The archetypical romantic lead of the silent movie era was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy on May 6, 1895.
After moving to New York, Valentino worked as a gardener, a busboy, and as a taxi driver.
Rudolph Valentino's movie career started with his appearance as an uncredited extra in My Official Wife (1914), although this is now a lost film.
He featured in several films in a minor role until 1921. Valentino got his major break when he appeared in the role of Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he went on to play leading roles in fourteen films as a romantic figure.
The films in which Valentino played a romantic role within the action genre were the more successful at the box office including The Sheik (1921) and his final two works The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926).
After moving to New York, Valentino worked as a gardener, a busboy, and as a taxi driver.
Rudolph Valentino's movie career started with his appearance as an uncredited extra in My Official Wife (1914), although this is now a lost film.
He featured in several films in a minor role until 1921. Valentino got his major break when he appeared in the role of Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he went on to play leading roles in fourteen films as a romantic figure.
The films in which Valentino played a romantic role within the action genre were the more successful at the box office including The Sheik (1921) and his final two works The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926).
Valentino's fans were eager to hear him sing. On May 14, 1923, Valentino made two vocal recordings for Brunswick Records, "Kashmiri Song" and "El Relicario." Valentino's voice was not classically trained, but it was clear and expressive. He had a natural talent for singing, and his voice was well-suited to the romantic ballads that he performed. The recordings were not a commercial success, but they did provide fans with a rare glimpse into Valentino's singing voice.
Rudolph Valentino impulsively married actress, Jean Acker on November 6, 1919. A closet lesbian, she locked him out of her bedroom on their wedding night. The union was never consummated and the pair divorced two years later.
Valentino enjoyed gardening, riding, hunting for small game, collecting mussels along the sea shore and walking in the desert near Palm Springs.
Valentino did not live long enough to see movies with sound replace silent movies. He died suddenly of peritonitis on August 23, 1926, at the age of 31. The subsequent extensive media coverage turned his funeral into a national event when an estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects.
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