Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina) (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor.

Nicknamed The Great Lover, he was the first true male movie sex symbol.

Childhood and youth

He was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla in Apulia, Italy, to a middle-class family in the same year as the invention of cinema. His mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin, was French and his father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fidele Guglielmi, was Italian. He had an older brother, Alberto, and a younger sister, Maria.

Education

Although imaginative and well read, he was an indifferent student, balking at classroom routine and defying his teachers. His troubled behaviour may have been caused in part by the death of his father when Valentino was eleven. At fifteen he tried to enroll in a military academy, but was not accepted because he did not meet the physical requirements, his chest circumference was one inch too small. Eventually he studied and qualified in Agricultural Science at Nervi in Genoa. He spent some time in Paris, where he learned dancing, and then returned to Italy, where his perceived lack of ambition angered his family.

New York

In 1913 he left for the United States, following the advice of Domenico Savino, a friend of his. He landed in New York City on Christmas Day, 1913. After using up a small legacy he endured a spell of poverty during which he supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing and gardening.

Eventually he found work as a taxi dancer and instructor, and later as an exhibition dancer. He gained attention for his rendition of the Argentine tango.

Hollywood and first marriage

Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah and disbanded there. From there he traveled to San Francisco, where he met the actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, still in the silent movie era. After small parts in a dozen films (in which he typically played a "heavy" such as a gangster), in 1919 he married Jean Acker, a part-Cherokee film starlet (who was later revealed to be a lesbian) Their marriage was rumored to have never been consummated: Acker locked Valentino out of their hotel room on their wedding night, and despite Valentino's efforts at a reconciliation, the two separated shortly afterwards. They were divorced in 1922.

The Sheik

Valentino met screenwriter June Mathis who had been impressed by his role as a "cabaret parasite" in The Eyes of Youth. She suggested to the director Rex Ingram that he be cast as a male lead in his next film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The film, released in 1921, was a commercial and critical success, made Valentino a star and led to his iconic role in The Sheik.

Second marriage

Valentino first met Natacha Rambova, a costume designer and art director who was a protégé (and possibly lover) of Alla Nazimova, on the set of Uncharted Seas in 1921. The two also worked together on the Nazimova production of Camille, by which time they were romantically involved. They married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico. This resulted in Valentino being jailed for bigamy, since his divorce from Acker was not finalized, as California law at the time required that divorcing couples wait a full year before remarrying. Valentino and Rambova remarried a year later.

Blood and Sand, released in 1922, and co-starring Lila Lee and the popular silent screen vamp Nita Naldi, further established Valentino as the leading male star of the time. However, in 1923 a dispute with Paramount Pictures resulted in an injunction which prohibited Valentino from making films with other producers. To ensure that his name remained in the public eye, Valentino, following the suggestion of his manager George Ullman, embarked on a national dance tour, sponsored by a cosmetics company, Mineralava, with Rambova, a former ballerina, as his partner. During this time he also traveled to Europe and had a memorable visit to his native town. Back in the United States, he was criticized by his fans for his newly cultivated beard and was forced to shave it off. In New York on May 14, 1923, he made his first and last record, consisting of Valentino's renditions of Amy Woodforde-Finden's Kashmiri Song featured in The Sheik and Jose Padilla's "El Relicario," used in Blood and Sand.

United Artists

In 1925, Valentino was able to negotiate a new contract with United Artists which included the stipulation that his wife not be allowed on any of his movie sets. (It was perceived that her presence had delayed earlier productions such as Monsieur Beaucaire). He separated from Rambova shortly afterwards. After his separation, Valentino had an affair with the Polish actress, Pola Negri. During this time he made two of his most critically acclaimed and successful films, The Eagle, based on a story by Alexander Pushkin) and The Son of the Sheik, a sequel to The Sheik, both co-starring the popular Hungarian-born actress, Vilma Banky (with whom he had a brief relationship prior to his involvement with Negri).

Chicago Tribune

In July of 1926, Valentino was attacked in an anonymous editorial published by The Chicago Tribune in which the author, incensed by a powder dispenser he had seen in a men's public washroom, blamed him for the supposed feminization of the American male. Furious, Valentino responded with a challenge to a boxing match that went unanswered. Shortly afterwards, Valentino met for dinner with the famed journalist H.L. Mencken for advice on how best to deal with the public slur. Mencken later professed that he found Valentino to be likable and gentlemanly and wrote sympathetically of him in an article published in Photoplay some months after Valentino's death.

Death

On August 15, 1926, he collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City. He was hospitalised at the Polyclinic in New York and underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. The surgery went well and he seemed to be recovering when peritonitis set in and spread throughout his body. Eight days later, he died aged 31.

Funeral

An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York to pay their respects at his funeral, handled by the Frank Campbell Funeral Home. The event was a drama itself: windows were smashed as fans tried to get in, Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini, but which was a publicity stunt.

His funeral Mass in New York was celebrated at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, often called "The Actor's Chapel," as it is located on West 49th Street in the Broadway theater district and has a long association with show business figures. Actress Pola Negri collapsed in hysterics while hovering over the coffin.

After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd, and his remains were interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.