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Blue Links are Videos
August 23
 was the 81st anniversary of the death of Rudolfo Alfonzo
Raffaelo Piero Filibert Guglielmi De Valentina D’Antonguolla, in New
York City, of peritonitis following a perforated ulcer. We know him as
Rudolph
Valentino. (I’ve found two different versions of that gigantic name,
and I’m going with the longest one.) Every year since 1926 his fans (and
now their descendants) have converged on Hollywood Memorial Park (now
called Hollywood
Forever) to pay their respects.
 On our first visit to Hollywood
Forever, two years ago, we were stunned and disappointed to find that we
had just missed the ceremonies, which had concluded only a short time
before. We resolved that we’d make it back one day, and August 23, 2008,
was that day.
You
never know what you’re going to get on Valentino Day. The time we just
missed, it was the 80th anniversary, and there were TV crews and a real
big crowd. They had left their flowers at both
 the Valentino shrine and
at the crypt itself. Today the crowd was more modest, but it eventually
filled up the gold and white straight-backed chairs in the central nave
of the Southeast Mausoleum, just a stone’s throw away from the
Paramount Studios. I’d
estimate between 100 and 150 people were there. Nothing like the 100,000
frantic fans who turned out in New York for the funeral mass, when
Pola Negri swooned
silent-movie-style over the coffin, and people were breaking windows in
the church to get in, but not bad for a man who has been dead for 82
years. There were similar crowds in Hollywood when he was entombed,
where planes flew over dropping millions of rose petals on the cortege
route.
Some
 of the people were in period 1920s costumes. There was one lady in
a white wedding dress with a short skirt, and a hat with flashing red
lights on it. Don’t ask me what that was all about. It’s the sort of
sight you see every day in our beloved screwy bally-hooey Hollywood.
Before the ceremony began a “Lady
in Black” showed up with a bouquet of red roses.
 I say a
Lady in Black, because there have been several of them over the
years—sometimes a lot of them at once! The original was a woman named
Ditra Flamé (pronounced Fla-MAY … a stage name, you think?), who
showed up every year from 1926 to 1954. She stopped coming because she
said there were now too many Ladies in Black, it had become a regular
zoo with all of them shoving for position. But she returned in 1977 and
got in the papers again. The madness tapered off over the years, but
there has always been a Lady in Black, some of them with a long run,
others only wannabes. I don’t know anything about our Lady in Black
today. She appeared, walked slowly up the aisle, and then down to the
crypt. She returned without the flowers. Traditionally, she shows up in
a limo, but I wasn’t outside at the time and can’t confirm this.
 I
took a seat at the size 25 feet of Saint Paul and contemplated his
marble toes until the service began.
There were a few speeches, and some singing. Either
Bob Mitchell or
Vince Morton sang “You, My Love,” and “He Loved, He Danced, He Tangoed,”
while the other one played what sounded like an old Hammond organ. Both
of them were pretty old, but didn’t do a bad job, and they got a sincere
round of applause.
Tim Considine
 was there to deliver remarks on his father,
John W., and his
friendship with Valentino. I wouldn’t have known who he was if Lee
hadn’t told me he was Spin. You know, Spin Evans from the “Spin
and Marty” serials on the “Mickey
Mouse Club” back in the fifties. He was also Frank Hardy in “The
Hardy Boys.” I never saw any of those. He was in “My
Three Sons,” but by 1970 he was playing
 “Soldier who gets slapped”
in Patton.
A bit of a comedown, huh? Luckily, he doesn’t have to rely on a film
career for a living. He’s an auto historian, writer, and photographer,
specializing in motor sports.
Then
Ian and Regina Whitcomb sang “New
Star in Heaven Tonight,” about Valentino, as Ian played the ukulele, and
finished with Valentino’s signature piece, “Sheik
of Araby.”
I'm the Sheik of Araby
Your love belongs to me
At night when you're
asleep
Into your tent I’ll
creep
The stars that shine
above
will light our way to
love
You’ll roam this land
with me
I'm the Sheik of Araby
August 29, 2008
Hollywood, California
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