Vamps Vampires Villains and Flappers

Vampires 1910s-1920s
She-Villains on the prowl

I glory in being heartless and wicked. I want people to whisper when they see me, 'The worst woman of all.'

I want to steal husbands and see the deserted wives weep and clutch their children to their breaking hearts.

I want to lure millionaires and drag them down until the soul within them dies. (You can sing that one.)

I want the lured millionaires to lose home, fortune, position and friends.

I want their wives to be obliged to take in sewing and washing. I want their children to cry for food and be cold.

I want to see these millionaires be reduced to the bread lines through my doings and mine alone.

I want to see people shudder when they they look at me.

Because if I can do all these things successfully, I shall usually be sure of a job in some picture as The screen's greatest vampire. -- Dagmar Godowsky, 1924

Dagmar Godowsky

When you think of female screen villains, you might first think of the witch, the old crone (who is often the wicked witch in disguise). I've seen female movie villains to have the power of magic. 

The motives for their dastardly deeds may be different from their male counterparts. Sometimes gender doesn't seem to make that much difference when you look at the villain's motivation and actions. These days when a woman reaches a certain age, she might have a Croning Ceremony, taking back negative connotations of the term, and looking forward to the years ahead.

There's one type of character that I hadn't thought of as a villain but my research identified her as such: The Vampire or Vamp of the 1910s and 1920s. This character was played in different incarnations and in so many films. She wasn't always identified in reviews/articles as the villain. It comes back to how you define a villain. "The girl can't help it," or "She's just drawn that way," can only get you so far. 

Bela Lugosi and his vampire character, Dracula are on the AFI, American Film Institute list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of all time. That film came out in 1931. A vampire is said to drain the life force out of his or her victim.

Here are some quotes and interview excerpts from the 1920s both talking about vamps and flappers and by the actresses who played the characters, themselves.

Miss Godowsky expands on earlier quote.....
"Normally and personally I am a kind-hearted average woman who with other average women would squirm at the things that I professionally desire to do. But if Nature made me the vampire type and I want to do in pictures that for which I am best fitted by Nature why shouldn't I want to be the best of the type?....

"Many actresses think it good publicity to decry the type of role they play best to demand that they be given 'wider opportunities for the display of their versatility.'.... Honestly if I met a woman half as wicked as some I have portrayed well, I wouldn't even invite her to tea."
-- Dagmar Godowsky, 1924

Theda Bara as Cleopatra and Fritz Leiber as Caesar
Cleopatra 1917

 The Vamping Style of Four Film Sirens

"Quietly and secretly they have gone on their way, luring the hearts of men from the paths of righteousness and duty leaving destruction in their wake, sowing the seeds of discord and distension wherever their shadows have been cast." 

"My methods are very quick. I never waste time. When I see what I want I go after it and usually I get it." Virginia Pearson

"I rely on my personality and dress. Take your time is my motto. I practice no tricks." Mme Olga Petrova

"'Theda Bara the greatest of vampires: 'I cannot tell you anything,' she breathed. 'For I am a mystery even to myself. Never understand yourself for if you do not no one else will be able to understand you either and there is nothing in this world that attracts as a mystery does. .. To prevent the contingency of my ever understanding myself I have hired an excellent corps of publicity writers. They turn out new stories about me every day.'"

"Final visit to pretty Charlotte Burton. 'I am the sulky type of vampire. Men say there is murder in my eye. ... I am the thunder and lightning, the brooding clouds of summer. I am harsh and violent. If I don't get what I want I yell. There's nothing like a good yell to bring them around.'

"You see there is no formula. Either you are born a vampire or you are not, that's all."

Theda Bara began making films in 1914. By the early-mid 1920s women were already starting to bob their hair distinction between the vampire and the flapper was being discussed.  Were vamps on their way out? Or were they just morphing into something new?

Pola Negri 1923
Mad Love aka Sappho

Nita Naldi talks about the screen vampire....
"Consider what goes to make a screen vamp. You never heard of a blonde vamp, did you? No the screen vamp is a brunette, preferably with Latin blood flowing in her veins. The Latin type is a flaming contrast to any other. It is her inheritance the warm-eyed woman with her passionate response to moods, her sophistication, her sparkling yet subtle appeal to the opposite sex. That is her inheritance from the climate in which she and her ancestors were reared."

Rudolph Valentino and Nita Naldi Blood and Sand

"The woman I portrayed in A Sainted Devil is as devoid of scruples as a fence is of speech. She deliberately sets out to win the man to whom she has taken a fancy regardless of the fact that the may ruin his life. ... 

"Now if there isn't a lesson to this I don't know where there could be a lesson especially as I suffer the consequences of my love-lawless deeds. The law of compensation plods to the certain ruin of the vamp provided she doesn't reform which in a picture she most assuredly cannot do. So again I say a vampire is an asset and not a liability to society."

In Blood and Sand Naldi, as Doña Sol bites Juan Gallardo's (Valentino) hand. He calls her a snake, a serpent from hell. "One moment I love you, the other I hate you!"




Is the devil a woman? 
"Yes and a thoroughly good one thinks Kay Johnson, the Madame in Madame Satan (1930)

"Of this I am convinced, that if the devil is a woman she is not wicked and bad but a good woman who is thoroughly idle, mischievous rather than malicious, more blundering than wicked and more stupid than evil. For from such women all the troubles of the world are spread. 

"A bad woman would be too obvious a mask for the Devil, who is insidious.... If such there be mark my words she is wearing apron strings with the happiness of some struggling, nagged male dangling from the ends. For the Devil is not a lady of free love. She is not that generous. 

"The Woman-Devil is an immaculate housekeeper. Not because of the joy of neatness but because she may make her home a private hell for her husband. In her hands the dust-cloth is far more treacherous a weapon than the pitchfork as she wipes away the casual cigarette ash and 'tidies' after the comfort-seeker. 

"Though she smiles often there is no real humor in her soul. She does not go to see risque shows or read improper books but she is fast to concoct fiction that will blast a reputation over her afternoon bridge table."

The Vampire is being replaced by the Flapper
A 1923 article says it's the women movie-goers who are making this happen.
"At first women were captivated by the vamp because they thought she could teach them how to wield new power over men. But then women discovered how dangerous it was for the men themselves to see this power operating in such a highly talented non-union manner and they immediately turned against the vamp and boycotted all pictures in which she did business. ... 

"No man really desires protection from feminine machinations. Just what will be the fate of the flapper, now that she has supplanted the old-time vampire, no one can tell. It is all in the hands of the gods and the women fans. 

"Perhaps she will be tolerated because is without the exotic mystery and the cryptic wizardries of her older duskier sister. Time alone will bring the answer. Personally I think she is more dangerous than the goggle-eyed, punk-burning, chaise-lounging vamp of yore." 

Perhaps one reason the vamp is seen as a villain is a spoken or sometimes unspoken suggestion that the male of our species is powerless against her predatory ways. This makes her the 'bad guy.' If he couldn't resist, it could set up an exciting cat fight between the wife and the interloper, but that's leaving out the free will of a mature grown man.




"Isn't there some way of finding out what a man is in his everyday life before giving him all of yours?" Wine of Youth clip, 1924 Pauline Garon likes them both


Interview with Perfect Flapper Pauline Garon

"What, I ventured is the essential difference between the flapper and the young

Pauline Garon

lady?"

"'Let me see....' Pauline continued eagerly, 'The young lady is to the flapper what marriage is to an engagement. You know an engagement full of love and excitement and expectancy and marriage is just marriage - and the end of everything!'" 

"Is it true, I ventured that flappers have gone out of style?"
 
"'Flappers,' announced Miss Garon, 'will never go out of style. The fact is they were never in style. They've always been and always will be - like love and bills and eternity - you know. Of course they may not continue to wear the outward signs of the flapper fraternity - galoshes, giddy ties and grey hats; but the flapper heart will beat as steadfastly - I think I coined that one myself - as steadfastly under rags or royal raiment as it does under the baggy sports blouse. Bless them! I'm talking too much, aren't I - am I not? How about a demi-tasse?'" ...

"So the idea of being a perfect lady does not hand you a thrill?"
 
"Again the cute shrug of the shoulders as she said, 'It's disgusting. I do not want to become a lady until I've passed my sixtieth birthday and even then I hope I'll have left to register a kick. My goodness look at the time. Did I talk so long?'" 

"As I rose to go Pauline whispered, 'Let's have tea next Tuesday. I really haven't had a chance to say anything to you.'"

"And then off flapped filmdom's flappiest flapper."
-- Pauline Garon The Perfect Flapper 1924






AFI's 50 Greatest Film Villains of All Time

Where movie villains come from:Villain Nationalities in Early American Films; How did some of the movie stereotypes start?

Croning Ceremonies for Women 50-60 aging with pride 

Sources not listed above....
Film Fun 1917
Motion Picture 1923 and 1925 
Motion Picture Classic 1930 

Rudolph Valentino's Impact Lover Movie Idol

Valentino's Impact
Could he be such big a star today?

Valentino was the first
Sex Symbol

"George Washington may be the father of this country, Mary Pickford may be its sweetheart. But Valentino is its lover. ... Valentino has an almost perfect physical physique - a physique combining both beauty and strength: Apollo plus Dionysus. He is at once graceful and aggressively masculine.

"He is every woman's husband by proxy - the invisible Cavalier of the Boudoir. He is the Phantom Rival in every virtuous domestic establishment - the gallant courtier with whom every husband must bear comparison - the standard by which every wife measures her legal mate. And he is also the young lover's rival, the nemesis of every ardent swain, the third party on every honeymoon, the absent correspondent in every divorce proceeding."
-- Motion Picture 1923

Valentino is the Romeo of all ages....
1923 psychological profile

"He is less a shadow even though he is gone, than men who live in the world as flesh and blood, because he was all things to all women. He had glamour for all women. But he had also the wistful appeal of the boy whom all women want to mother, to scold a little perhaps, to soothe and console and cherish in their hearts. 

"He was a brother to girls who never had brothers or having them wished their brothers could be as Rudy was. He was the other son of all elderly women whose own sons had deserted them or disappointed them. He was the Sheik, the good comrade ... he was all those things to me and to all women."
-- Actress Pola Negri to whom he was said to be engaged at the time of his death.
Motion Picture Magazine interview 1934



Julio's romance, "Do you promise to be good?"
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse


In the early 1920s American society was changing. Women had gained the right to vote, they were entering the work force allowing greater financial independence. The Jazz Age influenced style. We had flappers on and off the screen.

Movies in general were sometimes seen as a threat to the home and family. What would we see on the screen? How would they influence the audience? What would happen in the dark at the movie theater? A push to censor films and keep them wholesome happened quickly.

Early Movie Idol Worship
"If you are an idol worshiper don't be ashamed. So was your great grandpa. Our pagan ancestors made idols out of wood and stone. To us in this enlightened age this seems a foolish waste of good building material. We make ours of celluloid. We picked models for their resemblance to the old Venuses and Apollos. Many would have passed for the wooden originals if they hadn't moved. Noting this, some genius called them 'movie idols.'"
-- Herbert Howe; New Movie Magazine 1931 

In the early silent films most leading male actors were all-American cowboys such as William S. Hart or Broncho Billy from out of Essanay Studios. There were other handsome dramatic actors such as Richard Barthelmess and the swashbucklers like John Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks. Youngsters really loved their films. 

There were big stars from other countries, Ramon Novarro, Antonio Moreno and Sessue Hayakawa. But Rudolph Valentino was something different and special in his way. Valentino was the first Italian sex symbol, he was new and passionate and he seemed dangerous. 

"Italians in movies were always characters; villains and peasants, maybe a crime figure, maybe a thief. With few opportunities for Valentino in traditional Hollywood films he found work instead in romantic fantasies about faraway places. His Italian looks would stand in Indian rajas, Spanish bullfighters and most famously an Arab Sheik."
-- from the 2015 PBS documentary series, The Italian Americans

Quickly the first sex symbols appeared in movies. For women, there were the lady vampires, the vamps such as Theda Bara. Larger than life characters, temptresses.

"Nita Naldi's sex appeal is her raison d'être in pictures. What other quality could possibly account for the great vogue of Mack Sennett's bathing beauties, a year or two ago? Why does Mae Murray appear in a pearl breast-band and a tinseled loin-cloth and nothing else in at least one sequence in every picture? Because the men for years who for years have paid money to sit in the bald-headed row within squinting distance of the beautiful chorus girls now get a mental thrill out of a pair of alabaster shoulders in what are deftly termed society dramas of the screen."

Sex Appeal
Who would get the women's hearts pumping? Magazines were full of psychological and medical analyses. Is the screen hypnotizing you? Do the movies harm your eyes? How will they hurt our children? Alongside were ads to write for movies, contests to get into the movies, gossip and news about the stars. They were as unusual and suspect as they were enticing and exciting. Sometimes the doctors, scholars, censors and pundits went to the movies as part of their work, in the name of the public good. That was okay.

Audience members' hearts flutter at a Valentino kiss

Someone hooked up an audience reaction meter aka a love meter to test women's reactions when they saw Valentino kissing on screen. A 1920s newsreel caught their palpitations as they watched him kiss Vilma Banky.   

Fan Mail
In the early 1920s, Rudolph Valentino was the right man at the right time. He was born with the talent, determination and the looks. Those around him would control and mold his career. At one point the postage it took to send out photos in response to his fan mail was in excess of the actor's salary. One fan magazine suggested that fans tell the studio that Valentino deserved a raise!

They tried to explain why Valentino was as popular, as mesmerizing as he was. Why did American women worship him? Why did American men dislike him so? Some were able to pin their distaste for women's growing independence and for society's changing times onto Rudolph Valentino (a representation of what was wrong with movies in general). 

The addition of disapproval often adds attention and attraction. It made Valentino's flame shine that much brighter. What was he doing that was so naughty anyway? Women wanted to have a look. Publicity departments had a field day building his reputation. Women would sit through an entire picture to savor just one elusive Valentino smile. 

Rudolph Valentino with Nita Naldi Blood and Sand

A fine figure of a man...
"Mother used to blush when father mentioned his woolen underwear. Now she gets a kick out of the kinematized BVDs of Valentino as in the dressing-room scene of Blood and Sand. ... It wasn't his dramatic ability that made Rudolph Valentino the idol of American womanhood, practically overnight. And Valentino is a superb actor, at that. 

"It was his sex appeal, whether you will admit it or not, you women who go to see his pictures five and six times as he crushes the heroine (the heroine who might be you!) to his breast, the fact that he makes you sigh blissfully at his romantic ardor. For this very reason many men do not like Valentino. Men never like to see a man more skilled in the art of love-making than they themselves. ...

"There is a perfectly good economic reason for the beach scenes where the strapping hero poses in a one-piece suit; for bedroom scenes the costume pictures where skin-tight trousers display a shapely thigh and slender waist. Valentino you remember has late appeared in snug toreador costumes in Blood and Sand in tight knee britches in The Sheik and a few strings of pearls in The Young Rajah."
-- The Sex Best Sellers, Screenland 1923

Valentino draped in pearls
The Young Rajah 1922

And here we thought showing men in tight pants was such a 1970s thing? Well, not really. Though it brought him fame and wealth, Valentino ultimately wasn't happy with how he'd been packaged. He looked forward to breaking out of the Latin lover, or what he sometimes called the lounge lizard stereotype. He looked toward his future and wanted to be more than a caricature. He was trying to assimilate. It was said by the end of his life at age 31, he'd already lost much of his Italian accent.

Job Opening: National Lover
"Valentino would not be the national lover unless the country was in sore need of such a lover. The very intensity of the emotion Valentino has aroused reveals how great a lack of adequate lovers there is in America. No nation creates a symbol for a thing which is prevalent in the flesh. ...

"Why then should there be a need for a romantic idol in a country where there are so many able-bodied men? Why should the American women create a symbol of the ideal lover in the person of Valentino when there are any number of willing males, that is potential realities, on every hand? 

"The answer is simply that American men are not lovers. .... They are too busy, there are too many demands for their energy for them to devote themselves to the finer things in life. They give their wives a fur coat as a consolation prize for time and romance. European men are far better versed in the game of love and the art of love making than American men. They have or take more leisure."

Those who are the first, the first to attain an incredible height often leave a lasting impact. Before Marilyn Monroe, it was Jean Harlow for whom they coined the term Blonde Bombshell. Were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford the first Hollywood super couple? How does Pickfair stand up against Brangelina? Greta Garbo and John Gilbert were another hot screen couple of the 1920s.

Valentino's sudden death and his funeral was so traumatic that many afterward are still compared to his. Perhaps most notably we think of James Dean's. There are too many to list. Huge stars who left us too young, too suddenly, left us wondering what might they have done.

Vintage Photo Sweet Picnic Kiss Rudolph Valentino
Sleeve for tablets, iPads
 
Valentino vs. The Sheik

To this day the actor is identified with a role which unfortunately he felt was poorly directed and one that he personally did not like.

"Mr. Valentino was not happy with The Sheik. He called it 'an error.' Speaking of how he was directed in the film, 'What nonsense it was!'"  He said his performance including the eye rolling did not ring true to his character. 

"Mr. Valentino declared one of his greatest problems was 'to live down' his reputation as a 'sheik' a character which he repudiates."  
-- Picture Play August 1922; The Owosso Argus-Press February 1923

For what it's worth, The Sheik is a film that contemporary audiences may not like as much as others. Don't start and stop with that film if you want to get a real sense of Rudolph Valentino. The Son of The Sheik gets a better reception.

Rudolph Valentino as
The Son of the Sheik (1925) Poster print 

Even though an article is to include his wife, Natacha Rambova, the writer swoons over Valentino. "The interviewer is confused, frankly, rattled. One has heard so much about this man and dreamed so much more that when one finally is in The Presence, words simply desert or worse still, mutiny and intelligent questions become chaotic stammerings. Yes, one is a little excited."
-- Motion Picture Classic December 1923




Valentino: Dangerous Man
The desire for that seductive, dangerous romance is nothing new. The fact that it's illicit makes it all the more tempting. Rudolph Valentino was given some of the first bad boy roles. 

While Italian actors continue to be cast in roles as gangsters, it has to be noted that there are positives and negatives to the allure, the ongoing stereotype of taking those parts. There are often box office dollars there and the iconic Godfather Trilogy shows us that. 

Valentino stars alongside Brando and Pacino?
Rudolph Valentino would have only been in his 70s when the first Godfather film came out, perfect for a role in that film. Brando was in his forties and relative newcomer, Al Pacino was thirty-two. Valentino could've played Pacino's grand-dad? (In the story, Vito Corleone's father had been killed, but Valentino's age was right.) Who knows? "Just when I thought I was out of the picture business, they pull me back in....."

In the 1940s, even though some female movie goers loved it, the actor James Mason was trying to shake his image. He was thought to be a dangerous lover after he made films such as The Seventh Veil.  A Burns and Allen OTR radio episode spoofed the attraction of being dominated by the dangerous man when Mason appeared as their guest. Gracie said, "Some women dream of being covered in diamonds. I dream of being covered in bandaids."

There has always been the attraction to the suave otherworldly vampire. Look at the Twilight series with Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. Replicas of Bella's wedding dress were hot sellers. Fifty Shades of Grey, the book and the movie are big news.

Herbert Howe 1931 article,
Movie Idols, types and the need to worship

A trip to the beach....

Would he be such a star today?

Manic Monday
The Bangles, 1986
lyrics excerpt...

"Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin' Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
But I can't be late
'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid
These are the days
When you wish your bed was already made...."

A 1933 magazine asked, Could the sheik win hearts today? Again he was still associated with that persona, that character.

"The fickle feminine public no longer wants one man on the screen to have all their worship but chooses to divide it among the reigning stars with voice appeal.... each with his particular flair, special following. And yet, they admitted that There had never been a successor to Valentino. There had never been an actor whose death caused the outpouring of emotion of Valentino's. 

"Cortez, Raft and LaRue are the villain-you-love-to-touch-you type and when they're heroes they have a darkly sinister quality of brooding or actual mystery that gets the girls who like to guess and wonder about the facts of life and the factors therein."

They were right. There could never again be one person who could so captivate the country. He had everything including the right timing. His story was similar to that of Jean Harlow and Elvis Presley. Had he lived, I believe  he would have grown and evolved as an actor. He may not have continued to be the one and only but chances are he would still be a star.

"I do not want to go on in these Great Lover roles. People will soon get tired of them. Perhaps they are tiring already I must make a decided change." 
-- Rudolph Valentino 

His films continue to bring in royalties to his estate. Then and now people visit Castellaneta, Italy where he was born. There's a list of places reputed to have visits from Valentino's ghost not the least of which would be his grave and his former homes. There are seances or you can host your own.

Actor Rudolph Valentino 1925 Pillow
Change the photo on other side?
He'll rest with you ClassicOldPhotos

"I know Rudolph Valentino would still be great to-day if he had lived.  It is my opinion that Rudy had not even reached the zenith of his career when death came. He was always studying always preparing. Rudy was not merely a handsome fellow with melting eyes and an unusual amount of sex-appeal. He had a whimsical flair for comedy and a depth of understanding for emotional drama that no one on the screen except perhaps Leslie Howard possesses to-day." 
-- Director Sidney Olcott 1935

There were and are many movie idols after him. In the 1930s they tried to get Clark Gable and a new actor named Cary Grant to take on remakes of Valentino films. They refused hoping that the studios wouldn't force them to do it. Others such as George Raft were regularly compared to Valentino. Generations of actors were compared to Gable and Grant, too. Was the handsome and brooding Al Pacino some kind of new Valentino? Fine as they are, why not let all of them have their own identities. Not one can be replaced.

In the 1960s, when girls saw the Beatles in movies such as A Hard Day's Night they screamed at the movie screen.

I found articles from the 1920s through to the 2000s that asked what would happen if he were alive today, who might be the next or the current Valentino. But why are we asking?

Though they do keep asking the question, the end of a 1934 article pretty much puts it into perspective. Why even ask what would happen if he were alive. The fact that millions of people attend memorials, hold seances, watch/go to see his films, still talk about him, compare others to him.... "Valentino is alive to-day!"

Motion Picture magazine sums it up;
Valentino lives on

 This article is part of the Great Valentino Blogathon
Rudolph Valentino would be 120 in 2015
Born May 6, 1895

Related Pages of Interest:


Strange Experiences at Valentino's Grave Rudolph Valentino's ghost is said haunt his grave site

The Lady and The Ghost of Valentino Rudolph speaks to his wife from beyond

Falcon's Lair: Rudolph Valentino's legendary Haunted Mansion

Valentino speaks about, "When I Come Back;" Prophetic discussion as Rudolph and Natacha are leaving on their honeymoon

James Mason on the Burns and Allen Radio Show Gracie Allen, James Mason, the Cats, a Chair and a Whip 

The Death of Jean Harlow 'Goodnight, my Dearest Darling'    

Several of his films are available to rent or stream through Amazon. Some are free through Amazon Prime.

Early 20th Century Women Movie Theater Owners Female Movie Theater Owners, Managers, Exhibitors

Rudolph Valentino Customizable Cigar Label Bags Add text

Strange Experiences at Valentinos Grave

Strange Experiences at Valentino's Grave

Did you know that:

Crypt of Rudolph Valentino

• Ten people inquire every day for the specific location of Valentino's burial place
• There are societies all over the world pledged to keep the grave ever fresh with flowers?
• A woman dressed always in black came to the grave every week for three years?
• A girl came all the way from Chicago just to get a rose petal from the grave?
• Over a hundred people visit the cemetery every day

In 1932, six years following the actor's death, New Movie Magazine talked to Roger Peterson, known as Pete, an attendant at Hollywood Cemetery mausoleum. The major part of his duties have to do with inquiries concerning Valentino. He had to assist and clean up after people when necessary.
 

Wake for Rudolph Valentino August 1926

Pete said there are thousands of people who are genuinely interested in Valentino and they talk with him about the star. Facts above are also from that article called My Strange Experiences at Valentino's Grave.

"Unfortunately he also has to deal with hysterical sometimes unbalanced people who make a Roman holiday of their visits to Valentino's crypt. His handling of such semi-psychopathic cases would do credit to a physician. Pete has kept a diary since he has been on the job at the Hollywood cemetery." The diary began September 7, 1926, the day that Rudolph Valentino was laid to rest in the mausoleum.

The location is now called the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. An annual memorial service is held each August 23rd.

"The crypt in which he now lies belongs to Miss Mathis. In the tier below lie her

June Mathis 1922

mother and stepfather. The space next to Valentino is reserved for Miss Mathis' husband. (Note: upon the death of June Mathis Balboni, July 26 1927 Valentino was moved to the next crypt and she was given her own. She is best remembered for discovering Rudolph Valentino and writing such films as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Blood and Sand.)"

There are a few spiritual and somewhat spiritual things from his diary that were in the article. Unfortunately too much of his time was spent with with souvenir hunters and vandals who tore flowers and plants apart. People chiseled pieces off of memorial statues to the point that they toppled over.

"September 10, 1927: Still more people and a particularly violent fit of hysteria. It is a shame that sincere affection for a public figure such as Valentino must be besmirched by exhibitionists.

"September 30: A woman came to the mausoleum today with the wildest delusion yet. She claimed she was about to become a mother and Valentino was the father of her child. This thirteen months after his death. The woman asked permission to have a cot placed before Rudy's crypt where she might stay until her baby was born. She went up to the cemetery office and somehow or other they got rid of her."

A 1961 retrospective article in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that "35 women claimed he had fathered illegitimate children by him. All claims came after his death. There was no Valentino heir from the two marriages he had." There were one or two famous cases where women claimed they had been secretly married to Valentino and he had fathered their children. Close friend  George Ullman addressed this in his book.

Rudolph Valentino
18 years old, 1913
Just arrived in America;
He didn't speak any English

"Oct 15, 1928: I met Mrs. Coppola today she is the mother of the baby named for Rudolph Valentino. Of course being Italian, the name is spelled Rudolfo. The baby died at birth September 29 and is in a crypt on the top tier of the Valentino corridor. The mother came today and stayed several hours reading her bible and praying. I wish I could do something to comfort her in her great grief. 

"November 21: Mrs. Coppola was happier today than I have ever seen her. I asked her why and she told me a strange story of Valentino coming to her last night and talking to her. She said his spirit came to her house and knocked on the door. 

"When she let him in he told her that her baby was happy and not to grieve so much. .... Mrs. Coppola and Pete became friends. She came at least 5 times a week. She always brings flowers from her own garden. These she divides equally between her baby and Valentino. ... 

"She tells Pete that she sees Valentino's spirit occasionally in her dreams and frequently hears him walking about the house at night. She met Valentino's brother and sister who come to the cemetery often and they all pray together."

... as the rain fell on me stretched canvas print  
*Two panels, side by side; framed or unframed, choose style
Browse for more wall art on Zazzle

The Lady in Black:
"March 7, 1929: The Lady in Black is no longer a mystery. She told me a lot about herself today. She is very poor which explains why she wears the same dress every week. A black and white hat and a long cape, reaching to her ankles complete her costume. Her husband left several years ago with a small child to support. She earns all she can doing housework of the hardest sort. 

"Valentino represents the only romance in her life. She went to the studio once to see him work but was too bashful to ask for an introduction. She says however that he glanced her way and smiled while looking directly into her eyes. That moment she will treasure forever. A few weeks later he left for New York where he died. She failed in her endeavor to meet him while he loved and now she spends what time she be can by his side in death."

August 29 1929: Pete wonders how the Woman in Black is doing. He last saw her several days ago. A note says he would never see her again.

There is no other information about her given. I've read several accounts of Valentino's Lady in Black. The most common is that she was a woman named Ditra Flame. Beyond that the details may vary. Did she or didn't she know Valentino? They may have grown up together, maybe they never met, as the lady talked about in the diary.

Actress Rita Flynn places a wreath at Valentino's grave
Fifth anniversary of his death

Did she bring a single red rose? Twelve red roses and one white rose? A bunch of violets? Flowers picked from her own flower garden? How often did she visit? How many ladies in black were there? Was it all just a publicity stunt?
Were there impostors or could there really have been more women dressed in black visiting Valentino's grave?

Vintage Photo Sweet Picnic Kiss Rudolph Valentino 1921
Browse & Create other laptop / iPad sleeves

SILENT MOVIES~ "Shhh!".. fun Media Room pillow by ARTKISSED
Check out or create more Zazzle Pillows

Hanging Lanterns, Mehndi Mason Jars for Candles, Flowers
Carry them for light to light your way
Choose color, style use for your next party

"December 16, 1929: We had a real spiritualistic manifestation today. A woman came in and introduced herself as a medium. She said she had spoken with Valentino upon numerous occasions, but he always disappeared before she could ask him anything she wished answered. 

"She had therefore traveled from somewhere in New England that she might hold a seance by his crypt. Perhaps she wasn't asking my permission but I told her to go ahead. I really don't care what people do just so they aren't noisy and don't steal or break anything. 

"The medium ran around in circles crying, 'Hear! Hear! He knocks. Rudy knocks.'

"She behaved like an insane person. Others attracted by her cries came running down the corridor. Sure enough there was a tap, tap, tap to be heard from above. 

"We investigated and found a large yellow-hammer had gotten into the attic of the mausoleum. How that bird had been able to get in remains a mystery today. But he was flying around crazily and making the tapping noise. The bird and the spiritualist left the cemetery about the same time. I don't know which was the most crestfallen, but neither returned."
-- End of New Movie Magazine excerpts


Suicide attempts at Valentino's Grave
January 1936: "Another woman attempted suicide at the grave of Rudolph Valentino the other day. A few people became greatly excited but the story is not new, this was not the first suicide try there. Valentino has been dead nine years, but his tomb is visited by scores every day. 

"Many of these leave flowers. More leave tears. Four have attempted suicide. All four were women who were, to use a coined phrase, Valentino mad. The screen has had its Carlisle Blackwells, Wallace Reids and Clark Gables, all public idols, but no other star has equalled Valentino's grasp on feminine emotions."
-- Reading Eagle, January 27, 1936

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse lobby card 1921
Alice Terry, Rudolph Valentino
Screenplay by June Mathis

Haunting his old studio?

The studios where Valentino's movies were filmed are possible places of hauntings. Early ghost pictures? Have these ever been published?
 
"A man from a California wayside town visited the old Metro studio, also haunted, where the actor made his first success, in The Four Horsemen. He took Kodak pictures. When the negatives were developed, queer shapes weird figures appeared on the prints. Distinguishable on a post was a shadowy form of Rudolph Valentino."  

An August 1976 newspaper article spoke about how the Valentino mystique lingers fifty years after his death. About his funeral: 

"Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery was strewn with flowers dropped from an airplane overhead. Teeming mobs covering one end of Santa Monica Boulevard to the other stretched their fingers skyward in order to catch some of the petals that descended 'like tears shed from the very heavens themselves.'" 

Photo: Rudolph Valentino Tribute,c1930

Other articles in this series:

The Lady and The Ghost of Valentino Rudolph speaks to his wife from beyond

Falcon's Lair Rudolph Valentino's legendary Haunted Mansion

Valentino speaks about, "When I Come Back;" Rudolph and Natacha leaving on their honeymoon



Take a tour with a Valentino Fan

Related books and pages of interest:

Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino One of the most popular books about Valentino.

Intimate Biography: Rudolph Valentino - The Great Lover + The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse This DVD set gets good reviews but others do, too. I chose this one because it contains a movie and a biography as well as the audio of his voice. Good extras, good compilation for the price.

American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning 

Lou Costello Memorial Bracelet for his son

Who inherits your affiliate marketing pay & online sales earnings: When our Affiliate Marketing work outlives us :What happens to our online income after we die? Who controls about our social media pages like facebook after we're gone?

1930s Fan Girls chase Clark Gable, tear his clothes, nibble on his ears

Speaking of Ladies in Black, The The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had an exhibition, Death Becomes Her A Century of Mourning Attire which ran
October 2014 – February 1, 2015.


Sources not cited elsewhere
The Victoria Advocate, August 29, 1976
Screenland 1922 
Motion Picture November 1928
Photoplay November 1926

His Haunted Mansion The late Rudolph Valentino

Falcon's Lair Visit a Haunted House

Valentino's Falcon Lair

He built it for his wife, but she would never live there. A larger tragedy, he would die not long after its completion. 

The mansion on the hill may rival his grave site for having the most stories of Valentino ghost sightings. Tourist guides, real estate brokers, books and rumors tell of spooky happenings. Have you heard them, have you ever been on a ghost tour, a tour of haunted houses? The address is given as 1436 Bella Dr, Los Angeles, CA.

While some say that Valentino called it Falcon Lair and later owner Doris Duke dubbed it Falcon's Lair, you did occasionally see it called Falcon's Lair before the 1950s.

Stories have circulated around Hollywood of one caretaker who ran down the canyon in the middle of the night yelling that he had seen Valentino. Some even say he is still running.

Young Rudolph Valentino in
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Screenplay by June Mathis,
a close friend who was said to have discovered Valentino

"I slept in Valentino's haunted house"
In 1928 a magazine reporter was assigned to spend the night in Valentino's bedroom. Would she or wouldn't she find a real haunted house? The actor had died only recently. She submitted a story with the title above. An excerpt:

"Now I am neither a scoffer nor a believer. What is beyond the grave is something no living soul has fathomed. Whether a departed soul can return to communicate with those not yet departed has never been  proved, so far as I know to a point of certainty."

Toward morning she was awakened, "feeling as though someone had entered the room above me. ... I looked up. Could I be dreaming? On the stairway was a shadow. I rose, approached. It disappeared. I sat down again. Once more, the shadow. ....

"I rose and approached this shadow. Was I insane or did it retreat up the stairs before me? I turned, picked up my cot, departed. ...

"The caretaker poked his head out of the second story garage window.

"'Did you see anything?' His nightgown billowed in the breeze as he called down to me.
 
"I shook my head slowly. 'N-n-no,' I answered."  She soon left the haunted mansion.

Harry Carey & Edwina Booth in Trader Horn
Original 8x10" Photo

The Cowboy & The Ghost, Enter Renter Harry Carey: 
I read that legendary Western star Harry Carey stayed there just one night before leaving because he'd seen Valentino's ghost. But newspaper and other accounts from the actor himself prove otherwise.

Still the ghostly legend continued. In August 1930, upon the fourth anniversary of the actor's death, a woman came to Falcon Lair. She was stopped by Harry Carey's chauffeur. She demanded admittance. 

"I have an appointment with Mr. Valentino. It is his anniversary and his spirits say I will meet him here."

"Not while I'm working here lady," the chauffeur reportedly said before closing the gates and sending her away.

Harry Carey, his wife and daughter 1930
in front of Falcon Lair

In 1930, Harry Carey, his wife and two young children rented Falcon Lair. The house had been empty for years before he moved in.  

Early in the family's stay, night-time sounds, windows banging and strange lights were off-putting and they considered leaving the home. But the actor famously said, "We've been living with lions and cannibals in Africa. No spook can scare us off." (Carey, the father of actor Harry Carey Jr., had been in the film Trader Horn, shot in Africa.) 

He was perhaps known as one of the great old Cowboy actors, and got an Oscar nomination for his role as the President of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). John Wayne had paid tribute to him in the movie The Searchers. The film featured Olive Carey and Harry Carey Jr, Harry Carey's wife and son.

"One day by chance I discovered a hidden door that apparently led to a part of the basement. I opened the door and half-a-hundred bats rushed out. That

Harry and daughter
explore the basement
What was stashed in that box?

ended the tapping." 

"Exploring the basement through the hidden door, Carey said he found a large box containing a mass of electrical wires and switches. He traced those wires and found they led up a chimney to a built-in bookcase in the room above. 

"From the bookcase, hidden wires ran to other parts of the house. Investigating further, Carey said he learned that at Valentino's death a caretaker with spiritualistic leanings had been hired to watch the property.
 
"Carey said the caretaker and his followers held seances in the rooms where electric terminals were found. From various electric connections pale blue and green light mysteriously flashed on and off thru the house. 'We seem to have solved the mystery,' Carey said."

I found versions of this story in a handful of old newspapers and an old

Pola Negri in Woman of the World
8x10 Silver Halide
Archival Quality Repro Photo Print

magazine from mid-1930. Apparently Mr. Carey was able to turn off the flashing lights but they don't say if he disconnected the wire-works or removed them. 

Don't mix up the actor Mr. Carey with Harry Caray who broadcast for the Chicago Cubs for 16 years. They just happen to have the same name.


Pola Negri:

In 1934 Pola Negri, the final lover of Valentino, purchased Falcon's Lair. She said she wanted to live there 'together with him.' It was where they had planned to live after they were married.

"'That first day when I arrived just as the sun was sinking over the last hill and I stepped through the gate he was there to greet me. He was here, Rudy, his vibrations were everywhere, I could feel him, gay and charming telling us not to be sad not to mourn not to grieve.' 

"From the big house came only silence and yet listening with Pola's ears I seemed to hear the vibrations of Rudy's gay laughter, song and revelry and living voices. ..... 

"'He is less a shadow even though he is gone, than men who live in the world as flesh and blood, because he was all things to all women. He had glamour for all women. But he had also the wistful appeal of the boy whom all women want to mother, to scold a little perhaps, to soothe and console and cherish in their hearts. 

"'He was a brother to girls who never had brothers or having them wished their brothers could be as Rudy was. He was the other son of all elderly women whose own sons had deserted them or disappointed them. He was the Sheik, the good comrade ... he was all those things to me and to all women.'

She talked about how Valentino rode a horse. 'You know how Rudy rode, like a god astride some celestial stallion. That was more than eight years ago... Rudy has been gone eight years on the twenty-third of last August... but it is yesterday to me.' ...

"Pola's white hand still clasping a red rose, covered her heart. ... 'We were both very interested in spiritualism. We used to use the Ouija board and we would get the amazing results together.' ... Yes there is something magnificent, something very much in the Grand Manner about this woman who will love Rudolph Valentino for as long as there is Time."
-- Motion Picture Magazine interview 1934

Not too long after she'd purchased the house Negri was off to France and Germany making movies.  Yes, there was a reference to Pola Negri on a recent episode of Downton Abbey.

The house would continue to change hands, some people owning, others renting. In 1945 actress Ann Harding purchased the home for, I believe $75,000. 


Thirty mediums conduct 1948 birthday seance

Seance scene from 1922 German Silent Film
Dr. Mabuse The Gambler
Directed by Fritz Lang

Seances would continue to be held at the mansion. May, for his birthday and August the month of his death are particular times where it's hoped his spirit may appear. 

For your Seance or Party
Set 6 Antiqued
Vintage Deco
Mercury Glass Candle Holders

On the actor's birthday, May 6, 1948, thirty mediums attempted to confer with Valentino in his hilltop home. Members of the press were in attendance. 

While they did not see or hear the star, some of the mediums claimed that they'd heard, seen or felt the spirit of Valentino. Someone reported message had been channeled: 

"This is Rudolph. You are in my house. I am your host. Please be my guests." 

There were other manifestations claimed such as a loud tap on the window and the flickering of a candle on his birthday cake.
-- Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 7, 1948

The Syndicate plans for 1949, Lair for Loveless Women:
In 1949 five wealthy women, referred to only as The Group or The Syndicate bought Falcon's Lair. There were extravagant and innovative plans for the house to become a sanctuary so loveless women from all over the world could come and live with his ghost should it truly live there.

"Plans were made for a meditation sanctum where lovelorn women can worship the actors memory, a wishing well for the loveless. Bursting rockets every night in clusters of red white and blue to represent purity, passion and devotion.

There would be "private showings after vespers of Valentino's most famous film, The Sheik. Their attorney said, 'For tens of thousands of lovelorn women, the only inspiration in life is the worship of Valentino's memory.'"
The Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 1949

It doesn't look like these plans came to fruition.
  

Calling Millicent Rogers and Clark Gable to The Mansion...
I've also read that Millicent Rogers who bought the home in 1949, spent only one night there before being chased out by the ghost of Rudolph Valentino. An

Clark Gable
8x10 glossy Photo

August 1953 Sydney Morning Herald article briefly explained that Millicent Rogers, heiress to some of the Standard Oil millions, "leased Falcon Lair for three months and left next morning."

Socialite, fashion icon, jewelry designer and art collector Millicent Rogers craftedjewelry in the home while she lived there. At the time, she was dating Clark Gable, with whom some sources say she was madly in love. 

This was after the death of Carole Lombard and before his 1949 marriage to Sylvia Ashley. Rogers designed special items for him, cuff links and such. The two dated for some time. Gable's dalliances with actress Virginia Grey upset Rogers a great deal. 

She broke it off with Gable with a letter. She sent a copy of the letter to columnist Hedda Hopper and Hopper reportedly printed the letter in her column. The Dear Clark letter has since been reprinted in books about Rogers and Gable such as Clark Gable: Biography, Filmography, Bibliography. Did Clark Gable ever visit Falcon's Lair? Quite possibly. Who out there knows?

After the difficult break up with Mr. Gable, Millicent Rogers left Los Angeles and so left Falcon's Lair. It wasn't Valentino who drove her out but a more contemporary Hollywood sex symbol, Clark Gable. If you get a chance, visit the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico.

Gloria Swanson in The Love of Sunya 1927
It is a film Swanson also produced

In the 1950s actress Gloria Swanson rented the home while she was in the area making a film. She had earlier visited the home to attend a seance. If there were any ghostly happenings while Ms. Swanson was there, I've not heard of them.

Overlooking Cary Grant 1954 ...
In early 1954 the home was rented by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton for her son Lance Reventlow as a 21st birthday gift. 

Hutton was doing some remodeling for him. The house now overlooked Cary Grant's "half-glass California type home" on a hill below. Hutton had been married to Cary Grant in the mid-1940s.

After Hutton and Mr. Reventlow, the home reportedly sold to Doris Duke. One newspaper described Duke as being 'twice married and breathtakingly rich.' She owned the mansion for years.

Doris Duke was married
to HR Cromwell 1935-1943

I read that in the 1950s Edgar Bergen and family, of course including the young Candice Bergen, lived at Falcon's Lair. Haven't been able to substantiate it. Many people rented the home, sometimes for a short time.

In 1966 Virginia Hill Hauser was renting the home. She was found dead that same year. Ms. Hauser was said to be a companion of gangster Bugsy Siegel.

It's been over eighty years since Valentino's death. The mansion is said to be haunted. Have you visited Rudolph Valentino's former home? What stories have you heard?? 
 

Villa Valentino
Other sites are said to be regularly haunted by the ghost of Rudolph Valentino. There is the site of home he shared with Natacha Rambova, a home built in 1922, referred to as Villa Valentino; 6776 Wedgewood Place Whitley Heights. The house was razed in 1951 to make way for the Hollywood Freeway but you may be able to see some of the foundation.


Other Pages in this series:
Rudolph Valentino Speaks from Beyond: The actor speaks to his wife Natacha Rambova

When I Come Back: Valentino and Rambova prepare to leave on honeymoon, he says in essence, I'll Be Back

Strange experiences at Valentino's Grave
Valentino's Grave Site: Halt! Who goes there?? The caretaker at his grave kept a diary for years from the day the star was interred. He shared some entries in an article. Ghostly experiences? Did he see The Lady in Black?

Rudolph Valentino's Impact National Lover, Movie Idol, Sex Symbol: Would he be such big a star today?

Related articles and books of interest:

Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings and Other Supernatural Locations Go on a celebrity ghost hunt

Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke

The narrowest house in New York City Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Meade, Shrek ... John Barrymore is said to haunt a former apartment he had in New York City. Legend has it that Barrymore and Cary Grant lived in the Greenwich Village house in the 1920s.

Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers, the American Heiress Who Taught the World About Style

Sources not cited elsewhere
The Ogden Standard-Examiner,  Milwaukee Sentinel, Greeley Daily Tribune,  The Idaho Falls Post  March 31-April 3 1930
The Miami News, September 3, 1946  
Motion Picture 1930 
Picturegoer March 1923
Picture Play September 1926