DEATH OF FILM STAR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5021, 1 September 1926, Page 3

DEATH OF FILM STAR.

PUBLIC’S STRANGE ATTITUDE.

SENSE OF PROPORTION LACKING.

The Christchurch Sun, in its editorial columns, has the following, with which most people will agree :— The death of Rudolph Valentino, the film star who made “Sheik” 'roles his speciality, means the loss of a valuable performter in the screen world There is something of grotesquerie, however, in the nation-wide manifestations of grief in the United States, where demonstrations- usually reserved for deceased presidents are. taking place. It seems that the American Press, having directed a blaze, of publicity on Valentino’s private life, is loath to let him depart without a final torchlight pro'cession. There is little doubt but that women in most countries of the world will regret, in an abtsract way, the de,a th of Valentino, but it is a strange commentary on the period in which We are living. A scientist who kills- himself in humanity’s- cause, or a man who devotes his life, to the amelioration of th® conditions- in which his fellow-men live, will receive at hi,s death scant publicity and a meagre remembrance, wherea’s a man whose chief claim to fame is his good looks may, in death, cause newspapers to proclaim, in type syix inches deep, that a natio-n of Over 100,000,000 souls i,s in mourning. The American seems to- lack a sense of proportion. Was it not in their country that, on the death of a great Italian tenor, a song was success|fully published : “They Wanted a Songbird in Heaven, so God took Caruso Away”?