Flashback Friday # 7

I am so sorry from my lack of posts. I really have no excuse. I got a job and I just felt so overwhelmed. However since this is a standard "bottom dweller" sort of job I am going to continue with posting so I don't feel like such a loser. Because, in reality, I feel like I'm better than that.

So here is my belated flashback friday #7

#7 Valentino

Valentino. 

Rudolph Valentino. 

Rudolph Grandmotherfucking Valentino.

Valentino was the first. 

He made everything possible. 

Before your Justin Timberlakes, before your Channing Tatums, before the concept of "The Sexiest Man Alive", there was Valentino.

He was the epitome of the "latin lover". He probably created it. He had the image of the sensual lover. He made ladies' panties wet, and he disgusted his male rivals, not because he was competition, but because he was a threat to the American male masculine ideal. He was effeminate. He was different. He wasn't American.

One of the biggest things that wasn't American was his personal life. Because of his previous "lavender" marriages, rumors of his homosexuality stayed with him after his death. His first wife married to run away from a lesbian triangle, and his girlfriend Pola Negri had lesbian rumors as well. 

Four books claimed that Valentino was gay. One of the books, Hollywood Babylon, claimed that he was in a heated romatic relationship with Roman Novarro. Writer Kenneth Angers stated that Valentino made an art deco cast of his penis for Novarro that Novarro asked to be shoved down his throat at his funeral. However many have come out against those claims saying that that art deco piece never existed. 

Despite the scrutiny with his personal life, when Valentino died in August 1926, the whole western world stopped. What was once a healthy young sex symbol, was now dead. Upon hearing about his death, several of his fans committed suicide. The gates at paramount studios became known as the "weeping gates" because of all the fans that came to pay their respects. 

When he died, his friend gave him a plot at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. From 1926 to now, a mysterious woman in black came to pay her respects. What was initially revealed to be a publicity stunt later morphed into a tradition. The lady in black was the symbol of the love between the fan towards the actor. For someone that have never known the actor personally, she became the image of dedication and devotion to his image. 

Valentino might not have anything horribly scandalous, but he opened the doors for stars to become heroes. Because of Valentino, obsessed fans became the normal image for western civilization.