Valentino with the Arabian Stallion Jadaan. Publicity photo for Son of the Sheik, 1926

Rudolf and Natacha, his second wife. Portrait by James Abbe.

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Valentino

Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor. Nicknamed \"The Great Latin Lover\", he was one of the first true male movie sex symbols. more...

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Childhood and youth

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.

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.

New York

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.

Hollywood and first marriage

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.

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 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.