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© 2010 by Katherine Gallagher and Marliene Isaacs. All Rights Reserved.

Friday, August 27, 2010

A 19 Year Old Girl's Grief

“A Baby’s Skin” from DAYDREAMS, Rudolph Valentino

Texture of a butterfly’s wing,
Coloured like a dawned rose,
Whose perfume is the breath of God.
Such is the web wherein is held
The treasure of the treasure chest
The priceless gift – the Child of Love.

Up to this point I have said nothing about Rudy’s two wives.  There are several reasons.  In my opinion, his first wife isn’t worth mentioning.  His second wife was a major factor in his life.  She was beautiful, and he was very much in love with her when he married her.  To me, she was a most narcissistic person—everything centered around her.  She used Rudy.  In order to aggrandize herself she came near to destroying him and his career.  Once again, I need to be careful, because, I am not objective when it comes to my feelings about her.

When she was divorcing Rudy, a mutual friend, the actress Nita Naldi, defended Rudy.  She let it be known all over town that on two occasions she had accompanied Rudy’s wife when she aborted two different pregnancies.  This is hearsay, but I will tell you that when Rudy’s ex was interviewed years later, she was asked directly about the story of the abortions.  Her reply was...”I always said that I would never have children and I meant it!”

This is most likely unfair on my part, but I’m going to give you a glance at her through my eyes.  When Rudy was on the set, he insisted that everyone: all cast and crew call him, Rudy.  When she was on the set or anywhere else, she demanded that she be addressed as Madame Valentino.  I think that pretty much says it all. 

(continuing with the October 30, 2008 session)   Begin tape............

“Dying that way....that’s why you keep seeing yourself with him in the vineyard with the baby.  It’s healing.  He wants you to think about that and not dwell on the bad things.  That’s just as real.”

I realize now, that there’s no way that all this could have been revealed to me at one time.  I couldn’t have handled it.  Another thing...I get the definite feeling that Rudy wants me to stop referring to it in the first person.  He wants me to say, “she was pregnant when she left.  But it’s really hard.

“Yes, it’s just aspects of self.”

The end of this story is waiting for me in LA.

“Absolutely.  Who named him Valentino?”

He did.  He chose the name.  Did you know that Rudy was in the process of becoming an American citizen when he died?  Supposedly there were angry demonstrations in Italy.  Rudy simply answered, “Italy is the country of my birth, but America has given me everything.”........End tape.

(Another quote from Rudy concerning his feelings about America:  “I love all countries and all peoples, as I want all countries and all peoples to love me.  But it is in America that my Golden Opportunity came to me.  It is America who gave me the world.”)

I found the quotes that I have been sharing with you from all manner of research that I have done over the last two years.  I have a huge file with every single scrap of paper, printed document, or email that I have encountered or received.  I have immigration records, census records, copies of newspaper articles (thanks to the Library of Congress), and I even have an email from the Librarian for the California State Railroad Museum Library.  She was kind enough to research and send me information regarding a question I had about train travel from New York to LA.  I needed to know how long the trip took from Chicago to LA.  Because there was no direct train from New York to Los Angeles, a change to the “California Limited” had to be made in Chicago.  The train left Chicago daily at 8 pm and arrived in LA three days later at 2:15pm.  Once I had that information, I dug and found that when Rudy was traveling from New York to LA, he had to basically hide until he was ready to board The Limited.  He would stay at the Blackstone Hotel until it was time to go to the station.

The sad part of this tale is now finished.  I can honestly say, that going through the process of discovery was one of the most painful experiences of my life.   I can look back now fairly detached from the sadness and grief that had fragmented my life.  As Marilene told me, I had been living pieces of a life....one here....one there, constantly trying new things in an effort to get rid of pain and deal with the effects of something that I didn’t know or understand.

Things were looking up. 

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