In the months before silent film icon Rudolph Valentino's death, he began a collaboration with Spanish journalist, Baltasar Fernández Cué. That collaboration was this book. Valentino lamented the glut of fictionalization about his life story and asked Cué to assist him in writing his true autobiography.
During the spring of 1926, Baltasar Fernández Cué became a familiar member of Valentino's entourage as he was granted extraordinary access to the star's private life and professional activities. He lunched in Valentino's United Artists' bungalow and visited the location filming of The Son of the Sheik. Cué was a frequent guest in Valentino's home in Los Angeles, Falcon Lair and befriended Valentino's last love interest, Pola Negri and his only brother, Alberto Guglielmi Valentino.
Before Valentino left on his fateful trip to New York City, he gave Cué various personal letters and documents for reference and assured him he would return within three weeks to write his autobiography. Valentino would die soon after in New York City, leaving Cué determined to fulfill his great friend's wish. With the assistance of Pola Negri and Valentino's friend Douglas Gerrard and with the endorsement of Alberto Guglielmi Valentino, Cué wrote The True Rudolph Valentino.
With his main source no longer available, Cué would construct the book from his eye-witness accounts and his experience with Valentino and his inner circle. Lamentably, he would rely on a few of the studio-generated myths Valentino hoped to dispel. Cué published his work in the Spanish language fan magazine Cine-Mundial as a ten installment series, from May 1927 to February of 1928.
Cué recounts detailed scenarios of Valentino's daily, professional and private life and includes correspondence between Valentino and Natacha Rambova and Douglas Gerrard. He grants fresh insight into these fascinating screen personalities and the tumultuous time prior to Valentino's death.
Renato Floris' translation presents this historically valuable book for the first time to an English-speaking audience. Floris conducted a meticulous research of Cué's quizzical phraseology and worked with the assistance and analysis of many generous individuals in England, Argentina, Spain, Chile, Italy and the US.
The True Rudolph Valentino is a full-color publication which includes reproductions of the original Cine-Mundial installment illustrations.