Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino

by EmilyLeider (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $13.40

  Rudolph Valentino was the silver-screen legend who for ever changed America's idea of the leading man: a frightened young fellow who became the cinematic sex-god of his day. In this definitive retelling of Valentino's short and tragic life - the first fully documented biography of the star - Emily W. Leider looks at the Great Lover's life and legacy, and explores the events and issues that made him emblematic of his time. Valentino was reviled in the press for being too 'feminine' a man; yet he also brought to the screen the alluring, savage lover who embodied women's darker, forbidden sexual fantasies. In tandem, Leider explores notions of the outsider in American culture as represented by Valentino's experience as an immigrant who became a celebrity: the silver screen's first dark-skinned romantic hero.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $4.30

  Emily W. Leider traces the extraordinary journey by which a nobody named Rodolfo Guglielmi became a somebody named Rudolph Valentino - a silver screen legend who forever changed America's idea of the leading man . Valentino wasn't just a star, he was a phenomenon, adored by women, despised by men. On-screen, he offered American women a dangerous sexuality unlike anything on offer from their husbands or lovers; in private, his first wife - a lesbian - refused to consummate their marriage. Gossip and rumour about his early life as a taxi-dancer haunted him, until his untimely death cut short a career that lasted only five years. This book now attempts to rehabilitate Valentino's reputation, both as a man and as an actor.