As much as Valentino's childish nature has been written about, whether believed to be charming or problematic... I have to add that when it came to running his business he was a genius. At every turn in the court records, in personal correspondence... he is revealed as being in complete control; dispatching the orders to launch a new production company, purchasing a scientific laboratory, setting up a corporate alter ego, terminating Natacha's holdings in his business before he sent her away, purchasing land with the intention of building an air strip, sending detailed orders to advance man Robert Florey outlining plans for publicity. I could go on. According to the documented facts, his boyishness did not extend into his business involvements. For his age, I found him to be remarkably savvy from a business standpoint and he was epically involved. The leitmotif that he was a passive child/victim surrounded by opportunistic villains is as false as saying he arrived in America poor and alone. What bunk all of it.
When people speak about him as being childish I have to think, he was still a child. Someone told me once that until you are thirty you are still basically a "runny egg".
Rudolph Valentino could afford to be frivolous and boyish because he had trusted, extremely competent people handling the business side of is life. For me the very best insight into the Valentino marriage is the article Natacha wrote with journalist Herb Howe. I feel it is so forthright that I have made sure it is in every book we publish as an addendum. It is included in Astral Affairs Rambova and in The Case Files. "Her Years as Valentino's Wife", and subtitled, "Why Natacha Rambova's Marriage to the Greatest of Screen Idols Came to Such a Tragic End".
Speaking of:
From The Jackson Sun (Jackson, Tennessee) January 2, 1950
