Monthly Archives: Sep 2023

This is not an answer to the question “why do girls leave home,” but an attempt to analyse Rudolph Valentino, the screen’s most popular lover. This London interview with the beloved Rudolph gives you an unconventional pen-picture of the man whose charm has been described as “irresistible” by feminine picturegoers all the world over.  Once upon a time there was a man named Job who had a pretty rough passage through this vale of tears.  Job, as you remember, was a patient man.  Sarcastic women will tell you that he is the _only_ patient man in the history of the world.  I disagree.  In my time I have met a large number of patient men, but without any hesitation I award the palm of patience to a man I met to-day.  His name is Rudolph Valentino.When a celebrity comes to London, journalists foregather in his vicinity like flies round a honeypot.  If he is good “copy,” he has to stand and deliver.  There is no escape.  Clever people can dodge bloodhounds and it is possible to deceive a police officer; but the copy-hound will get you every time. In a reception room on the first floor at the Carlton I found Rudolph Valentino entirely surrounded by copy-hounds.  I recognised the old familiar bark: “And what do you think of England and the English people?” before the door opened to admit me into the presence of the man who rules the raves.  A moment later I was shaking hands with a dark man of strikingly handsome aspect, who wore a magnificent dressing-gown over purple pyjamas, and sported rings on his fingers and red Russian-leather slippers on his toes.  There is no denying that the man is devilish good looking, but if he carries the conceit that usually goes with good looks he dissembles very cleverly.  For he is quiet and shy and sensible with not so much as a ha’porth of side about him.  Also, as you shall learn hereafter, he is about the most patient thing that ever happened.    For three days and three nights life for Valentino had been one question after another.  Yet when I met him on the fourth day of his visit he was as bland and smiling as the man who says, “Yes, we have no bananas.”  But the burden of Rudolph’s song was, “No, I can’t tell you anything about London.  I haven’t seen it yet.”Then where _have_ you been?” I inquired.  “Here,” said Rudolph Valentino.  “Here in this hotel answering questions.  And the telephone.  And letters. I’ve had to engage a secretary to look after the correspondence.  See that pile there?  Girls write and say: “Please may I see you and bring your mother and father.  Now what.”Ting-a-ling! He hasn’t had a minute’s peace, said Personal Representative Robert Florey, a very tall and very polite young Frenchman.  “He came here for a holiday, and “Of course I am delighted with all your kindness, ” said Rudolph Valentino, returning from the ‘phone.  “It is splendid of you to give such a reception to a foreigner. Now if only.”A new journalist stepped into the room, crossed the floor and fixed Rudolph with a glittering eye.  “Tell me,”said he, “what do you think of London?  And do you like the English girls?”   Rudolph Valentino still smiled. “Yes, I am on a holiday,” he told me when we got together again five minutes later.  “A few days in London, then Paris, and then a motor trip to Nice.  Afterwards I am going to my home after an absence of ten years.  It will be.”Ting-a-ling!    Rudolph Valentino lifted the telephone receiver with one hand and held out the other to the latest visitant from the Street of Ink. “Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Valentino,” said the new arrival. “How do you like London, and what do you think of the English people?”    Some minutes afterwards I got Rudolph into a corner and asked him to autograph some pictures for me.  I noticed that he signed himself Rudolph Valentino.  I suppose he ought to know, but most people spell it Rodolph or Rodolf these days.”I owe my introduction to the movies to Norman Kerry,” he told me. “We shared a flat together during my dancing days.  He taught me a lot about America, and it was on his advice that I tried for a film engagement.  At first, I played a number of minor roles.  One of my early pictures was “Out of Luck” with Dorothy Gish, but I was not at home in comedy.  Being a distinct Latin type I did not shine in American roles, and I did not get a real chance until “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”  As Julio I “Excuse me, Mr. Valentino,” broke in Robert Florey at this juncture. “This gentleman from the ‘Weekly Guzzle’ would like to meet you. “How are you, Mr. Valentino?” said the gentleman from the “Weekly Guzzle.”  “I suppose you will be settling down in London by now.  How do you like it and what do you think of the English people?”    Sometime afterwards Valentino told me: “I was in New York when I received a telegram from Rex Ingram and June Mathis asking if I would go to Hollywood to play the part of Julio Desnoyers in “The Four Horsemen.”  I telegraphed an acceptance and set out for the Coast at once.  It was June Mathis, the scenarist who recommended me for the role, and the telegram was the turning point in my career.  I worked very hard because I made up my mind to succeed now that my chance had come.  Apart from my acting I helped Mr. Ingram to direct the big crowd scenes and I coached the crowds in the tango palace episodes.  I tried “Ting-a-ling!  After the interval, I tried to get Valentino to talk about the ladies. The man who has fluttered more feminine hearts than any hero of the age should be worth listening to on this subject.  But all he would tell me was: “A woman is always a woman, whether she wears a straw skirt or a Paquin gown.” Maybe that is why Rudolph is loved by the ladies from Kew to Khatmandu.  The screen’s most perfect lover understands feminine psychology. In between telephone calls and visitations, Rudolph told me something of his early career.  When he arrived in New York at the age of eighteen, he could speak very little English and for some time he had a very rough passage as a stranger in a strange land.  His first job in America was as a landscape gardener, but it didn’t last long enough to yield him any tangible benefit.  So being something of a tango expert he set out to make a living as a professional dancer.  He made a living all right, but there was nothing luxurious about it. Indeed, for many months Rudolph was perilously near starvation on more than one occasion.  After dancing his way along the road to fame without getting any appreciably nearer to his goal, Rodolph started again as an actor.  This time he travelled some distance, –all the way to Salt Lake City with a touring company in fact–but the show went bust, and, with it, Rudolph’s hopes.  In 1917 played his first speaking part, when he appeared with Richard Dix in a play called “Nobody Home.”  Still success refused to smile upon him, and after trying in vain to enlist in the Italian, Canadian and British armies, Rudolph began to think that fortune had a grudge against him. There followed a period of hard-luck days before Rudolph took his first chance with the movies.  Some of his earlier picture efforts were “The Married Virgin,” “The Delicious Little Devil” (with Mae Murray), “Eyes of Youth” (with Clara Kembill-Young), “Ambition” (with Dorothy Phillips) and “The Cheater” (with May Allison).  Most of all, Rudolph Valentino hates to be looked upon as a lounge lizard type of man.  He is debonair to a degree, but there is nothing effeminate about him.  Amongst other things he is a skilled horseman and is looking forward to hunting in this country later in the year. The above brief sketch of Rudolph’s career will show you that he has known a good deal of the seamy side of life.  Although he made a record jump from the bottom of Fame’s ladder, the success he enjoys to-day is by way of compensation for his sufferings of yesterday.  Most people, when their luck changes so rapidly, put on airs and lose their mental balance.  People who have known Rudolph from the beginning of his screen career assert that he hasn’t changed at all, which is a pretty high tribute to his strength of character. Wherein lies the secret of Rudolph’s wonderful power over the hearts of film fans.  I have but put the question to a number of feminine friends and all returned different answers.  “He looks so _thoroughly_ wicked,” one told me.  “He is so adorably handsome,” said another.  “He is a wonderful actor, and that’s why,” explained a third, whilst a fourth murmured mysteriously: “It’s his eyes!”  Rudolph’s eyes are of very dark brown, and his raven hair fairly gleams in the light.  His complexion is swarthy, and he has a well-knit frame suggestive of strength.  He speaks in a very quiet musical voice with very little trace of a foreign accent.  He is neither voluble nor given to gesture, and during the time I was with him he betrayed no traces of excitement.  The ‘phone bell rang with steady persistency every other minute, and eager interviewers filed in and out to ask him what he thought of London.  But Rudolph came through it all with a smiling face. His patience seemed inexhaustible.  Rudolph Valentino hopes to be back in movie harness again by the autumn when his legal battles will be settled.  Rudolph is out to raise the standard of the movies for he holds that screen art is being ruined by commercialism at the present time.  “The right to strike” applies to screen stars in Valentino’s opinion, and so he struck. He gave me a scathing denunciation of the methods of American moviemakers. “There is graft all the way through,” said Rudolph, “and it is graft that helps to destroy artistic effect.  Here’s just one example the art or technical director in the production of a photoplay selects the costumes, settings and the properties, which is to say, he creates the atmosphere for the picture.  A scene, for example, which calls for a Louis XVI setting demands furniture and other decorations of that period.  Selecting and arranging these articles is the work of the art director.  These properties are rented from firms who make a specialty of that business. “Now producing companies’ managers frequently form a combination with these rental firms, which work out in this way when a picture is made.  The technical directors are given a list of stores from which they are compelled to make their art selections, regardless of whether the proper goods are obtainable in them.  If a Louis XVI setting is desired, perhaps one couch or chair of that particular period can be found in the favoured stores.  Selections cannot be made from firms other than those on the list and manufacture of them is out of the question, because of the cost.  The art directors go to the manager in dismay, and he says, “Use anything, what does the public know about it?”  Their alibi is always that the public cannot tell the difference anyway.  The secret is that the listed stores charge the producers double rental prices, one-half of which goes to the grafting manager.  “If a rug of particular pattern could be rented at a store not on the list for twenty dollars, a rug of much less value to the picture would have to be selected at a listed store for fifty dollars, the difference going to graft.  There is no freedom anywhere.  The men who head the different departments under the art director, such as the electricians, carpenters, etc., all artists in their line, are frequently replaced by others with no qualifications, but who are friends of the manager, his wife’s brother, or his cousin Willie, and so on. “At this juncture Valentino was called away to the telephone again, and I prepared to take my leave.  “I’m sorry we were interrupted so often,” he told me at parting.  “We must meet again for a quiet chat.  Don’t forget to tell the English picturegoers how grateful I am to them for their reception of myself. “On my way down the stairs I met a man who looked uncommonly like a journalist.  “Is that Mr. Valentino’s room?” he asked.    I acquiesced and stood for a moment whilst the inquirer vanished through the doorway.  In that moment I heard a mellow voice beginning: “tell me, what do you think of London, like Pontius Pilate, I paused not for the answer.  I knew it already. Also, I know that I am backing Rudolph Valentino for the Patience Stakes.  I reckon he can give Job a couple of stone and lose him over any distance.