Borrowed Tomb for Valentino

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 23

Borrowed Tomb for Valentino

“Sleep Here, Rudy , ” Said Star’s Friend MEMORIAL FUNDS LACKING | rpjTl? body of Rudolph Valcn- ! I tino , the film star , idol of j millions of women, rests in a j borrowed tomb. The wor- ' { shippers who gave tears and i flowers freely will not give I [ 'money, L_ 1 ELABORATE plans made by a committee for an imposing mausoleum in Tlollyabandoned owing to lack of funds. Only one memorial has taken definite shape. This is the garden on the roof of the Italian Hospital in London, the tribute of a hundred or so English admirers. Once already Valentino’s body has been moved (says a writer in the London “Sunday-Express”). When news flashed through the world that he was dead, June Mathis, the famous scenario writer, and one of his closest friends, offered the use of the crypt reserved for her in a Hollywood cemetery until arrangements had been made for permanent burial. [ “You may sleep here, Rudy, till I die,” she said, when the casket was was placed in the crypt, # little realising that her death was to take place rather less than a year later. Valentino’s body was placed in the adjoining crypt, reserved for the body of Miss Mathis’s husband, where it will stay till such time as provision is made for the great star to be buried in a grave of his own. j More than a thousand policemen were needed to keep the crowds in order when the casket containing his body was conveyed to the funeral train in August, 192 G. He dominated the ideals and imagination of half the women of the world, who professed themselves heartbroken at his death. After the funeral service a movement was started for the erection of a worthy memorial. Mr. George Ullman, executor of the Valentino estate, and Joseph Schcnck, Valentino’s dearest friend, were chairman and vice-chair-man of a committee to handle the proposed Valentino Memorial Fund. One hundred thousand pounds was set as the goal. Memorial societies were organised in other cities, and in every country where Valentino’s name was famous. The most striking effort of all was made by Mr. Ullman, who sent out 1,000 letters to Valentino’s wealthy friends in the motion picture business. From these letters fewer than half a dozen replies were received. The committee authorised the publication of an invitation to designers and architects to submit plans and ideas for a memorial mausoleum. Selection was to be made by members of his family. Plans and ideas were received by the hundred, but the cheques for carrying them out were conspicuous by their absence. Altogether only about £SOO has been collected from the hundreds of thousands of people in various parts of the world who professed to be Valentino’s admirers. “I do not encourage people to send contributions to me,” said Miss M. C. Elliot, secretary of the English Valentino Association. “I ask them to send direct to Mr. Ullman. I have sent about £4O during the past year, collected in small sums. “One girl waljvs to work so that she can save 4d a day, another fines herself one penny every time she mislays something. “If only those girls who boast so proudly of walls lined with photographs in his memory would give half the amount they have spent for their own gratification an end would be put to this intolerable situation.” Miss Elliot was a nurse during the war, and noticed that whenever a man was brought in dying from an abdominal wound his lip curled upward in a baredy perceptible snarl. She was not a film enthusiast, and had no interest in Valentino till during the death scene in “Blood and Sand.” when she noticed that Valentino’s lip curled upward, exactly as it would have done had he been really dying. This care for detail so intrigued her that she wrote to him, and received a grateful answer in return for her compliment. The correspondence grew, and a meeting between Valentino and Miss Elliot was arranged. A few weeks before it was to take piace. however, came the announcement of his death.