On August 24, 1926, more than a hundred people were injured as they rushed into the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, on Broadway at 66th Street, New York. They were part of a human tide of some sixty thousand that crowded around the building. Inside lay the body of Rodolfo Valentino, the greatest sex symbol that world cinema had given until then. In life, his films had already caused unprecedented blackouts and hysterics among his fans, but this had been nothing compared to what would happen in the days following his death.
On the first day of the burning chapel, amid smashed display cases and constant altercations, the funeral parlor looked more like a fortress besieged by barbarians than a place of recollection. The second day dawned rainy, which did not prevent the crowd from crowding again into the streets surrounding the Campbell's facilities. This time the NYPD had deployed more than a hundred officers to the area to bring order
The funeral is not only one of the oldest rituals that exist, but also one of the most complex, due to the variety and richness of the elements that it brings together: in it is the will to honor and perpetuate the memory of the dead, but also the catharsis that allows the living to say goodbye to what is left behind and continue on their way without ballast. Like any rite, it is also a theatrical artifact, and this is how the Baroque society understood it especially well. Maybe those funeral planners were inspired by those who planned Rodolfo Valentino's. However, and perhaps without looking for it, the result looked face to face into the future. It can be argued that this was the first case of a grand pop funeral, a massive and runaway event that occurred decades before those of Elvis Presley, Diana of Wales or Michael Jackson.
When Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella, in arte Rodolfo (or Rudolph) Valentino arrived at the cinema , the unwritten norms established that the protagonist of a film must be unequivocally Anglo-Saxon and exude a monolithic masculinity, of what was a perfect Douglas Fairbanks paradigm. Any variation from this canon was reserved for antagonistic and villain roles. For these tasks, Valentino seemed predestined, an Italian emigrant with fine features dominated by slanted and feverish eyes, like those of the fatal women of the time. Until in 1921 his first two films were released with overwhelming success as the absolute protagonist: in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , adapted from the novel by the Valencian Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, he appeared dressed as a gaucho and dancing a tango to the delirium of the seating area, and in El Caíd he played a seductive Arab sheik without giving up a single orientalist cliche.
The exotic high school thus became the first of all Latin lovers , a term coined for the occasion and which, as we know later, has enjoyed a prosperous journey. The female audience fell in love with him, while the male watched him with intense annoyance. In particular, he was called soft and effeminate, an accusation underlying a certain inferiority complex of the average American man. It was the predictable reaction to the threat of that foreigner who monopolized the libido of his girlfriends and wives.
Up to three times a particularly affected woman collapsed: after resuscitating her the third time, the medical services sent her home. It would later be revealed that many of these scenes were also part of the performance devised by Campbell, who had paid the women for faking fainting spells.
However, the collection of his next films fell far short of expectations. When he left Paramount to join the ranks of another studio, United Artists, he needed a new hit that would get him back to his rightful place. So it was decided to do something that is now on the agenda, but with what was beginning to be experienced at that time: a sequel. In this case that of El Caíd , under the title The Son of the Sheik (“El son del Caíd”).
The summer of 1926, Valentino was in New York, ready to begin the promotional tour for the film. He'd been complaining of abdominal discomfort for a while, but he hadn't wanted a doctor to see him. Until on August 15, he suffered a loss of consciousness at the Ambassador Hotel and was immediately transferred to the city's Polyclinic Hospital. There, he was diagnosed with acute appendicitis, although he actually suffered a duodenal perforation as a consequence of an ulcer. They operated on him urgently, but then the condition led to peritonitis, and then to pleurisy that affected his left lung, and he finally died on the 23rd without the doctors being able to do anything to prevent it. He was only 31 years old.
During the week that the actor was admitted, the progression of his state of health was made public through the media, which kept millions of fans around the world on edge. And when those same media announced the outcome, a hysteria broke out for which no one was prepared. There were even several suicides and numerous failed attempts related to the tragedy.
Due to the frustration caused by the police action, or perhaps due to the bad appearance of the corpse, the rumor spread that what could be seen there was not the real Valentino, but a wax doll posing as him.
All the necessary elements were then gathered to ensure a great show: there was a drama to narrate, the experience of the Hollywood professionals to shape it and an audience predisposed to receive it. So George Ullman, representative and personal friend of the deceased, decided to give that audience exactly what they asked for by organizing a public wake. For this, he hired an expert in the field. At a time when funerals used to be held at home and behind closed doors, the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home advertised itself as a company dedicated to “creating such a sublimely beautiful service, in an atmosphere of such complete harmony, as to alleviate the pain of parting ”. Although it was not remotely like this this time, from then on it would become the reference firm of the national show business : the funerals of Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, John Lennon, Greta Garbo, Jackie Kennedy or Heath Ledger would also bear his signature.
The matter got out of hand. On the first day of the burning chapel, amid smashed display cases and constant altercations, the funeral parlor looked more like a fortress besieged by barbarians than a place of recollection. The second day dawned rainy, which did not prevent the crowd from crowding again into the streets surrounding the Campbell's facilities. This time the NYPD had deployed more than a hundred officers, several of them on horseback, to the area to put some order. In spite of everything, and in the face of the material impossibility that everyone agreed at the same time to pay tribute to the deceased, the scenes of tension were repeated.
Those who came to the room where the coffin had been placed could verify that it was escorted by two black shirts (the paramilitary body created by Benito Mussolini), supposedly sent by the dictator himself. This sparked protests from anti-fascist organizations, which demanded - without success - their withdrawal. In the opinion it was real fascist, but it was Mussolini who had sent them , but part of the atrezzo paid funeral.
Teens only temporarily subsided with the arrival of actress Jean Acker, the deceased's first wife, accompanied by her mother. The crowd respectfully stepped aside to let him pass, and the bustle dissolved into a sea of whispers. The press did not miss the opportunity to photograph her, and several reporters addressed her: “Mrs. Acker! Is it true that you and Valentino were planning to marry again? ” She denied it between sobs: "We had only resumed our friendship."
When Acker and Valentino met, seven years earlier, he had just arrived in Los Angeles, leaving behind the Italian region of Puglia and his years as a hustler in New York to try his luck in the cinema. She, who was also starting her film career, belonged to the circle of lovers of the well-known Russian actress Alla Nazimova. The couple married after a couple of months, although for reasons never clarified Acker locked himself in his room on the wedding night, leaving her husband out, and the marriage was never consummated. What does seem certain is that Acker was more interested in his romantic relationship with another actress, Grace Darmond, than in embarking on a marital life with a man. Anyway, Valentino did not learn from the experience, because in 1921 he would marry in Mexico with the actress and set designer Natacha Rambova, another protégé of Nazimova. Acker then sued him for bigamy, because although they were legally separated his divorce was still not effective, and for several years they stopped talking. But her words at the foot of the coffin were true: months before, she and Valentino had recovered good relations, which influenced that by then he had also divorced Natacha Rambova.
With Jean Acker's departure, the brief truce ended and chaos returned to the Campbell Funeral Home. Fans continued to crowd outside, hysterical scenes followed, and no one seemed to have much interest in respecting the mortuary environment. The fans' blackouts could almost be counted as cars passing under a highway bridge. Up to three times a particularly affected woman collapsed: after resuscitating her the third time, the medical services sent her home. It would later be revealed that many of these scenes were also part of the performance devised by Campbell, who had paid the women for faking fainting spells.
Given the face that the matter had taken, George Ullman demanded that the doors of the funeral home be closed except for relatives and acquaintances. "The irreverence shown by the crowd, the disorder and the riots have forced me to make this decision," he announced. Then the police had to intervene again, cutting several streets and containing the sick masses. Due to the frustration that all this had caused in them, or perhaps due to the bad appearance of the corpse, the rumor spread that what could be seen there was not the real Valentino, but a wax doll that was posing as him . Whether made of wax or flesh and blood, the body was visited by about a hundred thousand people while the wake remained open.
On August 30, the coffin was transported by eight funeral home employees to the Saint Malachy Catholic Church, which would later be known as the Parish of the Actors (just three years later it would host the wedding between Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr .). After placing it before the altar, the funeral mass was celebrated by Father Edward Leonard, the same priest who had received the last confession from Valentino on his deathbed. This time the attendees attended by strict invitation, with a large representation of friends, immediate family and, finally, the expanded family of Hollywood, including Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. And then he staged his grand entry Pola Negri.
Negri and Valentino had become lovers after meeting at a costume ball. Until his death she had shared it with other women like the also actress Mae Murray, but that did not prevent her from assigning herself the role of the only and heartbroken widow in that representation. No wonder she had been a respected theater performer in her native Poland - her real name was Apolonia Chalupec - before she became the first European actress to be hired by a Hollywood studio. Paramount modeled it as it pleased to deliver a haughty femme fatale to the public , establishing another archetype that Marlene Dietrich would perfect a decade later.
But at the funeral the great seductress mutated into a tragic one. Her wild sobs echoed in the neo-Gothic arches of the church of St. Malachy, and on the way to the altar she passed out an indefinite number of times, since no anonymous fan had the right to snatch that mark: the last one practically collapsed on the coffin. He had also commissioned a huge wreath of flowers that left no doubt about the identity of the client, since the floral arrangement made up the letters "POLA". "He was the love of my life," he said. The public, however, would not forgive her that months after that heartbreaking show she forgot the love of her life to marry a supposed Georgian prince who would abandon her when she was ruined by the crash of 1929.
From the day of his death a question hung in the air: What to do with the corpse? According to Allan R. Ellenberger in his book The Valentino Mystique: The Death and Afterlife of the Silent Film Idol , everyone seemed to have an opinion about it. Alberto, the brother of the deceased, initially declared that he should stay in the United States, but later rectified by affirming that he and his sister Maria were in favor of burying him in Castellaneta, his hometown. Jean Acker stated that he agreed with them. George Ullman was convinced that her friend's wish would be to lie forever in Hollywood, an option that Pola Negri also defended.
For his part, Natacha Rambova telegraphed Ullman stating his intention to have him cremated and take the ashes to his own family's pantheon at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. The proposal was immediately rejected: among other reasons, there was the detail that at that time the Catholic religion did not accept cremation (the veto was not lifted until 1963, by decision of Pope Paul VI). In the midst of this debate, a group of 38 Hollywood personalities mobilized who wrote to Valentino's brothers requesting that she remain forever among them, "where her friends were formed and where she created her home." Signatories included Charles Chaplin, producer Louis B. Mayer and new Latin star Ramón Novarro.
The noble sentiments to which that letter appealed must have been convincing, because the family agreed that the body should remain in Hollywood. So after the New York ceremony, the remains of Valentino still made a long journey across the country by train to Los Angeles. There a second funeral was held, somewhat more discreetly than the first, and burial proceeded.
The construction of a grandiose funerary monument had been agreed to house what remained of Valentino, but having it ready would take time, so in the meantime a temporary solution had to be found. And this came from the hand of the screenwriter June Mathis, discoverer of the idol in his days as a secondary actor. It was she who, sensing its potential, had managed to impose it as the protagonist of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . Mathis owned two adjacent niches in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (then called Hollywood Memorial Park), one of which was originally planned for her husband, from whom she had divorced. The body was placed in that providentially free grave while the matter of the mausoleum was resolved. As it happened, Mathis died a year later, so she was buried next to him. The great tomb of Valentino was never built, so the star and the woman who created it rest together forever (the always of men, it is understood).
For decades, a mysterious woman dressed in mourning visited the tomb every year to deposit a red rose on it. Some time later it would be known that it was not really just one, but several people who were succeeding each other. One of them, named Ditra Flame, claimed to have been the first of all, describing the rest as simple imitators. She was only fourteen years old when Valentino died. According to The New York Times , she claimed that she had already visited him on his deathbed at the New York Polyclinic to bring him flowers and wish him a speedy recovery.
The son of the Caíd was released in cinemas across the country two weeks after the death of its protagonist, and it exceeded by far the collection of the first part. Critics attributed this merit to Valentino's performance, which they considered the best of his career. However, much had to do with this the advertising campaign that had meant that grotesque funeral. Life had become a spectacle, and the spectacle had fed the spectacle, as in Hollywood it had always happened and would never stop happening since then.
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