VALENTINO’S OWN LIFE-STORY

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 11

VALENTINO’S OWN LIFE-STORY

iifini!umuiitnuiiuic3iiiiiiiiimminiiniinc3iiiitnniiit3itiiiiiiiii!C2»ii IN my early studio days I once tried to sell the story of my life as a scenario. It was rejected as being “too wild and improbable.” To have one’s life thus characterised by a company which specialises in the mo"t frantic serials was rather disconcerting. Now, as I try to view my own historical record with detachment, I can see clearly what the scenario editor meant. The hero of my tale is not at all consistent, like a movie hero. In fact, I am not sure that lie is the hero. At times, he has all the appearance of the villain. Yet again, he seems to have good impulses, which a movie villain never has. Nor does my life run true to dramatic form. It should mount in a straight line to a climax. Instead of that it bounds like a kangaroo. HIS FULL NAME I was born in the little village of Castellanetn, Italy, on May 6th, 1895, and was shortly thereafter christened Rudolpho Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglieimi di Valentina d’Antonguella. Can you imagine how that would look in electric lights in front of a theatre? My real name is Guglieimi. My mother wao the daughter of a learned Parisian doctor, and my father in his youth was a captain of Italian cavalry. When I was eleven years old my father 'died, and I was sent off to Dante Alighieri College. I finished the course at 13, and then went to a military school. But I was more interested in romantic novels than Iwas in my studies, so the authorities sent me homo! A PRODIGAL SON My mother was heartbroken, and I waa* truly contrite because of her suffering.

Prodigal Son as a Penniless Exile

Expelled From School

Wandering About For a Job

.Below is Rudolph Valentino's own story of his life.

It was written by the famous film star for the British Press and the Newspaper Enterprise Association shortly before he became seriously ill in New York, and appeared in the “Sunday Chronicle," of London.

I determined to do better for her sake, and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Agriculture to learn to he a scientific farmer. I was graduated with the highest honours in my class, much to the gratification of my mother. Following this accomplishment, I again slipped from grace, and went off to Paris and Monte Carlo to see the world. After all my money was gone, I returned home a prodigal son. My family decided that I was apt to disgrace them, and that it were better that I be shipped far away. So my mother scraped together £BOO to finance my voyage to America, where I was to seek fame and fortune. SACKED! I arrived in New York just two days before Christmas, 1913. The new land was very strange to me, and I was very lonely. In order to find companionship I frequented the cafes. They took all my money, but I did not learn to dance, whifch was to be beneficial to me later. When my funds were all gone I get a job as superintendent of the Long Island estate of Cornelius B. Wiss, junl This' c lastcd only a short while, as I showed an. irresponsible nature, and was courteously dismissed. My next “position" was as an apprentice landscape gardener- in Central P.ark, New York City. After a month of this I wont to the Civil Service Bureau to get a regular job, but found that I was not eligible because 1 was not an American citizen.

I had no job and no funds. I was forced from one lodging to another. I went hungry, and slept in Central Park. One hot summer day I walked five miles to the City Hall (corresponding to the Mansion House in London) looking for work. Unable to cet it, I walked back. START AS A DANCER

After doing any little odd jobs that I could get, 1 finally went to the head waiter at Maxim’s Restaurant and obtained employment as a dancer. This was really the start of my professional career, for X later obtained dancing engagements with Bonnie Glass and

Joan Sawyer. But I did not want to be a dancer. Still dreaming of using my education as an agriculturist, 1 joined a musical comedy company and headed for the Pacific Coast with the hope that California might offer something. The troupe became stranded in SanFrancisco, and I was again without at job. I tried selling bonds, but without success. HAUNTING THE STUDIO At this point Norman Kerry (a film actor), whom I had known in New York), suggested that I should try motion pictures. Norman paid my expenses while I made my rounds of the studios. No one hailed me as an actor. In sfact, it was a long rime before I could even get “extra" work. I knocked about from pillar to post playing villain and small parts until June Mathia (head of the J&etro Pictures Corporation Scenario Department) selected me to play Julio iff “The Four Horsemen." This was followed by another. Rex Ingram picture, “The Conquering Power," and by Nazimova’s “Camille." Then came the picture that made me — “The Sheik."