Posts Tagged With: Rudolph Valentino

A lot of books were written about Rudolph Valentino of course there are a few that are considered “out there”. One of them is called Return of Rudolph Valentino written by Carol McKinstry. I am currently reading the book so the foreward was abit fascinating to me so I thought I would include some verbiage:

Some of you already know that I possessed psychic literary ability, executed for your approval, thought and entertainment in the book of poems titled “Day Dreams” bearing my name as author and published by Macfadden Publishers in the year 1923. Hence that I should take up my pen again from this side of eternity should not surprise you. Soon after the beginning of my career in pictures I became intrigued with the desire to write a scenario for the screen an original script with a vivid, colorful desert background and reincarnation the theme of the story. But something always came up to interfere with my plans for so doing. I know now why I was thwarted and conjectured the plot now I wrote with absolute knowledge whereof I speak. And so I died in the flesh to complete from Spirit a far more finished production of my erstwhile hearts desire. Others may philosophize in dry and tedious argument to win a point in truth; I too, may resort to such, in part, where there is need to clarify a statement. But my main object is to show you thorough dramatization the knowledge I have gleamed as to how the law of the universe acts in shaping a path for our continual progression and evolution throughout eternity. Pray for me; enshrine me in your memory, but do not hold me in a bondage of sensual delusions that engulf me in shadows of distasteful memories and create a formidable barrier to the freedom and progress of my soul..

I hate the Sheik, I think he’s a ‘he-vamp.’ and I hate the way he rolls his eyes, l know Sydney girls have got Rudolphitis and I know that my young wife sees the Sheik in everything – the grilling steak holds his image the wringer holds his spirit. But I hate him. I hate a man who rolls his eyes snd behaves like a Spanish senorita. I cannot understand the army of girls who have fallen to his cheap charms. Girls who see romance in the Sheik would see romance in the butchers boy. They represent decadent flapperitis in its most advanced stage. Give me a man like ‘B.J’ Hart, who represents manhood in its greatest sense. Why is It that the fair, frail flappers of Sydney have gone on about a man who rolls bis eyes and makes prisoner of a poor, pure pretty girl alone and defenceless. Do they approve of his lax morality? Is it an indication of degeneration! Do the girls of todays countenance a man who defies decency to compromise an Innocent woman?

“I am not afraid of the dead, or of ghosts. I am not afraid of anything pertaining to the life beyond. And its not because I don’t believe in it. It’s because I do”. — Rudolph Valentino

In 1923, through Rudolph’s close friend and business manager George Ullman, he wrote a book of poetry called “Day Dreams”.  Rudolph Valentino did not claim to write this book. Although he did note through mediums and inspired by the people whose initials appear under each title is how this precious book came to be.  In the books preface he writes “Just dreams Day Dreams a bit of romance, a bit of sentimentalism, a bit of philosophy, not studied but acquired by constant observation of the greatest of all masters Nature! I took to dreams to forget the tediousness of worldly strife and the boredom of jurisprudence’s pedantic etiquette.” This book has special meaning to me.

Rudolph Valentino through his gift of authorship and his presence on the screen gave the world what it badly needed was a dose of old fashion romance.  Romance that escape from reality where a woman has a place that she can escape to.  Day dreams where a dream can be what she wants it to be one of romance, fun, and frivolity. There is a quote Rudolph Valentino said about himself and daydreams. “Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas upon which the women paint their dreams.”  In every magazine article, in every movie was a love story to eagerly see. Where the man gets the girl and they all live happily ever after.  In his last movie, “The Son of the Sheik” I remember one line which makes me smile “Why fear me dearest? Love such as mine can do no harm”.

After all these years, in my dreams I can make you mine. In reality, you yearned for love. In my dreams, I gave you love, and made all of your inner desires come true.  I thought I would include a poem from Rudolph Valentino’s book “Day Dreams” which true symbolizes how I feel.

Day Dreams (To The Friend)

Yesterday – in contemplation

We dreamed of love to be,

And in the dreaming, Wove

a tapestry of Love.

Today – We dream our dream

Awake: Realization

Coloring our Romance with all

the glory of a flaming rose.

Tomorrow – What awakening lies

before us: Our tapestry in shreds

perchance. Or mellowed – glorified

By loves reflection? I wonder –

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.