Valentino

I had every intention of using the next session I had with Marilene as the basis for this post, but I need to do something else.  When I read Marilene’s post from LA this morning, it activated something.  That synapse in my head fired.  (I explained in an earlier post about how I seem to think with two brains.)  I am in that place right now, and so it is right now that I want to tell you about Rudy.  I want you to see him through "our" eyes.

There isn’t much to say about his physical appearance.  He was extraordinarily handsome, and he had a beautiful body.  He was a disciplined athlete and exercised regularly to keep himself in the best shape he could.  It’s ironic, somehow, that he was so careful to maintain his physique, and yet, he pointedly ignored the escalating abdominal pain that was telling him something was very wrong in his stomach.  He just kept taking more sodium bicarbonate until in New York his ulcer ruptured and he collapsed.

He was tender, sensitive, gentle, compassionate and loving.  He was physically demonstrative.  He liked physical contact, even if it were just a touch.  He was always very considerate and empathetic.  (One little intimate detail....Rudy’s skin was very warm.  He radiated a lot of heat.)  He was extremely intelligent and was a little on the serious side.  He wasn’t a big laugher.  He smiled quite a bit, but when he did laugh, it lit him up from within.  You couldn’t help but smile.

When Rudy spoke to you, his whole attention would be focused on you, making you feel as if you were the only other person in the room.  I know this is what women responded to when they watched his films.  Rudy was never shy in front of the camera.  Because he could focus his attention, he forgot about it and was never self-conscious.  When he had a love scene, he wasn’t acting.  What you saw was genuinely Rudy. 

He could never come to grips with the viciousness and malevolence of the attacks against him in the press, always written by men.  Why did they have to attack his masculinity, his manhood?  Why did they hate him so much?  He would try to act nonchalant about them, but each one wounded him.  The last was the worst.  He read it on the train heading for New York in August 1926.  That bastard in Chicago wrote a vile and vicious piece, basically calling him a pink powder puff.  It crushed him.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to address the topic of Rudy’s sexuality.  There are still questions and innuendo about him.  As far as I know, Rudy was a heterosexual.  He loved women.  You will read all kinds of things about him.  I even read where one idiot swore that he had affairs with Gary Cooper and John Wayne!  Now that is too ridiculous for words, but it’s typical.

Rudy was a contradiction.  He could seem so self assured, so worldly, but there was a little boy lost quality to him, too.

I found a couple of interesting quotes from very famous men concerning Rudy.  I think they are very telling.

“Rudy is a nice fellow and I like him personally.  But it’s been this silly stuff that has been printed about him through no fault of his own that has made it darn tough sledding for even him at times.”     Will Rogers, 1925

“He wore his success gracefully, appearing almost subdued by it.  He was intelligent, quiet and without vanity, and had great allure for women, but had little success with them, and those whom he married treated him rather shabbily.....No man had greater attraction for women than Valentino;  no man was more deceived by them.”      Charles Chaplin, 1964

Watch his films......not THE SHEIK!  It is one of his worst performances.  The direction he was given was atrocious.  Watch him in THE FOUR HORSEMEN, or in BLOOD AND SAND, THE EAGLE, or in THE SON OF THE SHEIK.  Just watch him.

This is a very short video clip I put together.  The music in the video  is very important to Rudy and me.  When we were together in June 1926, I introduced him to a very special piece of music, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Song of India”.  When I handed him the recording I told him then that the music was him.  I still think so.

I want Rudy to have the last word.

This is his poem, You, taken from his book of poems, DAYDREAMS, 1923.

You are the History of Love and its Justification.

The Symbol of Devotion.

The Blessedness of Womanhood.

The Incentive of Chivalry.

The Reality of Ideals.

The Verity of Joy.

Idolatry’s Defense.

The Proof of Goodness

The Power of Gentleness.

Beauty’s Acknowledgment.

Vanity’s Excuse.

The Promise of Truth.

The Melody of Life.

The Caress of Romance.

The Dream of Desire.

The Symphony of Understanding.

My Heart’s Home.

The Proof of Faith.

Sanctuary of my Soul.

My Belief of Heaven.

Eternity of all Happiness.

          My Prayers.

                   You.

In an interview right after his divorce from his second wife he said,  “Women do not fall in love with me.  I fall in love with them.  I do not think one woman in my life ever loved me sincerely,  deeply.  I think it is because I make the mistake of falling so deeply in love with them.  When I have heard myself referred to as a ‘great lover’ I have often thought to myself, ‘The great lover—loved by all, but his loves’.”

(He was wrong about one thing.  There was a woman who loved him sincerely, deeply....but fate intervened, and she never had a real chance to show him.)