In the continuing correction of Rudolph Valentino's history, I add to the already enormous body of credible sources and testimony which establishes his true sexual orientation. I have written about how I came to have any role in this aspect of Valentino and will only reiterate today that I went into researching it with no preconceived notion of what the truth was.
It was not long at all that I discovered that the entire premise Valentino was gay was a really shabby and obvious fictionalization. On one side of this long tale, a mountain a mile high of first hand highly credible testimony has accumulated, i.e. evidence of his sexual affairs with women from whom he contracted syphilis and first hand accounts by his female lovers.
Such as this one from Pola Negri (see below)
Granted Pola waxed poetic in her Memoirs of a Star.. but even as she did so in her account of Alberto working her for money.... there is some truth to the narrative. Pola did not make all of that up. Maybe she remembered having sex with Valentino through a rose colored glass who knows. But she was not some insane person who grew old and demented to waste any time publishing complete lies about herself or Valentino.
I think it is stunning she left this account for posterity. Kudos to her. See Memoirs of a Star from which this is excerpted... for more.
