When Michael Morris passed away, he was negotiating permission to reproduce photographs from Natacha Rambova's life on Mallorca. Through a British scholar living in Palma, Michael located the god daughter of Natacha and her second husband, Alvaro de Ursaiz. This elderly lady, Maria Salome, owned an extensive collection of items Natacha left behind after her hurried exile from Mallorca. This woman's parents worked for Alvaro and this was how she assumed ownership of the following:
Ms. Salome granted me permission to reproduce the images and tell her story in Beyond Valentino. However the story of her collection complicated. As is the case with everything discovered, collectors appeared to make their offers and in this case they deeply offended the kind lady in Mallorca.
The Natacha Rambova documentary, which recently made its appearance, was then being filmed in Mallorca and I was interviewed and asked to appear. It was then I learned what happened between Maria Salome and the producers of said documentary. According to the British scholar and Ms. Salome... the producers of the film organized an interview and knowing about her collection they arrived with a fistful of money and told her they would buy it all on the spot.
Ms. Salome was offended and there was no interview. I was then caught in a precarious situation. Did I appear in the documentary with these people and further offend Ms. Salome? Or did I respect her wishes and bow out so I could have her fascinating story and those images which Michael so dearly wanted to include? I feel I found some point of reasonable compromise.
Curiously I learned another film crew contacted Ms. Salome and she did allow them to visit her and record an interview. This crew, which I felt was the same crew she sent away... included a Rambova impersonator, Diego Rambova. I was not terribly pleased to see some of Rambova's objects from Ms. Salome's collection on his website; i.e. Rambova's passport in one photo placed over his genitals. So it went. Apparently the “second” film crew convinced Ms. Salome to loan them some of her collection to photograph the objects in a nearby studio. I feel she was wildly taken advantage of. She has since passed away and I have no idea what happened to her collection. When I suggested she bequeath her collection to the Phoenix Art Museum, which houses a great deal of Rambova's design work, she told me it would all be passed on to her children.
I also learned there are several Spanish Natacha impersonators.... most notably:
cabaret performer...Natacha Rampova
and...Diego Rambova
Rampova, Rambova...more about that incredible phenomena in another post...just saying the challenges of negotiating those images and Natacha Rambova's Mallorcan story with Ms. Salome were many. Read the entire saga in Beyond Valentino!
