Rodolfo Valentino: avventure amorose [Rodolfo Valentino: amorous adventures]. New York: Italian Book Company, 1944.

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Title

Rodolfo Valentino: avventure amorose [Rodolfo Valentino: amorous adventures]. New York: Italian Book Company, 1944.

Description

Published in the same year as the autobiography of Casanova, q.v., the advertisement for this work (on the back cover of the Casanova) noted not only "i suoi trionfi, i suoi amori" (his triumphs and his love affairs) but also "la sua tragica fine" (his tragic end).

His "tragic end" was death at age 31 of a ruptured ulcer. Pola Negri, his Polish lover of the time, was inconsolable; and dozens of suicide attempts by fans, some of whom, in apparent hysterical fury, stormed the Frank B. Campell funeral home on West 66th Street to get a glimpse of this matinee idol, perhaps Hollywood's first male sex symbol. The funeral in New York at St. Malachy's church on West 49th Street (attended by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and other stars of the era) was followed by another in Hollywood.

Valentino was born Rodolfo Guglielmi in 1895 in Castellaneta, Taranto province, in Puglia.

By this point in 1944, De Martino seems to have been honored by becoming a "Cav." or Cavaliere, something that the prominenti like him seemed to have craved, although he doesn't often use that title on others of his works published by the IBC.

Creator

Cav. D. M. [Antonio De Martino?]

Publisher

Italian Book Company

Date

1944

Format

19 x 13cm; 121 p.

Language

Italian

Citation

Cav. D. M. [Antonio De Martino?], “Rodolfo Valentino: avventure amorose [Rodolfo Valentino: amorous adventures]. New York: Italian Book Company, 1944.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed April 20, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/146.

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