Posts Tagged With: Rudolph Valentino
1940’s – Villa Valentino Whitley Heights
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Tags: Rudolph Valentino, Villa Valentino, Whitley Heights
29 Nov 1940 – Shocking
Millions of Rudolph Valentino fans were shocked when his manager George Ullman admitted, during a law suit that he had hired 40 press agents and 1500 policemen to dramatize the star’s funeral.
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Tags: George Ullman, Rudolph Valentino
3 Nov 1926- The Secrets of Valentinos Last Romance
A cat may look at the Queen but a little chorus girl even though she may be one of Ziegfeld’s most glorified may not publicly make indiscreet remarks about a great movie star. This Marion Kay Benda, one of the follies beauties, discovered when, in an interview given immediately after the death of Rudolph Valentino she said “He was not engaged to marry Miss Negri, you’ll notice all the statements have come from her. He never denied any of them because he was too fine. He did think a great deal of her, but he had absolutely no intention of marrying her. I know. He often, in my presence, refused to speak to her on long distance telephone calls. “No one knew him as I did. He was the most wonderful person I have ever known. I can’t believe that he is dead. He was so fine, so wonderful, so sincere, and I know he liked me very much. He couldn’t stand “rounder’s” and his ideals were of the highest. In every sense of the word he was an artist.” A rumor was circulating at that time that Miss Benda and Valentino were secretly married a few weeks before, this the show girl denied. “Oh those things always are said” she complained. “People cannot understand being simply good friends. I’ve known Mr. Valentino for four weeks and I saw him a great deal. Often we hired a cab and drove through Central Park after the show and then there were early morning walks and talks.” It was in the company of Miss Benda that Valentino attended his last social evening. The two of them, accompanied by Buzz Warburton, jr. went to Texas Guinn’s Night Club on the evening preceding the star’s fatal operation. During Valentino’s illness there was a long procession of greater and lesser lights of the theatrical world calling at the hospital and leaving flowers, but all visitors were denied admittance to the sickroom. And it wasn’t of his companions in the night clubs and after-theater suppers that Rudolph spoke when he was strong enough to talk but of his friends in the movie world. Welcome enough, then, were the tempestuous Polish star’s long-distance telephone calls. The little chorus girl who believes that “no one knew him as I knew him” was evidently quite forgotten. Her change as a protégé of the famous sheik had been snatched from her, and the limelight of public interest shone on her only for a moment and then promptly turned in another direction. Stars in the movie world are the “clannish” on earth. They have their scraps and jealousies, rivalries and revenges in private life, just like other folks, but it is an unwritten law that those shall never be divulged for publication. One great consolation Miss Negri has, and that is that it was her image which floated across the mind of Valentino the last moment before he lost conscious contact with life. Dawn was just breaking in the sky when Dr. Meeker noticed that his patient was trying to say something. After a night of agony he was too weak to raise his voice above a whisper. The doctor placed his ear near the dying star’s lips and just managed to catch the words “Pola, Pola” if she does not come in time…tell her I think of her. Those were the last words Valentino uttered in English. From that time on, until he passed away at midday, delirium and coma alternated, and all the incoherent remarks which passed his lips were in the old mother tongue. This message was relayed by Dr. Meeker to Mary Pickford and from her to Norma Talmadge. The Polish actress received it in the Campbell undertaking rooms at the funeral of Valentino began. There was so much talk about whether Pola and Rudy were or were not engaged that finally the star herself denied it. “We were not formally betrothed,” she gave out the statement while enroute to Hollywood on the funeral train. “Rudy never believed in formal engagements neither do I”. “The reason the betrothal was never announced was that Rudy thought such an arrangement appeared too businesslike a proposition, and I agreed with him.” We frequently discussed our marriage plans for next April, and our closest friends knew of them. We thought our private lives belonged to us, and we did not want to make publicity of it. In a very clever composition contained in a book of poems in verse and prose which the late star published two years ago, he expressed a pessimistic viewpoint towards romance. Under the title “The Kaleidoscope of Love Synonyms and Antonyms,” he describes its birth, rise, fall, and disintegration. Is analysis runs as follows:
A-Adoration, Anticipation, Affinity, Arguments
B-Beauty, Bliss, Bitterness, Bondage
C-Caresses, Circumstances, Confidence, Charm
D-Desire, Delusion, Dreams, Divorce
E-Ecstasy, Engagement, Ego, End
F-Fascination, Forgetfulness, Flatter, Faith
G-Gossip, Gratitude, Gifts, Goodbye
H-Happiness, Honor, Heartache, Hell
I-Intuition, Irony, Idolatry, Integrity
J-Jealousy, Joy, Justice, June
K-Kisses, Keepsakes, Knowledge, Kismet
L-Lips, Loneliness, Logic, Longing
M-Marriage, Morality, Money, Man
N-No, Nearest, Novelty. Never
O-Opposition, Own, Offering, Opulence
P-Passion, Promise, Pride, Proposal
Q-Quality, Quest, Queries, Quarrels
R-Romance, Reveries, Realization, Remembrance
S-Sympathy, Sacrifice, Shame, Settlement
T-Thoughts, Truth, Temper, Tears
U-Unkindness, Understanding, Uncertainty, Unfaithfulness
V-Virtue, Vanity, Vows, Vengeance
W- Wisdom, Wishes, Wedlock, Woman
X-The unknown love
Y-Youth, Yearning, Yes, Yawn
Z=Zenith, Zest, Zeal, Zero
So he described in 26 versions the span between the alpha and the omega of the little game of love. In real life, Valentino was as much the great lover as he was on the screen, but he failed to domineer over the ladies he wooed and won without the air of the scenario writer to chasten their independence of spirit. Jean Acker, his first wife, went “on the road” in vaudeville very shortly after their marriage, and it was not until a few weeks before the star’s death that they were reconciled. Natacha Rambova, her successor, also insisted on putting her career first, and, in spite of many reported attempts to adjust matters, this marriage too went on the rocks. Had Valentino Married Pola, would their union have been any more permanent? At the time the exotic Natacha Rambova left her famous husband, ostensibly on a “vacation from matrimony” she was asked if a divorce were in the offering. “I don’t know,” she answered. “There will simply have to be some sort of adjustment. And frankly I haven’t the least idea how we can arrange matters so that we can live together without constant irritation cropping up. “My husband wants me to give up work and devote myself to the home. If I did that, what should I do with all my idle hours?” We have servants who are much more capable of running the house than I am. I have always worked all my life I have had the urge to create. I cannot give this up it is part of myself”. So Natacha Rambova sailed to Paris. At the finish of his picture Valentino came to New York. He as was his habit, refused to commit himself beyond giving more or less of a repetition of what his beautiful wife had said. He was seen a lot in the company of Mae Murray, who had just returned from Paris, where she had obtained a divorce from Bob Leonard, the Broadway matchmakers got busy, but both denied any romantic attachment. Miss Murray intimated that reconciliation with her former husband might be possible; Valentino was less frank, but those who looked wisely declared that the Valentino-Rambova frayed romance was on the verge of a renaissance. As things turned out, the little follies girl was quite correct in her statement that Rudy and Pola were not engaged. However, she spoke out of her turn and was set down.
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Tags: Natacha Rambova, Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino
19 Dec 1926 – The Lair of the Falcon
Pressed close to the mountainside lay the home of Rudolph Valentino. Well had he named it Falcon’s Lair, for a wild falcon might have nested there and found security. The long winding road led up to the white rough-plastered house with its gates of Italian Grill work and its fountain where the laughing waters sang of love. Far below lay the city of Los Angeles and in the nearby hills the homes of the favourites of the films were visible. At the foot of the hill lay the place that was dear to the hear of the young actor, the stable where his beautiful horses were stalled; four noble animals, two jet black and two of silvered gray, Firefly and Yacqui, Haround and Ramadan. Something was missing, something they waited for. The hand of their master was gone and they knew it, sensed it in their wise animal way. A dog barked at the sound of strange feet and all the road echoed his protest. Up where the open door proclaimed to the world a house without a master the people flocked. They came to see the home of the idol of the screen, Rudolph Valentino lover of lovers. Old men sighed as they looked at the guns upon the walls. Young men saw the glory of armor in all its ancient beauty; fine pierced helmets of the long ago; breast plates and spear and a glove made for a warriors hand. Everywhere the masculinity of the dead star was expressed by armor and the things that are made for warriors. It seemed to fill the house with a low murmur, as if men of old had been urged back to knightly revel with the dead boy who longed for such compassioning. Lamps stood here and there about the house, and upon the parchment shades a scroll of music met the eye. The rooms, so closely intimate, were rich with an imperial beauty; for all the wood was master-carved by men long ago. Soft velvets pressed close by years of contact were laid upon the hearth old iron was used to give age as well as beauty. Upon a block of black marble a sculptured hand gleamed white and ghostly, the hand of the dead boy who came up the ladder of fame so quickly, a strong hand with a long sweep from forefinger to thumb, an artists hand with sensitive fingers, sensitive even in the cold alabaster; fine and strong and of generous lines is this sculptured hand of Valentino by Prince Troubetskoy. There is pathos in its empty palm, for death came as swiftly as fame and folded the strong hands into repose. From the long windows came the great call to the eye of the master: behold the earth how marvelous and how fair. Music and books were in the room with its beams of oak present close to the low ceiling; but even here swords lay upon the piano swords crusted with jewels and whispering of war and love, and a hand sure and strong. Upon the wall beside the door stood the full-length painting of the men who had called to those sands, and upon his painted picture a gleam of the drying sun shed a tender light. In the dark eyes was a tenderness, and upon the full lips a little smile as if to say “You are welcome” Living and dead he called them, this mean who has gone into the shadows. Thousands of people pressed the floors of his house. They gazed fascinated at the place where he lived his life. Three rooms upon the top floor and three below. The house was small, yet it held so many treasures and old desk with lovely ivory inserts and little figures standing out in rich, warm tints, each one a gem of carving. The Black Falcon companion picture to Rudolph Valentino seemed to dominate the house, the brooding eyes, the strong, firm mouth and the well-knit figure were a challenge to the imagination. What manner of man was this; and why his name Black Falcon? Books ah yes the books that spoke of the man and his tastes better than all the other things in this house of 1000 wonders. There they stood, those wonderful books “Wooings and Weddings in many lands”. “Perfume of the Rainbow”, “Costumes of the Courts of Rome”, “Modern Dancing and Dancers”, “Ancient Costumes of Great Britain and Ireland”, and some little books, not costly that were labeled “Italian English Dictionary”. Rows upon rows of beautiful books. The eyes in the painting seemed to rest tenderly upon the volumes there in the cases beside the open fire. Many dreams had the dead actor dreamed there in his mountain home. Many starry nights had he dreamed there of great parts in great plays that would bring men and women in throngs to pleasure in his art. He dreamed his dreams but never had his vision assembled so great a throng as this: men and women, old and young, rich and poor, good and bad, climbing the mountain road, panting and weary to gaze upon his home, and upon his face, there in its frame of gold. Silently the great crowds passed through the little house, with its garden sundial telling off the hours and little whispers filled the air. “I loved to see him” said an old lady “he was a gallant boy”. Men looked at the guns upon the wall and sighed again. Young and beautiful girls looked down at the case of little rings and studs longing to possess some token of the lover who rode away from the people too soon. His art called to the women who loved romance. He captured for those some illusion they felt would keep. And men who loved to read of knightly deeds of daring and gay amors shut out their petty cares and lived with him upon the screen. His magnetic force drew them to him and his dynamic force drove him on. All the possessions of the man bespoke of his desire for something that is slipping away, a knighthood of other days, a questing that calls to men to unsheathe a blade for weal or woe. Cars, and still more cars, climb the winding road, for thousands are determined to seize the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity and peep behind the scenes of the actors life. There is only a quiet grief upon their faces as they look into the dead mans place of retreat; something of the grandeur of death. The mountains creep over them and sudden them; and in this quiet hush is the greatest applause that Rudolph Valentino ever had. The dead actor lives still, and the people come silently thanking him for the gift of his art. In the stable the horse awaits the footstep he will hear no more. Soon they will lead it away. Rudolph Valentino his master, will come no more to the Falcon’s Lair.
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Tags: Falcon Lair, Rudolph Valentino
20 Sep 1930 – Regains Valentino Gems
A suit to recover a ring and a stickpin she had purchased from the estate of Rudolph Valentino, motion picture actor was won by Mrs Zunilda Mancini, 255, West Thirty Third St, NYC after an all-day trial yesterday before Justice Sulzberger in Third district Municipal Court. Louis Halle of 152 West 42nd Street, attorney for the defense, said that Justice Sulzbergers decision would be appealed. Mrs Mancini, 70 years old, brought the action against Miss June Bruce of 230 West 11th Street, NYC a clerk in the customs service, who said the ring, valued at $400 and the stickpin worth $25 had been given to her by Mrs Mancini for services as secretary and for kindness extended to the plaintiff. Mrs Mancini testified that she became interested in Valentino after his death and that she had contributed $5000 to the Valentino Memorial Fund. She told of going to Hollywood and of buying various articles from the late actors estate including the jewelry in ligitation. She denied giving away the jewelry
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28 May 1927 – Rudolph Valentino Sheik Deceased Film Star Makes Spirit Return
Mrs. McKinstry, Spiritualist Medium, is writing a Scenario at his Dictation. Passionate Desert Romance Being Written at the Instigation of the Ghost of the Famous Movie Sheik. It*s a spook Rudy dressed in his Arab turban, and from the spirit-world he has appeared to one of ‘his former wives and a spiritualist medium.” Its a chastened Rudolph too, for his purpose in returning to this earth in spirit form isn’t to revisit the scene of his former amorous triumphs, but merely to write a movie scenario. Madame Natacha Rambova the divorced second wife is reported to be in frequent communication with the spirit of her departed former husband. to Natacha the late movie star is said to have given various odds and ends from the world beyond. Mrs. Carol McKinisry, former pastor of the Universal Spiritual Church announces that the spirit of Valentino is also a frequent and welcomed visitor at her pastorage, and Mrs. McKinstry goes Natacha one better because she declares Valentino has selected her as a medium for giving to the world the scenario for a new motion picture. If the late screen hero continues his visitations and goes through with the complete plot. Mrs. McKinstry hopes that in the bright electric lights outside the motion picture houses there will, sooner or later, appear this illuminated sign: The Warning From Out of the Ages. Naturally, being a phantom, he cannot do the writing himself; he is obligated to employ a living manikin a spirit medium. For a number of weeks Mrs. McKinstry notes from the spirit of Valentino, and she hoes that nothing will interfere to interrupt the full and complete scenario of what she believes will be an excellent picture. The perfect lover of the screen has had the advantage of an experience which no living scenario writer shares. He has died, been buried, and has had opportunity to observe and study conditions as they exist in what spiritists call the great beyond. In life he seems to have had no longer able to show himself personally to his innumerable admirers When his spectre first appeared to Mrs. McKinstry she was making her pastoral residence in Corby Castle at Binghamton, and there her subsequent interviews with him took place to her nearly the whole of his scenario. It is surely to be regretted that the scenario does not deal with matters
that have relation to the Great Beyond. Its story is of life, and living people a tale of a love triangle, staring with scenes in an American City and thence where the hero appears as a sheik of true Valentino pattern. He did not look at all like a ghost says Mrs. McKinstry, “but as he did in life.” ON some occasions only his head and shoulders appeared, but at other times he was plainly visible at full length, standing his feet raised a foot or so above the floor, as if he were starting to ascend. He would appear gradually taking perhaps twenty minutes to materialize fully. You should understand that he took on a material substance he talked in a audible voice, now and then, while dictating, of a motion picture scenario. He seemed inpatient when I asked him why, and said in a strange that though dead, I still have an interest in life. My favorite hours of study are in the middle of the night. It is then that I am able best to concentrate, while all is
quiet, and to converse with the spirits of the dead that come to me. Mrs McKinstry is a plump young woman of attractive appearance, dark eyed, with black bobbed hair, short-skirted, and by no means the conventional picture of a seeress. She says that probably she would never have suspected her possession of her remarkable gift if it had not been for a vision she saw some years ago while etherized for a surgical operation. His aim in writing the scenario is I think not so much literary achievement as a desire to make people think more seriously of spiritual things. Before he finishes he may perhaps tell something about what he has seen in the world beyond the veil. As yet, however, he has said nothing about the spirit world, and, inasmuch as he has refrained from questioning him on the subject. Mrs McKinistry calls herself a “conscious medium”. That is to say, she does not go into trances and act merely as a mouthpiece through which spirits talk, while herself unaware of what they are saying. A piece of apparatus very important as an aid in her work is a ball of quartz crystal, into which she gazes intently. seeing strange visions therein. The ball rests in the saucer shaped top of a small china stand which contains a couple of ounces of in some way, not understood by the seeress herself, the sand helps. She believes that her own special spirit guide or control, who is constantly at her elbow when she interviews ghosts, was a medium and accustomed to use sand connection with a divining crystal for what purpose is unexplained. When I look into the crystal, concentrating my mind upon it she says. When I look into the crystal, concentrating my mind upon it I see persons and scenes. The persons maybe thousands of miles away, the scenes very distant. Yet they are real I see pictures which usually have some meaning purely symbolic yet which offer suggestions that enable me to answer very important questions put to me. I can see the crystal visions use as well in a bright light but my practice is to use a dim light one shaded electric burner because it tends to quiet the nerves. when taking dictation I sometimes fasten a black bandage over my eyes. It is difficult to write with bandaged eyes but I manage it sufficiently well to be able to read afterward what I have written. Mrs.. McKinstry is seems, was not the first living person to interview the spectre of the movie sheik. Before he appeared to her she had heard that Valentino had ‘come through’ from the spirit world with messages for his wife/Natacha Rambova, communicated through a medium. Thus was the ‘less -surprised when he turned up without a previous warning. It was on the night of Dec 7 and I was seated at a table in my little study. When I became conscious of a powerful spirit influence in then room. The spirit manifested itself that I felt disturbed and sought to resist its intrusion upon my labors.
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Tags: Carol McKinstry, Rudolph Valentino
28 Mar 1985 – Her Memories Are of a Glittering Past
Some women would envy Ann Carlin Carey. She waltzed with “the great lover” as she toured the eastern United States as a singer and dancer. Carey glided across many floors and concert halls with Rudolph Valentino who has been called the greatest romantic male star of the silent film era. After she was crowned Miss Buffalo at 21 she was one of 12 women chosen to accompany Valentino’s singing and dancing act. “He was a good dancer” said Carey. Everywhere he went Valentino was idolized. The women loved him and the men hated him but I never thought much about his popularity.
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Tags: Ann Carlin Carey, Rudolph Valentino
