Rudolph Valentino

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Jill A. Gregg

"The Great Lover" was the nickname given to Rudolph Valentino when he became a motion picture star in 1919. While the nickname is still synonymous with Valentino, his last name is sufficient to evoke the same picture, that of a handsome, suave man who is irresistible to women. His female fans copied styles from his movies, and some men copied his hairstyles. During his brief stardom, he was often the butt of criticism from men. Despite this, women of the era literally fainted at the sight of him and worshipped him at the altar of their local movie theater.

For someone who had such a profound effect on popular culture during his lifetime, Valentino came from rather humble beginnings. He was born in Castellaneta, Italy, with the impossible name of Rudolpho Alfonzo Ralfaelo Pierre Filibert Gugllielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla. Ironically, the year of his birth, 1895, is also generally looked on as the year motion pictures were born. His father, Giovanni, was a veterinarian who died of malaria in 1906. While the young Valentino longed to become a cavalry officer, his family felt that after the death of his father he needed a better paying career to help take care of the family. His mother was finally persuaded to allow him to apply to the Royal Naval Academy, but he failed the physical. Eventually he attended the Royal Academy of Agriculture, where he graduated with honors. He planned to become a gentleman farmer, but fate had other plans.

After graduation, he went on a trip outside Italy and proceeded to lose all his money gambling. To ease the family's embarrassment, Rudolpho was sent to America on the U.S.S. Cleveland in 1913. After some difficult times in New York, Valentino began to find work as a taxi dancer. Shortly thereafter, he got a job with the millionaire Cornelius Bliss as a gardener. Unfortunately, he was soon fired when he wrecked a motorcycle owned by his employer.

Unemployed again, Valentino received help from a friend who was the head waiter at Maxim's Restaurant. He was hired for a position as a dancer there. He later met and signed as a partner to dancer Bonnie Glass who was replacing her current partner, Clifton Webb (soon to be an actor). After Glass retired, he danced with another partner, Joan Sawyer, on the vaudeville circuit. Valentino soon grew tired of touring and resolved to give up dancing and become a farmer in California. To get there, he took a part in a play called The Masked Model that was to tour the West Coast. Unfortunately the play closed in Utah, but he was paid with a ticket to San Francisco.

Once there, he met Norman Kerry, Mary Pickford's leading man, who persuaded him to try his luck in Hollywood. By 1917, he made his first screen appearance as an extra in Alimony and had played several villains in other films. A chance meeting with screen star Mae Murray resulted in work on two of her films. It was this exposure that led to more work.

While working on Once to Every Woman in 1919, he impulsively married actress Jean Acker. Jean locked him out of her apartment that night, and they separated with the marriage never being consummated. This was to be a source of embarrassment to studio executives when Valentino became a sex symbol. Despite their brief marriage, Valentino and Acker remained good friends to the end of his life.

Valentino made an important fan with his next project, The Eyes of Youth, with Clara Kimball Young, released in 1919. He impressed the head Scenarist for Metro Studios, June Mathis. Currently working on the project, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, based on the novel by Blasco-Ibanez, she was convinced she had found the perfect actor for the part of Julio. Studio executives, however, were not as impressed. But after much lobbying, both by Mathis and Valentino himself, he was given the part. He so impressed Mathis and director Rex Ingram during early footage that they expanded his part, and a star was born. From his first appearance in the film, when he tangos with Beatrice Dominguez, he enthralled the audience. Details of the film were copied by fans. The tango became a dance craze, men copied his slicked back hair, and women copied the bolero costume he wore.

If Valentino had expected the studio heads to now give him better parts and pay him accordingly, he was wrong. He appeared in several more films, such as Camille and The Conquering Power. The executives refused his demand for a raise, and then declined to renew his contract when it expired. A new contract, however, was eventually signed with the Famous Players-Lasky Paramount Studio, and Valentino began filming The Sheik with Agnes Ayres; this film cemented his stardom. During this time, his friend and supporter, June Mathis, had also left Metro and joined Famous Players studio. It would be almost impossible to imagine the kind of hysteria that greeted him after this film was released in 1921. Audiences were much less sophisticated and blasé in the early days of film than in the late twentieth century, and pandemonium reigned whenever he made an appearance.