BIRTH OF RUDOLPH VALENTINO
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d”Antonguella, was born in Castellaneta, Apulia, Italy on 6th May 1895.
While he would become an American movie star, as the legendary Rudolf Valentino, he would always remain true to his Italian heritage.
All through his childhood, people would comment on Rudolph’s natural good looks and infectious charm, but these qualities came with a price….
While his mother would treat him like an angel who could do no wrong, the relationship with his father would be far different.
Not only would his father, who as a former captain in the Italian Army, disapprove of the way that his mother was raising their child, but he often thought of his son as a “sissy,” driving a wedge in the family relationship.
Little did his father know, just how big a legend, his son would become!
At the age of eighteen, Rudolph would chase his dreams all the way to the United States, landing at Ellis Island on December 23rd, 1913.
With fame and fortune on his mind, he stayed in New York City, but his childhood practice of relying on charm to get out of things, didn’t help with finding work.
He ended up waiting tables at a midtown establishment called Murray’s.
As he had never really learned how to work hard, he would soon be fired for not doing the job.
Luckily for him, the staff had succumbed to the famous Valentino charm – and would continue to feed him when he was forced to live on the streets.
Rudolph would soon find a job working for a man named Joe Pani, who owned a number of different dance halls and cabarets.
While he was being paid $50 a week to dance the tango and entertain clients, Valentino would take this opportunity to perfect his skills of seduction – learning the desires and fantasies of females.
Valentino then left New York for the West Coast.
Valentino reached his goal of Los Angeles, becoming a lowly dance instructor, as a method of making ends meet.
While the job didn’t pay well, it did provide him the opportunity to become acquainted with a number of wealthy, older women.
As a result of these ‘friendships’, Valentino would find himself with access to their luxury automobiles, and various other ‘benefits’.
Valentino was still in search of trying to make it big as an actor.
Thanks to his stunning looks and charm, jobs would be made available to him, just not necessarily the ones that he was looking for.
His exotic look, with dark hair, piercing eyes, and complexion, was the exact opposite of the stereotypical look that producers were seeking for in their leading actors.
He found himself confined to the roles of villain or gangster.
However, it wouldn’t be long until his luck changed, and new casting opportunities would be made available.
While en-route to film another movie, Valentino stopped in at Metro Studio’s office.
It was here, he found out that screenwriter June Mathis, had actually been looking for him.
Having seen his previous work, she wanted to cast him to play the role of Julio Desnoyer, one of the leading characters in the film, ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.
This was the big break that Valentino was looking for, but while it helped make him a star, it wasn’t as glamorous, or smooth-sailing, as Valentino hoped it would be.
Valentino’s time on the set of ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ was not as he had envisioned.
He was already making a reputation for himself, as being difficult to work with.
He ended up having a huge row with the director.
Metro studio also refused to give him a raise, despite the film earning $1 million.
Adding insult to injury, they even made him pay for his own costumes from the wardrobe department!
Although ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ would go on to become one of the best silent films of all time, it was clear that Metro Studio wasn’t grateful for the work that Valentino put in.
Worried about his bad reputation, the studio decided he wasn’t ready to be their star, and so next cast him in a B-movie.
Valentino then severed ties with Metro studio and joined up with ‘Famous Players-Lasky’ the predecessor to the current-day Paramount Pictures, who gave him the hope of bigger parts, and bigger paydays.
In his first film with the company, Valentino would play the role of Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan, in the 1921 movie, ‘The Sheik’.
Ahead of his time, and the studio portrayal of non-White characters, Valentino made efforts to play his role differently than how it was written, as a stereotypical “Arab” male.
He later said,
“People are not savages because they have dark
skins.
The Arabian civilization is one of the oldest in the
world.
The Arabs are dignified and keen-brained.”
Following the hugely successful release of ‘The Sheik’, numerous men would mirror Valentino’s sultry look.
The slick and styled hairdo, swanky clothes, jewellery, and the way that Valentino carried himself – men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him.
Rudolph Valentino had finally made it!
Despite being one of the most successful actors and a worldwide sex symbol, Valentino had his own share of insecurities.
While ladies everywhere were throwing themselves at him, and men tried to look like him, he was still bothered by the fact that some men criticized his “effeminate” brand of masculinity.
A newspaper report even said that Valentino ‘acts like a big pink powder puff’
Although the “Latin Lover”, a nickname given to him by movie studios, gave off the impression that he was a suave and sophisticated ladies man – Valentino stated that his off-screen love life, was actually far from what was portrayed to the public on screen.
During one interview, Valentino stated that
“The women I love don’t love me.
The others don’t matter.”
Despite the sex symbol having multiple lovers and wives during his lifetime, Valentino confessed that he was often unhappy in love.
The media maintained that the “Latin Lover” was a really a closet homosexual, mainly due to his choice of style and refined tastes.
Whispers and rumours had him romantically linked to various men.
The tales told by his female lovers, that he had lacked interest in having sex with them, only helped fuel the fire.
While there were reports that Valentino had male lovers, including two of his roommates, there was no concrete proof of his actual sexual preference.
The summer of 1926, would find Valentino in the prime of his career.
Money, success, women, adoring fans – he had it all.
But it all came to an end on August 15th 1926, when he collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York, and was rushed to the New York Polyclinic Hospital.
It would be there, that Rudolph would find that he was suffering from perforated ulcers, and a ruptured appendix.
Although his medical staff had hoped he would recover from the routine surgery, his health would deteriorate further, and he would develop pleuritis in his lungs.
Despite the fact that he was near to death, Valentino was himself to the end.
At one point, the actor turned to his medical staff and asked,
“And now do I act like a pink powder puff?”
The doctor, knowing that Valentino was not going to live much longer, responded with a reply,
“That he was actually braver than most.”
Valentino always thought that he was going to survive.
He even told his medical staff of all his plans, once he left the hospital.
Unfortunately, he would never see these plans come to fruition.
According to those that were with him at the time, his final words were,
” Don’t pull down the blinds.
I feel fine.
I want the sunlight to greet me.”
Valentino then went into a coma, and never woke.
The great ‘latin lover’ died on the 23rd August 1926, he was just 31 years old.
Upon word of his death, the floodgates of emotional responses, came from his fans.
People littered the streets sobbing in grief at a level that had never been seen before.
During Valentino’s funeral, which he had requested be public, over 100,000 mourners were in attendance, paying their respects to the fallen star.
At one point, a riot broke out, injuring over 100 attendees.
Windows were smashed, as mourners frantically tried to get their glimpse at the coffin of the legend of the silent screen.
Numerous tales of suicide took place, as fans followed their Hollywood hero, into the darkness…..
For years following his death, an unknown veiled female would arrive at his gravesite on the anniversary of his passing, and place a single red rose on his grave.
Eventually it was revealed that whilst he was still alive, Valentino had himself, orchestrated the whole stunt.
Proving that Rudolph Valentino, ever the diva, continued to be larger-than-life, even from the after-life…
🖤 Rudolph Valentino in ‘The Sheik’ 1921.