* I wrote the following some time around 2004:
Finding
the Sarcophagus of Rudolph Valentino
The
interview had all the elements of a scene right out of an Alfred
Hitchcock movie: a Peter Lorre look-alike mortician turned archivist;
tastefully blacked out mortuary windows and air sickeningly sweet
with a mother lode of fresh blooms awaiting the morning’s funeral.
In search of details on Rudolph Valentino’s death I had traveled a
long way for the interview. So in spite of the macabre setting and
the fact that the gracious archivist was far too welcoming for my
comfort, I forged on. Perhaps my uneasiness was due to the chilling
fact he was employed by a vast corporation proudly billing themselves
as the “world’s largest death-care provider.”
At
some point during the interview I was asked if I’d ever heard of
Valentino’s second coffin. The archivist explained it had long been
rumored within the funeral business that an outer casket encased
Valentino’s coffin on the train ride from New York to Los Angeles.
I said I knew nothing about an outer casket and asked why such a case
would have been used. He told me that in order to transport a corpse
across state lines, coffins were required by Federal law to be
encased in a sarcophagus or shipping case. Urban legend had it that
Valentino’s shipping case had been custom made for the journey and
was believed to still be in existence. Unfortunately the archivist
had no idea where the case was located but said he would make a few
phone calls to see what he could find out.
For
a little while after that interview I had no clue my piqued interest
in Valentino’s shipping case had sparked the imaginations of
several morticians and inspired a covert operation to capitalize on
the missing shipping case. But within the next few weeks the intrigue
surrounding the location of the case and the identity of the owner
became so intense I began to wonder if I would ever see it. The
archivist called me several times to update me on the status of the
search for the case. He also asked me what I thought the cash value
of such a piece could be. Smelling the rat, I told him I didn’t
have the slightest idea of its monetary value or interest in anything
but its history. He assured me he was close to locating the case and
its owner. Believing him I prepared to move as soon as I was given
any go ahead. I assumed I would make a quick trip to wherever, snap a
few pictures and have my story. Instead I soon landed squarely in the
middle of heady negotiations for the sale of the shipping case and
risked my neck for a glimpse of Rudy’s mythical sarcophagus.
About
a month after the interview I opened an e-mail from “the world’s
largest death-care provider” to see photographs of a metal coffin
loading onto the screen. While the images were downloading I
received a call from the archivist with news that this was indeed
Valentino’s shipping case. Furthermore he’d found the owner and
secured permission for me see the hidden treasure. I told him I
thought the piece should be authenticated by an expert and once again
asked him for the owner’s contact information. With this he said he
would get back to me and hung up. I would have to be content with
nothing more than the thrilling photographs for a while longer as the
recovery of the photographs did not immediately result in permission
to see the case first hand.
Access
to the actual case was complicated as the archivist made his power
play to position himself as the only broker in any possible deal the
shipping case’s owner might make. Granting new meaning to the word
cagey, he brainstormed an elaborate but thinly constructed system of
communication to guarantee his role. I was asked not to call him at
work, to only call a second contact he put me in touch with, to use
only this cell number and that e-mail, etc. and was never given the
owner’s name. As he began his methodical and territorial watch over
the artifact the welcoming host who greeted me in his mortuary office
a few months earlier morphed into double agent OO-archivist.
He
informed me the owner had decided it was high time to sell the
shipping case. But the archivist had run into a snag by telling a few
too many of his cronies about his exciting development. With the
revelation of the case’s impending sale everyone along his growing
chain of contacts soon began scheming for their cut of the sale. The
archivist was thoroughly dismayed at this turn of events and lamented
to me about it over the phone. He was so distressed and paranoid at
the deteriorating status of his gambit I could almost hear the sweat
beading on his forehead.
Ignoring
the cloak and dagger, I called the cell phone of mystery contact two
and was at long last given an address where I could view the case. I
quickly scheduled travel arrangements and hopped a plane. Within a
few hours I had landed, rented a car at the airport and was following
my usually unreliable MapQuest directions to the designated address.
Par
for the course in this shipping case caper the address was that of a
mortuary situated deep in some primo skid row real estate. It was the
kind of neighborhood no prudent soul would dare cross without a
police escort. Nevertheless it was easy to imagine a time when the
establishment could have been surrounded by a more Mayberry-like
backdrop. But on the morning of my appointment the streets were alive
and humming with meandering prostitutes, homeless campers, and
wild-eyed, ranting desperados.
Having
arrived a few minutes early I made a quick dash into a nearby
MacDonalds for a sorely needed cup of coffee. No predictable Micky
Dee safe zone was to be found that sunny morning. After noticing that
several of the tables had been burned black in an apparently
substantial blaze and that the disheveled, armed guard posted in
front of the counter was swaying, I made what I hoped would be a
subtle retreat to my rental car. I failed miserably only to be
followed through the parking lot by a squirrley eyed teenager. At
this point I made the executive decision to spend the remaining few
minutes before my private viewing of Rudolph Valentino’s long lost
shipping case sipping my coffee in the safety of the rental car
driving around the block.
While
I was dodging jay-walking crack addicts, inside the mortuary the
bronze and copper casket was being dragged out of its warehouse
storage for the first time in seventy seven years.
Like a great vessel
run aground the case was so cumbersome it took three mortuary workers
to heft the unwieldy bark onto a mortuary gurney. They had their
orders to have the neglected relic on display in one of the
mortuary’s private chapels by nine o’clock sharp. Just before the
hour they wheeled the shipping case into the small sanctuary, lifted
off the heavy cover and propped it against the wall.
It
was up to the floor mortician that morning to oversee the
arrangements in each of the mortuary chapels and it was during his
inspection of the shipping case installation that he noticed an
inscription on the casket’s tarnished lid. After retrieving a can
of brass polish from his office he began to wipe away the years of
neglect. The inscription read, “Rudolph Guglielmi, Rudolph
Valentino, Born May 6, 1895 Died August 23, 1926.” The mortician
found the inscription curious because his name also happened to be
Rudolph.
Mortician
Rudy had just finished his brass polishing when I arrived. He
escorted me into the side chapel off the lobby where the gurney had
been parked in front of several rows of church pews. After months of
anticipation, I paused to appreciate the point blank impact of the
moment. The e-mailed photographs had done it no justice.
The
case was in extraordinary condition,
masterfully
constructed and appeared to have been completely hand made. The
delicate beads of solder were so expertly placed I was sure some
jeweler in 1926 must have labored an eternity in its execution.
In his best professional
whisper mortician
Rudy left the chapel telling me to take my time. He didn’t seem
sure why I was there and probably wondered why I would come so far to
sit in a church pew paying my respects to an empty casket.
I
was there to document
the objet d'art and as soon as he departed I got down to work. The
case was mine to investigate and inspect from all angles so I set up
my tripod and took a quick twenty or thirty photographs. I brushed my
hand along its dusty interior and examined the detailed tooling of
the handles. Scratch marks from the transport of Valentino’s
interior coffin were still evident. The mortician had polished the
cover of the case to a brilliant shine and I noticed Guglielmi had
been misspelled.
Staring
into the long metal box it was hard not to visualize its cargo of
long ago. It was in this case Rudy’s lifeless body jostled along
the rails on his last ride home to California. I felt no subtle
twinge at that thought and at the evidence before me of the brutal
honesty of Valentino’s death. And after months of negotiating
access to view the shipping case I was suddenly gripped by the desire
to pack up my briefcase and camera and get as far away as I could
from the grisly find.
I
stopped by Mortician Rudy’s office on my way out to shake his hand
and thank him for his time. Before I left I decided to have a stab at
it and asked him directly if he could give me the owner’s name.
Apparently he had not been briefed on the subterfuge preventing me
from knowing the identity of the case’s owner. For with no
hesitation he jotted down the man’s name and phone number. I
thanked him again, dashed back to the rental car, and headed off to
the airport and home.
When
I placed the call to the case’s owner, he granted me a stilted
interview but was slightly confused as to how I got his number and
assumed I was an interested buyer. I finally had the story and
photographs but it would be awhile longer before I could make any
graceful exit from the thorny subject of the shipping case.
Like
any other artifact pertaining to Rudolph Valentino, from the moment
the case was uncovered its cash value increased with each passing
day. I attempted to avoid the line of fire by refusing phone calls
and repeatedly saying I had no knowledge or further interest in the
case. But the negotiations originated by the archivist continued to
complicate as his fellow morticians and serious collectors
contemplated forking over a
small fortune for
the funereal jewel. When last I heard the archivist was hopelessly
mired in the deal that had “gone south”. By then I had long since
backed out any role in the fracas, thankfully with my story intact.
When
I downloaded the photographs of the shipping case, my fifteen year
old daughter brought one thing to my attention. To my practical eye
she pointed out what appeared to be a circular reflection over the
casket. For the past few years she has been fascinated by and an avid
student of spectral photography. After reviewing the mortuary
photographs she issued her expert analysis and declared the perfect
orb drifting in the space above Valentino’s shipping case
definitive evidence of ghostly presence. Not wholeheartedly believing
her claim, I kept an open mind but secretly found the whole idea
appealing. Ghost or no ghost, as far as I was concerned leaning into
Valentino’s open sarcophagus was the disturbing end to an utterly
disquieting tale.
I
since initiated the shipping case’s authentication by an expert and
it has been verified through photographs of Valentino’s body as it
was unloaded at the train station in Los Angeles. According to
records I uncovered during the case’s verification its original
cost was $900. This would be about $9000 today. Two other charges
were added to the original cost of the shipping case; a mechanic was
paid fifteen dollars to solder the base and an engraver was paid 25$
to misspell Rudy’s name on the cover.
The
unexpected appearance of this artifact confirms there are still
treasures to be found and new stories to be told about Rudolph
Valentino which reveal a trail not quite cold. I share the sentiment
of the expert who validated the shipping case and agree it should
find its way into a Hollywood Forever Cemetery showroom to be viewed
by the public. It is more likely that it has already been secreted
away with the rest of Rudy’s earthly residue and held in a private
collection.
