I feel the following is the fitting response to
the following which was posted by Tracy Ryan Terhune on the blog he
runs to divert my Valentino biography, Affairs Valentino's web
traffic. I excerpt fair use from the post he made
originally on August 9th
but which he has since deleted and posted a few more times.
I add that I live in a beautiful home, not a trash can and reiterate there is no
need to use quotation marks in referring to Renato as my husband. We
are married.
And in regards to my contributions to Valentino history, I believe anyone sincerely interested in the subject would appreciate my discoveries and not heave them in a trash can. In response to Tracy Terhune I share the following:
The
following is an excerpt from a piece I wrote in 2006 explaining
aspects of Affairs Valentino. I could now expand on this obviously,
but for the record I share this partial listing from many years
ago.
"Most
Valentino biographers previous to Affairs Valentino have
relied primarily upon studio-generated, highly-fictionalized articles
published in fan magazines of the day. Affairs Valentino differs
from other Valentino biographies in that its primary source materials
are first hand accounts by participants of the events and court
documentation. Affairs Valentino also differs as it
presents the first accounts of George Ullman and Frank Mennillo’s
influential roles in Valentino’s life and career. In light of the
newly-discovered source material referenced in Affairs
Valentino, many of the events in Valentino’s life as reported in
previous biographies receive a different interpretation. The
following is a partial listing of the new and exclusive Affairs
Valentino sources:
• Extracts
and schedules from the court-ordered Baskerville Audit reviewing
Ullman’s estate ledgers and the business accounts of the Rudolph
Valentino Production Company.
• The
second page of Valentino’s Last Will and Testament designated as
“Paragraph Fourth”.
• Valentino’s
household ledgers dating from January 1926- August 1926.
• Rudolph
Valentino Production Company records.
• Valentino’s
contract with United Artists signed on March 20, 1925.
• Business
records of Valentino’s corporate alter ego, Cosmic Arts, Inc.,
including the contract transferring ownership of Valentino’s United
Artists’ contract to Cosmic Arts, Inc.
• Copy
of Valentino’s distribution contract with United Artists.
• Records
of royalties earned from Valentino’s last two films as well as
income collected from rental properties and other real estate.
• Valentino’s
personal banking and club membership information.
• Itemization
of assets and debts at the time of Valentino’s death as well as
accounts paid by his estate after his death.
• Valentino’s
Probate Court documents and Ullman's Appellate Court case file.
• Listings
of all disbursements made by the estate.
• Itemization
of Valentino estate worth as submitted to the court by appraisers.
• Listings
of his real estate and business holdings.
• Documents
revealing Natacha Rambova’s ownership of Valentino’s contracts as
majority stockholder of Cosmic Arts, Inc.
• Income
reports on earnings from Valentino’s last two films.
• Court
testimony regarding two life insurance policies held on Valentino by
Joe Schenck and the Cinema Finance Corporation.
• Court
transcripts from the settlement of his estate including testimony by
the principle participants, i.e. Valentino’s brother, his attorney,
his sister and others.
• Documents
submitted to the court as exhibits.
• Exclusive
access and licensing to George Ullman’s 1975 personal memoir.
• Personal
letter sent to George Ullman from Valentino’s attending physician
at the time of his death, Dr. Howard Meeker explaining the medical
details of Valentino’s final days.
• The
original managerial contract Ullman signed with Valentino.
• Ullman’s
personal correspondence and archive of articles and photographs.
• Frank
Mennillo’s personal photographs and archive.
• Campbell’s
Funeral Home invoice and records relating to Valentino’s funeral.
• The
private collection of and interviews with collector William Self.
• The
archives and photograph collection of Natacha Rambova’s sole
biographer, Michael Morris.
• The
archives of Valentino biographer, Irving Schulman housed at the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles. According to
university archivist Claude Zachery, the Schulman archive had never
been accessed for research purposes.
Partial
Listing of Valentino Myths Dispelled in Affairs
Valentino
Differentiating
specific new aspects of Valentino’s life as contained within
Affairs Valentino from those commonly-held to be the truth today.
1)
It is asserted Rudolph Valentino came to the U.S. as a poor Italian
immigrant. This was originally purported in his ghost-written, rags
to riches autobiography first published in Photoplay’s
January/February 1923 issue.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*Valentino
had a wealthy benefactor from the moment he arrived in New York City
to his dying breath. This Italian importer, Frank Mennillo, sponsored
his arrival in New York and supported him throughout his life. (He
was also a guest of Ernesto Filomarino, his sister-in-law's uncle.)
2)
It has been asserted that although both Frank Mennillo and George
Ullman were characters in Valentino’s life, neither of them wielded
a tremendous influence over him or played a noteworthy role in his
life.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Both men played significant roles in Valentino’s professional and
personal life and this has never been addressed in any book or
article about Valentino to date.
3)
It has been asserted Rudolph Valentino and his brother Alberto were
very close and that during Valentino’s final months of life he
brought his brother to Los Angeles as solace after his divorce from
Natacha Rambova.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Valentino fought with his brother and evicted him from his home,
Falcon Lair. At the time his brother Alberto left New York to return
to Italy, Valentino told George Ullman that he “hoped he would
never see the bastard (Alberto) again.”
4)
It has been asserted Valentino left his estate divided equally
between his two siblings and his ex-wife’s aunt.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
According to the second page of his will, which has never been made
public, he left his estate to his sole heir, his “nephew” Jean.
5)
It has been asserted Valentino was an overly-groomed, bookish
intellectual.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Whenever Valentino was at home he was most often in his garage
working on his cars or caring for his horses and dogs. According to
George Ullman, he seldom read and Valentino's brother Alberto told
Valentino memorabilia collector William Self the only book Rudolph
ever read cover to cover was E. M. Hull's The Sheik.
6)
It has been asserted Valentino was a weak-willed lounge lizard who
was subjected to the whims of his controlling wife.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Valentino was an aggressive and involved businessman who ran his own
production company and owned and operated several businesses. He was
not submissive with his women especially with his wife Natacha. He
hired detectives to pursue her and eliminated her from his business
the day they separated.
7)
It has been asserted Valentino was a cheerful, happy person with a
carefree attitude about life.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Valentino was prone to prolonged bouts of melancholy and on one
occasion he attempted suicide.
8)
It has been asserted Rudolph Valentino only drank wine with meals and
never consumed hard liquor.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
At the end of his life he spent thousands of dollars a month on
bootleg whiskey. His drinking not only contributed to his early
death, but may in fact have caused it.
9)
It has been asserted Valentino was outgoing and trusting to a fault.
-
According to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Valentino was paranoid, insisted his personal correspondence be
encrypted in ever-changing codes and both he and George Ulllman
carried loaded revolvers for their personal protection.
10)
It is asserted Valentino lived his life as that of a closeted
homosexual and never slept with his wife Natacha.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*There
is no basis in fact, and no source exists regarding this assertion
and first-hand accounts of his daily life reveal the contrary was
true. Valentino did sleep with his wife Natacha as was witnessed by
George Ullman and his many affairs with women were also witnessed and
are well-documented.
11)
It has been asserted Valentino left his homeland of Italy because he
wished to begin a new life in America.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
He left Italy in disgrace and was exiled by angry relatives in the
dead of winter.
12)
It has been asserted Valentino and his co-star Mae Murray were just
friends.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*They
were lovers.
12)
It has been asserted Valentino only took up the sport of boxing
during his final weeks of life in order to prove his manliness.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*
Both he and George Ullman were avid fans of the sport as well as
active participants. He owned a box of eight seats at the American
Legion Arena in Los Angeles and attended the boxing matches every
Friday night.
13)
It has been asserted Valentino was devoted to his career as an actor
at the time of his death.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this was not completely true.
*
While Valentino was filming his last movie, Son of the Sheik, he
confided in George Ullman saying he was tired of acting and playing
the Sheik and Great Lover roles. He said he planned to quit acting
altogether, try his hand at working behind the camera as a director
and move to Spain to study the art of bull-fighting.
Some
of the George Ullman Myths Dispelled in Affairs
Valentino
Differentiating
specific new aspects of George Ullman’s life as contained within
Affairs Valentino from those commonly-held to be the truth today.
1)
It has been asserted as executor of Valentino’s estate George
Ullman embezzled money and mismanaged funds. This falsehood
originated in 1930 in the wake of a lawsuit filed against Ullman by
Valentino’s brother charging him with fraud and mismanagement of
the estate.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*It
has never been reported that a court-ordered audit found Ullman’s
executor’s accounts to be in perfect order nor that he was
completely exonerated on all these charges by the California Court of
Appeals.
2)
It has been asserted George Ullman negotiated a contract for
Valentino with United Artists which specifically banned Valentino’s
wife Natacha from any role in his future films.
According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*A
copy of this contract reveals Natacha Rambova’s name is not
mentioned. She was barred specifically from any executive role in
Valentino’s films by United Artists’ President Joe Schenck in a
memo which he wrote to George.
3)
It has been asserted George Ullman was ordered to repay the Valentino
estate some $20,000.00 after his tenure as executor.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*It
has previously not been reported he was ordered to repay the estate
over $100,000.00 plus interest nor reported most of these funds were
advances he made in good faith to Valentino’s brother and sister
believing they held a future share in Valentino’s estate. When it
was discovered they did not hold a legal share, Ullman was ordered to
repay this crippling amount of money to the very same people who had
already spent the money years before.
4)
It has been asserted George Ullman was a wealthy man who chose not to
repay the Valentino estate.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*He
struggled financially his entire life and declared personal
bankruptcy.
5)
It has been asserted Ullman retained possession of valuable items
which he removed from Valentino’s home after his death which he
later sold for a profit.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*Ullman
retained some items in his possession which at the time of
Valentino’s death held little to no financial value. He kept most
of these items for thirty years before giving them as annual birthday
gifts to a prominent Valentino collector. At the time he declared
personal bankruptcy, an extensive accounting of his personal
belongings did not mention these items as having worth. Also most all
of his personal archive of documents accumulated during his tenure as
Valentino's manager were stolen from his garage.
6)
It has been asserted George Ullman controlled Valentino and exercised
his will over him.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*Valentino
trusted George Ullman implicitly and deferred to him on almost every
decision he made. When George first became Valentino’s business
manager, he negotiated a profitable contract and sweeping victory for
Valentino over Famous-Player’s Paramount, brought order to
Valentino’s dire financial situation and launched his return to the
movies after a lengthy strike/absence. In this effort Ullman made a
fortune for Valentino. Although many people resented his power over
Valentino, this was nothing Valentino ever resented.
7)
It has been asserted George Ullman took advantage of Valentino’s
devotion to him and became a wealthy man in the process.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*Court
documents reveal George Ullman received a regular weekly paycheck of
$400.00 and after Valentino’s death he received this same amount as
compensation for his work as executor.
8)
It has been asserted George Ullman caused the Valentino estate’s
lengthy legal battle.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*George
was financially ruined by the contentious settlement of Valentino’s
estate and the lawsuit brought against him by Valentino’s brother.
He petitioned the court on some forty occasions requesting that his
executor’s records be accepted by the court in order to settle the
estate.
9)
It has been asserted George Ullman was the cause of Rudolph
Valentino’s divorce from Natacha Rambova.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*Valentino
divorced his wife after his detectives discovered her having an
affair with a cameraman. On many critical occasions during the final
days of the Valentino marriage, Ullman acted as peace broker in the
Valentino household.
10)
It has been asserted George Ullman and Natacha Rambova hated each
other.
-According
to Affairs Valentino this is not true.
*They
collaborated as art director and producer on several of Valentino’s
films and after Valentino’s death they wrote kindly of each other
in their respective books."