Dark Lover

Contemporary Review, June, 2004

Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino. Emily W. Leider. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi 514 pages. ISBN 0-571-21818-0. If Rudolph Valentino were alive he would probably be the Governor of California. He embodied in his short lifetime all the attributes of the Hollywood 'star'.

He had exalted fame, a variety of wives, a bevy of female admirers and a limited but trendy mental horizon: he also had an Indian 'spiritual' guide and participated in seances. His early death, like that of James Dean, earned him undying fame. Valentino was 'the screen's first dark-skinned romantic hero'. He specialised in portraying 'exotics' such as Arab sheiks or Indian rajahs because he could never pass as an American lover of the 1920s. As the author writes, 'he helped to redefine and broaden American masculine ideals'. He exuded sexual attraction and a certain vulnerability which gave rise to erotic fantasies. He 'raised disturbing questions about just how decorative and beautiful a man should properly be'. While the author has given us what must be a definitive life, some of her comments border on the blasphemous. To write that in Valentino's last film 'he is hung by his wrists and tormented; Christlike, he suffers for us all. His anguish draws us in' is the nonsense on which Hollywood flourishes.