Irish Wolfhound named 'Centaur Pendragon' and a Great Dane named 'Kabar.'
  • The American author John Dos Passos describes Valentino's youth, career, death and funeral in a chapter called "The Adagio Dancer" in his novel The Big Money.
  • Valentino's name become associated with a scandal following Blanca de Saulles' shooting of her husband Jack de Saulles who was having an on again, off again affair de coeur with Joan Sawyer, Valentino's dancing partner. Valentino was not in any way involved with the shooting itself, but earlier, when Blanca de Saulles was seeking a divorce from her husband, Valentino had agreed to provide proof in court that Joan Sawyer was having an adulterous relationship with Jack de Saulles. Valentino may have been in love with Blanca de Saulles, but there is no evidence that she returned his feelings or that they ever had a relationship. It is believed by some that, in retaliation, Jacques de Saulles arranged for Valentino to be arrested at a brothel a few blocks from where he was staying. Although Blanca de Saulles was eventually acquitted, Valentino was embarrassed by the publicity surrounding the case (it was even made into a movie called Woman and the Law) and left New York City. Some years later, when Valentino returned to New York, he tried to contact Blanca de Saulles, but she refused to see or talk to him.
  • Valentino was paired with actress Nita Naldi in three films: 1922's Blood and Sand, 1924's A Sainted Devil, and 1925's Cobra. He was also to have co-starred with her in The Hooded Falcon (1924), but this film was never completed.
  • Valentino's nephew Jean Valentino (1914-1996), of whom he was very fond, grew up to become a successful Hollywood sound engineer, working on both movies and television programs such as The Twilight Zone, Petticoat Junction and Quincy. He won an Emmy in 1971.
  • "Sheik" brand condoms, introduced onto the market in the 1930's, were named after Valentino's most famous role and for years featured Valentino's silhouette on the packaging.
  • He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by the noted caricaturist of more than 70 years, Al Hirschfeld.
  • In 2004 Beyond the Rocks, a Valentino film co-starring Gloria Swanson and believed to have been lost, was rediscovered in a private collection in the Netherlands. It was screened for the first time in over 80 years at the Cannes film festival in May 2005.

[edit] Pop culture references

  • Valentino has been referenced in many pop songs, including "Right Before My Eyes" by Ian Thomas, "Manic Monday" by The Bangles, "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" by Queen, "Life Sized Marilyn Monroe" (1993) by Wild Strawberries, "Celluloid Heroes" by The Kinks, and "Better Off Without a Wife" by Tom Waits.
  • The song Long Black Veil is partly inspired by the mysterious veiled woman who regularly visited his grave.
  • In 1979 the writers of the Mexican film of Muñecas de medianoche mentioned that Gina, the main female character of the film (played beautifully by Sasha Montenegro) has been in love with Rudolph Valentino since she was 14 years old. Towards the film's end, the hero of the film Raphael (Jorge Rivero) comes into Gina's bedroom dressed up as Valentino in A Sainted Devil; he makes love to Gina who still thinks that she is in a dream.
  • The new short film "Days Dreams of Rudolph Valentino"( with Russian actor Vladislav Kozlov as Rudolph Valentino) was presented at Hollywood Forever cemetery on August 23, 2006, marking the 80th anniversary of Rudolph Valentino's death.

[edit] Films about Valentino

The life of Rudolph Valentino has been filmed a number of times for television and the big screen. The most notable of these biopics is Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), in which Valentino is portrayed by Rudolf Nureyev. An earlier feature film about Valentino's life, also called Valentino, was released in 1951. It was directed by Lewis Allen and starred Anthony Dexter as Valentino.

There are rumors that Warner Brothers plans to film a biopic of Valentino's career, his marriages, and his battles with the press. Called Rudolph, it has been mentioned that several actors like Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Wilmer Valderrama are lobbying for the role.[citation needed]

[edit] Rumors

  • Algonquin Round Table writer Robert Benchley was said to have wound up with Valentino's top hat as he assisted the stricken Valentino into an ambulance.
  • Court documents are said to exist from his time in New York City indicating that he was held as a material witness in the aftermath of a raid on a brothel but was released afterwards and never charged with any crime.
  • There is no evidence that he was ever a "petty thief" nor a gigolo as is sometimes claimed in some reference works.
  • There were rumors that he had died from: aluminium poisoning after eating food prepared in aluminum cookware, illegal medicine taken to treat his receding hairline, or a gunshot wound to the stomach inflicted by a jealous husband.
  • There is an urban legend that in the funeral home a wax effigy of Valentino was displayed rather than the actual body to protect it from frenzied mourners.
  • Over the years several women have claimed to have borne children fathered by Valentino, but none of these claims have ever been verified. The best-known of these women was Marion Benda (not to be confused with the Marion Benda who married Zeppo Marx), a Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl who dated Valentino shortly before his death. She maintained that she and Valentino were the parents of two children, but was later diagnosed as being delusional.
  • There are rumors that Valentino was bisexual or homosexual (and that he entered into a lavender marriage with both Acker and Rambova), but evidence is lacking that would either confirm or disprove them.
  • His studio continued to receive fan mail well into the 1930s, and, presaging similar rumors about the American rock and roll legend Elvis Presley, there was even talk that Valentino was not dead at all but had faked his demise to escape the pressures of stardom.

[edit] Quotations

"Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas on which women paint their dreams."

[edit] Filmography

Valentino was also supposed to have acted, at the beginning of his career, in the following films:

  • The Battle of the Sexes (1914)

Other names by which he was known:

  • Rudolph DeValentino
  • M. De Valentina
  • M. Rodolfo De Valentina
  • M. Rodolpho De Valentina
  • R. De Valentina
  • Rodolfo di Valentina
  • Rudolpho De Valentina
  • Rudolpho di Valentina
  • Rudolpho Valentina
  • Rodolph Valentine
  • Rudolpho De Valentine
  • Rudolph Valentine
  • Rodolfo di Valentini
  • Rodolph Valentino
  • Rudi Valentino
  • Rudolfo Valentino
  • Rudolf Valentino
  • Rudolph Volantino

[edit] Further reading

  • Emily Leider (2003), Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino, (ISBN 0-374-28239-0).
  • Jeanine Basinger (1999), chapter on Valentino in Silent Stars, (ISBN 0-8195-6451-6).

[edit] Selected coverage in the New York Times

  • New York Times; July 21, 1926. Rudolph Valentino arrived here yesterday from Chicago indignant at an editorial which appeared in The Chicago Tribune Sunday, entitled "Pink Powder Puffs," and vowing to return there next Monday or Tuesday to whip the man who wrote it.
  • New York Times; August 16, 1926. Rudolph Valentino, noted screen star, collapsed suddenly yesterday in his apartment at the Hotel Ambassador. Several hours later he underwent operations for a gastric ulcer and appendicitis.
  • New York Times; August 21, 1926. Rudolph Valentino, screen star, who is recovering at the Polyclinic Hospital from operations for appendicitis and gastric ulcer, felt so much better yesterday that he asked to be taken to his hotel. His request was promptly vetoed by the attending physicians, who told the patient that he would not be allowed to sit up in bed for several days.
  • New York Times; August 22, 1926. Rudolph Valentino, motion picture actor, who underwent a double operation for acute appendicitis and gastric ulcers at the Polyclinic Hospital last Sunday, took a turn for the worse yesterday. His surgeons found that he had developed pleurisy in the left chest. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon the patient's temperature rose to 104.2.
  • New York Times; August 23, 1926. The condition of Rudolph Valentino, motion picture actor, grew more critical yesterday, and the three doctors who have been attending him at the Polyclinic Hospital since he underwent a double operation for acute appendicitis and gastric ulcers called in a fourth.
  • New York Times; August 24, 1926. Rudolph Valentino, motion picture actor, died at 12:10, yesterday afternoon, at the Polyclinic Hospital where he had undergone a double operation for acute appendicitis and gastric ulcers on Aug. 15. He was thirty-one. His youthfulness and rugged constitution aided him in making a valiant fight even after his five doctors had given up hope.
  • New York Times; August 27, 1926. The public was barred yesterday from the bier of Rudolph Valentine, motion picture actor, because of the irreverence of the thousands who had filed past the coffin in the Campbell Funeral Church, Broadway and Sixty-sixth Street, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
  • New York Times; September 4, 1926. A letter from Dr. Harold E. Meeker, the surgeon who operated on and attended Rudolph Valentino during the illness preceding his death, to S. George Ullman, the dead actor's friend and manager, describing in technical detail the steps of diagnosis, operation and treatment, was made public last night by Dr. Sterling C. Wyman of 556 Crown Street, Brooklyn, Pola Negri's physician.
  • New York Times; September 9, 1926. Los Angeles, California; September 8, 1926. Rudolph Valentino's will, disposing of property which may amount to more than $1,000,000, became public tonight, in advance of being offered for probate here tomorrow. The instrument provided a great surprise, evento lifetime confidants of the dead moving picture star, in that it shared the actor's estate in equal thirds among his brother, Alberto Guglielmi of Rome, who is ...
  • New York Times; September 10, 1926. Los Angeles, California; September 9, 1926. A contest over the "surprise" will of Rudolph Valentino was being considered tonight, it was admitted by Milton Cohen, Los Angeles attorney, who declared that he had been retained to represent Alberto and Maria Guglielmi, brother and sister of the screen star.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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