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Final Resting Place of Rudolph Valentino.


Rudolph Valentino
6th.May 1895 -
23rd.August 1926
Located in the Cathedral Mausoleum, on entry turn left, go to the last hall on
the right, Valentino's
crypt can be found at 1205, at the end on your left. Cause of Death -
Peritonitis.
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor. Nicknamed "The Great Latin Lover", he was one of the first true male movie sex symbols
He was born 'Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy, to a middle-class family - the same year (1895) as the invention of the cinema. His mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin (1856–1919), was French, and his father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fidele Guglielmi (?-1906), a veterinarian, was Italian. He had an older brother, Alberto (1892–1981), a younger sister Maria and an older sister Beatrice who died in infancy.
Although imaginative and well-read, he was an indifferent student, balking at classroom routine and defying his teachers. His troubled
behavior 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. Eventually he studied and qualified in Agricultural Science at Nervi in Genoa.
After graduating he spent time in Paris, where he learnt to dance, before returning to Italy, where his perceived lack of ambition angered his family.
In 1913 he left for the United States, following the advice of his friend Domenico Savino. He arrived in New York City on Christmas Day, 1913. After exhausting a small family legacy, he endured a spell of poverty during which he supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing tables in restaurants, 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.
Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah where it disbanded. 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.
In 1919, after small parts in a dozen films (in which he typically played "heavies" and gangsters), 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 reportedly locked him out of their hotel room on their wedding night - and despite Valentino's efforts at a reconciliation, the two separated shortly afterward, and were divorced in 1922.
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 Valentino be cast as one of the male leads in his next film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Released in 1921, the film was a commercial and critical success, and made Valentino a star. It also led to his iconic role in The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik.
Valentino first met Natacha Rambova (a costume designer and art director who was a protégé and possibly the lover of actress 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; 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 his 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 City 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.
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 and 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 Bánky (with whom he had a brief relationship prior to his involvement with
Negri).
On August 15, 1926, Valentino 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. He died eight days later, at the age of 31.
An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York City 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 and Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini, but which later turned out to have been 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.
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by the noted caricaturist of more than 70 years, Al Hirschfeld.