“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, March 14, 1923, Lake County Courthouse, Crown Point, Indiana

Finally. Hollywood heartthrob Rudolph Valentino (actually Rudolpho Guglielmi of Apulia, Italy, 27) and his beloved, Natacha Rambova (actually Winifred ShaughnessyHudnut de Wolfe of Salt Lake City, Utah, 26), are legally married.

Natacha Rambova and Rudolph Valentino

They did this once before, last year in Mexico. Only to come home to Los Angeles and find that, in California, Valentino had to be divorced for a full year before he could remarry. He was arrested for bigamy.

The year wait ended yesterday. But Rudolph and Natasha are on an extensive tour of the United States and Canada, and if they get married in Illinois, where they are currently performing, they still wouldn’t be legal.

So they have crossed over the state line to Indiana and this town with such liberal marriage laws that it is known as the “Marriage Mill.”

Lake County Courthouse, Crown Point, Indiana

Valentino is spending the year on this so far successful dancing tour rather than making movies because he feels badly treated by his studio, Famous Players-Lasky. They didn’t even put up bail money when he got arrested!

Rudolph has been using promotional stops on the tour to vent his frustration with the studio system. On a radio broadcast in St. Louis he spoke about “What Is Wrong With the Movies?”

Valentino is also exploring other ways to express his creative spirit. His series of articles entitled, ‘”My Life Story” is appearing in Photoplay and this month’s issue is their biggest seller yet. Movie Weekly magazine has asked Valentino to author another series, “My Private Diary.”

Right now, he’s just glad to be married. Although the show is crossing the country in a luxury Pullman coach—in Chicago they are comfortable in the Blackstone Hotel—he and Natacha are performing two and three shows a day in 88 cities. The tour’s sponsor, Mineralava Beauty Company, is holding beauty contests at each performance to promote their products.

When the newlyweds come out of the judge’s chambers, the crowd of fans outside gives them an ovation and shouts their congratulations.

No time for a honeymoon yet. Back to Chicago to keep on dancing…

Poster for the Mineralava tour

You can see Valentino and Rambova dancing on tour here:

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, August, 1922, Photoplay magazine, Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York

“Cal York,” writing under the pseudonym formed by the two locations of the main editorial offices of Photoplay magazine, asks: 

Is Rudolph Valentino wearing a wig in Blood and Sand, or did he permit his slick hair to be coiffed into the curly mop you see under this Spanish cap? Cheer up—it’s only temporary. Later on in the picture. he looks more like Julio [his character in the hit, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse].”

Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, late May, 1922, Los Angeles, California

Where were they, he wonders? Where was his studio, Famous Players-Lasky? Where was his patron and supposed-supporter, producer Jesse Lasky, 41?

Rudolph Valentino, just turned 27, is their top movie star. He’s already had two big hits released this year and what promises to be an even bigger smash, Blood and Sand, due out this summer.

Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino in one of this year’s hits, Beyond the Rocks

But when he was thrown in prison a few days ago, on a felony charge of bigamy no less, Valentino had to raise bail from his friends. Lasky let him sit there and refused to come up with the cash.

Earlier this year, after his divorce was final, Valentino had announced his engagement to Natascha Rambova [really Winifred Shaughnessy Hudnut], 25, who had been the art director on one of his early films. This month they went to Mexicali, Mexico, and were legally married.

Rudolph Valentino and his new family, the Hudnuts

About a week after they returned to Los Angeles, a warrant was issued for Valentino’s arrest! He and his lawyer went to the LA’s District Attorney’s office so Rudolph could turn himself in and he was thrown in jail. Turns out California law requires both sides in a divorce to wait one year before re-marrying. Who knew?! Well, not Valentino or his lawyers apparently.

Rudolph has been told that there’s a good chance these charges will be thrown out by the court because he hasn’t even lived with his new wife yet. Oh, great. Valentino knows that once that story gets into the papers, the public will think that he’s homosexual.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about the Stein family salons in Paris before and after The Great War at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, November 8, 1921, New York City, New York

Famous Players-Lasky Pictures has a hit on their hands.

The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, 26, opened in Los Angeles a bit more than a week ago and audiences love it. Critics have their doubts. Some feel the film shouldn’t have left out the key rape scene that was in the original British novel.

Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres in The Sheik

But Jesse Lasky, 41, founder of the studio, feels that the film does justice to the novel and sensitive scenes were handled well.

He’s pleased with Valentino, who is already popular from his earlier films, particularly The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse which was released this spring by Metro Pictures.

Metro didn’t treat Valentino well, and Lasky has lured him to Famous Players.

The Sheik opened here in New York City two days ago, and is breaking attendance records at two major theatres, the Rialto and the Rivoli among others.

Lasky feels that when the film is released nationwide in two weeks, there will be a similar response. He’s thinking of promotional ideas to push it even more. Like maybe, “Sheik Week.”

He prefers to spend his time coming up with promotional ideas like this, rather than thinking about the charges the U. S. Federal Trade Commission has brought against his company for intimidating theatre owners into block booking films.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and in print and e-book formats on Amazon. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early next year I will be talking about the Centenary of the Publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, September 6, 1921, Room 1219, St. Francis Hotel, corner of Geary and Powell Streets, San Francisco, California

Film actor Roscoe Arbuckle, 34, is waking up in this posh hotel room and slowly starting to remember what a disaster last night’s party had been.

St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco

His butt is still sore from a stupid accident back home in Los Angeles a few days ago when he sat on some rags soaked in acid that burnt through his pants causing second degree burns.

But Roscoe’s friends insisted that he still come with them for this planned Labor Day weekend bash to celebrate the hit films Roscoe starred in this year—and his new $1 million contract with Paramount. One of them bought him a rubber padded ring to sit on for the long drive.

The suite in this hotel—two bedrooms for them and a party room for everyone—the women and the booze have all been arranged by his friends.

Roscoe is familiar with two of the women from Hollywood. Virginia Rappe, 26, is an actress and sometimes model who had been in a film a few years ago with Rudolph Valentino, also 26. Since then he has become quite a star based on his most recent picture, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But Virginia has only done bit parts and is mostly known for getting drunk and vomiting at every party.

Virginia Rappe

Her friend, Maude Delmont, 35, has an even more scandalous reputation. She provides young women for wealthy men who are then accused of rape and blackmailed. Delmont has even been convicted of fraud and extortion.

Maude Delmont

Roscoe was a bit concerned when he first saw those two in the suite yesterday morning. If the local cops find out, they might feel they have to look into this illegal liquor party.

Yesterday afternoon he had found Virginia in his bathroom, vomiting, as usual. He carried her into his room.

But a bit later, Virginia was on the floor, screaming and ripping at her clothes. Other guests tried to cool her down in a tub of cold water. Roscoe called the hotel manager and doctor, who decided that the young woman had just had too much to drink and could sleep it off. The doctor gave her some morphine.

Roscoe figures he’d better get up now and see how she and the others are doing. Virginia was pretty sick last night.

From the other room he hears one of his friends call him,

Hey, Fatty…”

Disgusted, Roscoe yells back,

I have a name, y’know.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volume I covering 1920 is available in print and e-book formats on Amazon. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This fall I will be talking about Writers’ Salons in Dublin and London Before the Great War in the Osher Lifelong Learning program at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.