Today, on that designated hate blog Tracy Ryan Terhune runs and has run for eight years to bully and threaten us and under my book Affairs Valentino's title.. in my opinion he demonstrates incredible hypocrisy. In my previous post I shared a letter which I found in my archive which apparently struck a nerve with Terhune. He felt compelled I guess to speak up in his angry, hateful way to again cast his tired old innuendo of “black market” in a smear against the fine legacy of the greatest of all heroes in Valentino's story, S. George Ullman.
If Terhune honestly believes Ullman was stealing these things from the Valentino estate, I would point out to him how ludicrous to believe Ullman would write to the person he was dealing with on Rudolph Valentino Productions, Incorporated stationary with the office's physical location included. I also add that if Terhune truly knew a thing about the course of the settlement of the estate, he would understand what Ullman was engaged in at the time.
January 1927 was one of the most intense periods of his executor labors and how silly of Terhune to imply Ullman would be taking time then to write such letters while breaking some law to make a few dollars on some neckties. He was then engaged in such endeavors as challenging United Artists' Joe Schenck placing a claim against the insurance policy the studio held on Valentino. These were Ullman's negotiations in January 1927, which involved tens of thousands of dollars. So, Terhune looks ridiculous to try and portray Ullman at that time skulking about in some alley selling a few neckties for a couple of dollars.
The hypocrisy here in Terhune's latest “hit piece” on his bully blog is this. Because of what I learned from my interviews with Valentino collector Bill Self, I think “black market” exchanges, as Terhune calls it and as he seems to have some intimate knowledge of, is precisely how a great deal of that collection was secured originally. Conning trusting honest people out of their personal Rudy relics, exchanging them without record of sale or purchase, stealing them from public archives, and recently offering honest public officials bribes to remove public documents from their housing. This is the “black market” of the Valentino collector's world.
So this all presents the logical conclusion, does it not? If Terhune has these neckties which he claims to be stolen, then he has just admitted today he is in possession of stolen merchandise. Should someone not summon the authorities here? By his own lame argument, Tracy Terhune admitted he has no legal right to have these artifacts, so why then does he not return them to the Valentino family?
After decades of horrific and inaccurate defamation of Ullman's performance as Valentino's executor by the Valentino family as launched by Alberto Valentino...I discovered the truth as revealed in the court records I uncovered. The originals of these records would have handily proven Ullman the hero as executor but they were stolen from their rightful housing location in the Los Angeles County Hall of Records. Consequently it was for a very long time, impossible to fact-check that defamation. I discovered copies of that stolen case file and at long last Ullman was vindicated... to everyone but Tracy Terhune who denies the very content of the documentation to continue in his fundamentalist attachment to a now very outdated knowledge base on Ullman.
I add, Terhune admitted publicly, the case file of those stolen court records which would have vindicated Ullman was passed between collectors (black market) until they last ended up in the hands of the Valentino family. Donna Hill told me this years ago when she volunteered the information that Valentino family spokesperson Jeanine Villalobos exchanged one of Valentino's shirts for the entire stolen case file. Bill Self also confirmed this (black marketing) to me in writing.
And in regards to the “neck tie letter”, I did recall who sent that letter to me. The woman who bought the ties told me she was not a great collector but these were special to her. So unless she sold these to Terhune, I doubt he has them or this letter. And to his angry objection that I watermarked the image of that letter...of course I did because I have no choice but to watermark everything as Simon Constable and Eleanor Gribbin steal images and claim them as their own.
***And as to some first hand insight into the actual provenance of those neckties, I refer to Robert Florey's articles in the magazine Cinémonde, issue #4, published on November 1, 1956, in which Florey writes the following about that precise subject:
“The list of Valentino's clothes to be liquidated included, among other things, three red hunting jackets, thirty street suits, thirteen gentleman‐rider vests, seven light suits, six flannel pants, eight sweaters, sixty pairs of gloves, one hundred and twelve ties, one hundred and twenty‐four shirts, one hundred and forty‐six pairs of socks, one hundred and ten handkerchiefs, twenty pairs of suspenders, sixty pairs of shoes, twenty‐two white jackets, seventeen hats which were almost all of white felt, thirteen canes, six pairs of boots, ten coats, ten tuxedos and suits, ten saddlebags, one hundred and ten hard collars, twelve belts, twenty-eight pairs of garters, seventy flannel tank tops and underpants. To all of this many other objects were added: cigarette holders, bracelets, watches, cufflinks, chains, rings, pins and more or less precious stones. George Ullman reserved the collection of daggers and sabers. He also bought most of Rudy's clothes. The poor man had tears in his eyes and I did not know what to say to console him.”
So I respond to Terhune's daily mud-slinging...if Ullman bought some of these one hundred and twelve ties, he owned them and could do whatever he wanted to with them. The implication he was buying them in some alley illegally to turn them over for a few dollars profit is absurd defamation by Terhune.
So the “black market”? Bill Self was 100% hesitant to ever share the provenance of his collection with me and I did ask...but over time my research would reveal the (black marketing) story of many of the items he had in his possession which are now in Terhune's hands.
Oh! The hypocrisy for Terhune to rage on over there in his school yard bully blog he runs under my book's title. It does not matter what he posts there, the very existence of that blog and its sickening and obvious history would render even his saying “hello” bullying.. So today again he snarls on the attack there appearing frightfully angry and mean. If he is so up in arms about the ownership of those neckties...again... why does he not return them to the family?
In my opinion, Terhune's abject, and woefully uninformed hatred of Ullman reveals more about him than S. George....who was, according to those lovely court records I discovered... the great hero of Valentino's story.
