Rudolph Valentino being mourned as he lies in state at the
Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel (August 1926)
I.
A century on, and the name Rudolph Valentino has now largely been forgotten by movie goers; today, Timothée Chalamet is the young good-looking actor hailed by members of Gen Z as a sex symbol and fashion icon.
Having said that, there are still some fans of the Latin Lover devoted to his memory and insistent on the fact that whilst Rudy may no longer be universally recognised, he remains an iconic figure whose place in the cultural imagination is assured.
For not only do his films continue to be screened, but books and articles (and blog posts such as this one) continue to be written about his life - and, indeed, his death which, as we shall see, caused mass hysteria and revealed just how insane - but powerful - the cult of celebrity was to become in the modern era, driven by the entertainment industry and mass media.
II.
On August 15th, 1926, Valentino collapsed at a hotel in NYC.
He was hospitalised and, following an examination, underwent emergency surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer mistaken at first for appendicitis [1].
All seemed to go well and his doctor's were optimistic that the young man would make a full recovery. Unfortunately, however, that wasn't to be: first he developed peritonitis (inflammation of the lining of the wall of the abdomen); then he developed pleuritis (inflammation of the lining surrounding the lungs and chest cavity).
Both conditions are extremely painful: and both can be fatal.
As his condition worsened - and sepsis set in - the initial optimism of his doctors was replaced with the growing realisation that he was going to die (although they said nothing to the press and Valentino himself seemed convinced he would soon recover and chatted with the medical staff about his future plans).
On 23 August, Valentino lapsed into a coma and died a few hours later. He was aged 31.
III.
Valentino's death triggered some extraordinary scenes; over 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects on the day of his funeral and there were reports of distraught female fans committing suicide.
There was even a riot in New York the day after his death, as people fought to view the body lying in state with their own eyes (for some believed the story of Valentino's death had, as they say, been greatly exaggerated; others, that it was entirely false). A large number of extra police were needed to restore order.
The Polish actress and singer Pola Negri - a huge star at that time known for her tragic roles and femme fatale persona - perhaps sensing the career opportunity of a lifetime, collapsed crying in hysterics at the funeral. Claiming to be Valentino's secret fiancée, she also had a floral arrangement spelling out her name placed on his coffin, to the irritation of many of his friends [2].
(It seems that the four actors in black-shirted uniform hired by the funeral home director Frank Campbell to impersonate a Fascist guard of honour - supposedly sent from Italy by Mussolini himself - did nothing to restrain her.)
As Valentino had made no burial arrangements, his friend June Mathis offered a crypt that she had originally purchased for her ex-husband at the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery and it's here he has remained.
And every year, on the
anniversary of Valentino's death, a mysterious Woman in
Black arrives by chauffeur-driven car to place a bunch of
red roses on his tomb and dab daintily at her eyes with a
black-bordered handkerchief, before departing [3].
Notes
[1] This condition - in which a perforated peptic ulcer causes right lower quadrant abdominal pain, mimicking appendicitis - is now known in the medical world as Valentino's syndrome.
[2] It's true that Miss Negri and Valentino had been in a romantic relationship shortly before his death, but there is no evidence they were secretly engaged and, if they were, it was not something he had mentioned to anyone.
Interestingly, for the rest of her life - and she died aged 90, in August 1987 - she claimed Valentino had been the love of her life - and not Charlie Chaplin with whom she'd also had a widely-publicised love affair in 1922-23; this despite the fact that D. H. Lawrence insisted that there was greater essential beauty in Chaplin's odd face than Valentino's stereotypically handsome features; see the essay 'Sex Appeal' in Lawrence's Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (CUP, 2004). And see also the post in which I discuss this essay and the relationship between Lawrence and Valentino: click here.
[3] Several myths surround the thickly-veiled Woman in Black. Probably, the idea was originally a publicity stunt dreamed up by Valentino's former press agent Russel Birdwell in 1928, but it is now a rather lovely tradition kept alive by fans, cinephiles, and movie historians.
