An Intro to Valentino

The appeal of a select few actors is set in granite. Their charm, talent, looks and personality put them so far beyond the vicissitudes of changing times and tastes as to be untouchable.Gable,Cooper, Brando, Newman, Tracy and Cagney are a few inhabitants of that celluloid Mt. Olympus.

For most stars,mass appeal is an ephemeral,touchy and short-lived phenomena, remaining alive in the general consciousness about as long as a single Presidential term. They are recalled fondly, if vaguely, by their aging contemporaries. To later generations, they are little more than an oddly familiar name, whose face and accomplishments remain hidden.

Rudolph Valentino's name, face and reputation are still easily called to mind, even to those who are not old movie buffs.He was the Silver Screen's original Latin Lover, opening the door for the dozens of imitators who,eager to cash in on his fame, quickly followed.His Italian good looks were considered swarthy and not quite safe:they drew hordes of female fans in to theatres.The name Valentino was--and is--a byword for suave,exotic male sexuality.(Unlike his brunette distaff counterparts,his appearance did not automatically relegate him to the role of villain.)

The scope and avidity of his fame knows no modern correlation. In fact, it is hard to fathom any 21st-century actor attracting such obsessive,naive devotion. Brad Pitt and George Clooney do not come within a light year of the kind of interest that Valentino, in his five years of fame, engendered.He would probably have sympathized with Sinatra or the Beatles during their first few years of acclaim;they are the only male stars to ever reach his level of hysteria-inducing stardom.

With the hollow mask of his image locked into place for nearly ninety years, and all of his original fans having long since followed their idol to the grave,it is only with supreme difficulty that we can break through to the kernel of his appeal.Too much time has passed, and taken with it all remaining vestiges of pop culture naivete, to see, exactly, what his contemporaries saw when they settled into the plush seats of their local movie house to gaze up at his image.

His mannerisms were a little to large for the magnifying quality of the movie camera. Coupled with the improper pace that silent films are usually,and imprecisely, run at on modern equipment, his movements and expressions can come across as jittery or over-wrought.Subtlety,which is found in abundance in the best silent films, was not his strength.What he possessed was an in-born charisma that the camera picked-up on and enhanced beautifully.It made him a commanding figure, and the center of every frame he inhabited, even when the plot was silly.Of course, no one went to a Valentino flick for intellectual stimulation.They flocked to his films because he was exotic eye-candy and,as such, was an ideal starting point for their escapist fantasies.Absurdities of plot or character were part of that fantasy world and,to a degree unthinkable today, not necessarily that far removed from the real world.Rudolph Valentino starred as 'The Sheik' in the same era that Lawrence of Arabia became a legend, setting off a rage for all things generically 'Arabic'. Movie romps were merely one result of what was then a real fascination.

When not kitted out in high-camp theatrical glory as a sheik or matador, he was a decidedly handsome man.This is readily apparent when you study his photographs.Something of the charm and mystery that his peers saw comes through when he is in repose.We are no longer quite as psychologically disposed to dish out the star-worship that he was forced to endure.From that angle, at least, there will never be another Valentino.