This Month in History - Tiger King Launches
In the month of March, on the 20th in 2020, the show 'Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness' debuted on Netflix. Within a week of its release, the Netflix show went viral, motivating enormous social media engagement and becoming one of Netflix's highest rated shows at the time. The premise of the reality TV show centered around a feud between eccentric Oklahoma zoo owner Joe Exotic and animal activist Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue, culminating in a murder-for-hire plot. Viewer opinions were divided as to which of the two main characters were the antagonist and protagonist. The series was like the old adage, "Watching a train wreck". The 'documentary' show consists of two seasons which highlight accusations of animal abuse, cult-like behavior and exotic animal trafficking. The series also covered the conviction of Joe Exotic for a 2017 murder-for-hire plot against Carol Baskin along with multiple wildlife law violations. Joe Exotic, legal name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage is currently serving 21 years in federal prison at the Federal Medical Center of Fort Worth, Texas. Carole Baskin is currently focused on big cat conservation and advocacy and still hosts her digital creation, 'The Cat Chat Show' online.
The Life and Afterlife of Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino has been an enduring symbol of early Hollywood glamour. He immediately comes to mind when someone speaks of "Old Hollywood." Valentino was nicknamed "The Latin Lover" and women swooned in his shadow. He grew famous through silent films. Gossip columns talked about him being the sheik with a Ouija board and Valentino was indeed a serious Spiritualist. He bought a ring from a jeweler who warned him that it was cursed and some claim this is why he died young. Could this be why his spirit is still around. There are many places that claim to harbor his spirit. Join us for the life and afterlife of Rudolph Valentino.
Rudolph Valentino was born as Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi (gool-yee-EL-mee) di Valentina d'Antonguella (d'An-ton-GWEL-lahin Castellaneta (kah-stel-lah-NET-ah), Italy in 1895 to an Italian father and a French mother. His mother Marie was indulgent and she had added the di Valentina d'Antonguella (d'An-ton-GWEL-lah
family encouraged him to emigrate to America. They bankrolled his trip and he arrived with $4,000 in his pocket. He spoke little English and was directed to an Italian boardinghouse where he rented a front-facing suite with its own bathroom. Rudolph blew through his money very quickly. It got so bad for him, that he found himself sleeping on park benches. Work in New York was hard to find and he didn't really want to work, but being broke he had no choice. He turned to his agriculture degree and in the spring of 1914, he found work as an apprentice landscape gardener at Oak Hill on Long Island, the Georgian Revival estate of Cornelius N. Bliss Jr. Rudolph didn't like getting his hands dirty and he neglected his duties, eventually losing his job. Bliss did provide Rudolph with a little money and recommended him to work at Central Park as a landscape gardener. The only issue was that the civil service test for the post was only open to American citizens.
New York City only provided menial work for Rudolph. The future great screen idol was left cleaning around fire hydrants. But then his luck changed. Maxim's Restaurant-Cabaret hired him. His job was working as a taxi dancer. For those who don't know, that was someone who was paid to dance with patrons and he was soon gliding debutantes and lonely society women across the dance floor for ten cents a dance. His good-looks and charm won him praise and he worked his way from a "lounge lizard" to an exhibition dancer. He gave private dance lessons as well, which entailed, shall we say, "other" services.
Bonnie Glass was an exhibition ballroom dancer in need of a new partner and she hired Rudolph in 1914, paying him $50 a week. Glass opened her own venue in 1915 and the duo were incredibly popular. They traveled to various locations to perform as well. She married in 1916 and decided to retire and Rudolph found himself needing work again. He was matched with another partner through restaurateur Joe Pani and he toured performing the tango throughout the east. He was making $240 a week at this time. Blanca de Saulles was a Chilean heiress in an unhappy marriage to a wealthy businessman named Jack de Saulles when she met Rudolph in 1916. The two became fast friends and while some claimed they were romantically involved, neither claimed that to be true. Blanca was done with her husband's stepping out on her and she told Rudolph she was going to divorce her husband. He agreed to testify on her behalf during divorce proceedings and he embellished tales that he knew about an affair with a woman named Joan Sawyer. As if this wasn't scandalous enough, Rudolph was living in an apartment building owned by a madame. De Saulles knew this because the reason Rudolph knew information about his infidelity is because he had seen him at the apartment building. So de Saulles called in a tip and the madame, Georgia Thyme, and Rudolph were arrested for pimping. The evidence was thin and they were released. But that wasn't the end of the de Saulles saga for Rudolph. A year later, in August of 1917, Blanca shot and killed Jack de Saulles over a custody dispute involving their son and this put Rudolph in a spotlight he didn't want. He had to get out of New York and so he headed west, joining a traveling musical troupe. The group disbanded when they got to Utah and Rudolph thought about continuing to California to become a farmer. But a better opportunity presented itself. Al Jolson had a traveling production performing Robinson Crusoe, Jr. and when they came through Utah, Rudolph joined them and they moved on to San Francisco. While there, he met a movie actor who convinced him that he should try silent films and Rudolph joined him in traveling to Los Angeles and they roomed together at the Alexandria Hotel.
While he sought parts in film, Rudolph returned to teaching dance. He got bit parts in several movies, usually as a villain because he was darker complected. His first big acting part was in The Married Virgin and this is when he had to decide how he wanted to be billed. Guglielmi (gool-yee-EL-mee) was pretty tough for American audiences and he didn't want to be identified with the crime he had been arrested for in New York, so he went with Rodolfo di Valentina, which eventually morphed into Rudolph Valentino to make it easier.
Screenwriter June Mathis saw him playing a bit part in the movie Eyes of Youth and she thought he would be perfect for her next movie based on the book "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. She cast him in the role of Julio Desnoyers. Before making the film, Valentino married actress Jean Acker in November 1919. This proved to be a bad move as the two eloped and later that evening when it was time to consummate the marriage, Acker locked him out of the room because she realized she had made a mistake. Valentino had begged her for two months to marry him as he had fallen in love with her at first sight. But Acker had agreed to the marriage to get her out of a weird predicament involving a love triangle with actresses Grace Darmond and Alla Nazimova. Yeah, you heard that right. Acker was a lesbian. Now Valentino spent much of his public life pushing back on rumors that he was gay. The truth seemed to be that Valentino was an Italian dandy and he threatened American male masculinity. He wore jewelry and perfume and was a graceful dancer, but he loved women and was very sad with his love life in which he claimed that the women he loved never loved him and the rest of the women didn't matter to him at all. Anyway, they wouldn't go to divorce court until 1921 and at that time, Valentino had become famous, while Acker was sick and in debt and so she claimed, "He deserted me. He was nothing when I married and when he arrived he lost interest in me." The judge found in favor of Valentino and granted him the divorce with no alimony needing to be paid, but he did give Acker some money for a while. Valentino called the marriage "a ridiculous tragedy."
"The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse" opened in 1921 and was a critical success. It was the first film to make 1,000,000 at the box office and is the 6th best selling silent movie of all time. At this same time, Valentino was introduced to art director Natacha Rambova and she basically became his marketing agent. She took on responsibility for his fan mail and publicity photos.
He had been under contract with Metro and after making three films with them, he moved over to Famous Players-Lasky that would eventually become Paramount Pictures. And this is when he starred in "The Sheik" that would bring him peak fame and success. After this role, he would be advertised as the "Latin Lover." More commercially successful films would follow. Valentino made several films with Famous Players, but he was getting increasingly unhappy with his roles. He didn't like changes in production and some of the directors he worked with. Through this, and before his first marriage was ended legally, Valentino took up with Rambova. So she was apparently helping him with more than just photos. He asked her to marry him and they married in May 1922. Now Valentino was divorced from Acker by this time, but California had a law that you couldn't marry for a year after a divorce was finalized and so he was arrested for bigamy and went to trial. This was a huge sensation and the couple had to annul their marriage, wait for the rest of the year to pass and then they remarried. Valentino would complete another very successful film that he considered one of his best films, "Blood and Sand" at this time. Rambova was deeply into mysticism and the occult and the couple hosted salons about spiritualism and attended seances together. She led Valentino into believing he had an Apache spirit guide named Black Feather that was always with him. Gossip columns called him the "Sheik with a Oujia board."
In September 1922, Valentino conducted a one-man strike against Famous Players-Lasky. The strike kept Valentino from working for any other studios and he fell deeply into debt and while the studio claimed he was a prima donna, Valentino was really just fighting for more diverse parts and more artistic freedom. The studio did allow him to do radio work.
In March 1923, after Valentino and Natacha Rambova were legally married, they set off on an 88 city tour through Canada and America. they were sponsored by Mineralava Beauty Clay Company and the tour ended with a beauty contest in which Valentino presented the winner with the prize. Valentino later was able to get signed Ritz-Carlton Pictures as long as he agreed to fulfill his contract with Famous Players. United Artists was the next studio Valentino worked for and while his contract was lucrative with him being paid $10,000 a week for only three pictures a year, his wife Rambova was barred from any sets. Word had gotten around that she was poison on the set with her lavish design requests and other demands. It caused a rift in the marriage. The couple would eventually divorce in January 1926. The next major relationship that Valentino had would be his last and this was with Polish actress Pola Negri. Negri would claim they were engaged after Valentino died, but nobody believed that to be true as he had not told anyone that. Valentino's final film was "The Son of the Sheik," which opened on July 9, 1926. Valentino had been ill during the entire shoot and he had been having stomach or abdominal trouble for years. He was often in pain. While the publicity around the film was great, an article was published by an anonymous journalist decrying the feminization of men by Valentino and his screen image. The editorial asked rhetorically, "Why didn't someone quietly drown Rudolph Guglielmo, alias Valentino, years ago?" This pissed Valentino off and he was ready to prove his manhood through a boxing match. Valentino wrote, "This is not publicity. The man overstepped all bounds of decency and right thinking. I will go back to Chicago and give him what he deserves. Only one thing would prevent it-if he were feeble or old, or too young. If he is too old, he should have known better. If he is too young, I'll spank him. All journalists should be ashamed of him, whoever he is." The anonymous journalist never responded, but a match was set up with New York Evening Journal boxing writer Frank "Buck" O'Neil. Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey trained Valentino and served as referee for the boxing match, which Valentino won. Dempsey said of Valentino, "He was the most virile and masculine of men. The women were like flies to a honeypot. He could never shake them off, anywhere he went. What a lovely, lucky guy." But his luck ran out. The following month, Valentino was hospitalized with excruciating pain. Doctors diagnosed him with ulcers and appendicitis. Emergency surgery was conducted to remove the appendix and suture a perforated ulcer. Valentino seemed to rally after the surgery, but soon infection set in through peritonitis. Doctors said if he improved through the next 48 hours, he would probably be okay. His health declined on August 21st as pleurisy set in his lungs and the doctors knew he would die, but they chose not to tell him. Fever wracked the actor for two days and he was in and out of consciousness. When he was conscious, he spoke of the future and claimed to feel fine. At 8am on August 22nd, he slipped into a coma and last rites were administered. he died at 12:10pm on August 22nd 1926 at the age of 31.
Crowds outside the hospital grieved his death and women passed out. Tributes poured in from the film industry and 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects at his funeral. Pola Negri made a scene, collapsing over his coffin after placing an 11-foot-long bank of lilies that spelled out her name. His funeral was held at The Actor's Chapel in Manhattan and his remains were taken from New York to California and he is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in a crypt provided by June Mathis. She is buried next to him.
Falcon's Lair
Falcon Lair was a symbol of Valentino's success. The mansion was located abobe Benedict Canyon In Los Angeles and featured a Spanish Revival style, expansive grounds and sumptuous interiors of ornate tile work and iron details. The architect was Wallace Neff. Valentino decorated it with memorabilia and items he had acquired from around the world like Renaissance art and decorative rugs. He gave the home its name in honor of "The Hooded Falcon," a film that he and his wife Natacha Rambova were producing that never got off the ground. There was a stable on the property where he kept his horses. The home was auctioned off after his death to pay debts and went through a series of owners until billionaire heiress Doris Duke bought it in 1953. She lived there until her death in 1993. New owners set about doing a major renovation in 2003, but this was halted before finished and in 2006, the mansion was demolished. Only the garage with an upper floor for servants quarters still stands. The stable was turned into a home, but that was eventually demolished too. This had been a sanctuary for Valentino, and that is perhaps why his spirit was said to still be in the house. We wonder if he still might wander the property, upset that his home is gone.
A caretaker once ran down the canyon in the middle of the night yelling that he had seen Valentino. A stable worker quit his job there and didn't return to pick up his things after he saw the ghost of Valentino petting a horse. His ex-wife Rambova claimed to be in contact with him after his death and said he refused to leave his house because he didn't believe that he was dead.
A woman who was friends with the caretaker had come to visit and stay over at the mansion shortly after Valentino's death. Her friends had taken Valentino's two Great Danes, Rudy and Brownie, outside to exercise and she was inside writing when she heard steps shuffling up the stairs and heard an inner door open. She figured her friends had returned and called out their names to which she got no answer. She then heard the door close and steps shuffle down the stairs and then the garage door closed. When her friends returned to the house several minutes later, she asked why they hadn't responded when she called out to them. One said, "Came up? Neither of us came up. You must have been dreaming." Then they all investigated to make sure no one else was in the house. As they opened the doors to Valentino's bedroom, the one caretaker pointed out some grass on the floor. She said, "But I swept this out yesterday and not a person has entered." In the end, they knew nobody could have come up to the house without passing the caretakers and the dogs and they would have been seen.
Santa Maria Inn
We covered the Santa Maria Inn on Ep. 175. The hotel was opened on the Central Coast of California in 1917 by a man named Frank McCoy to be a luxurious spot to stay for the rich and famous. Back at that time, the hotel only had 24 rooms. Over the years, McCoy added more rooms.
One of the stars who stayed here and visits it in the afterlife is Valentino. During his Hollywood career, he stayed at the Santa Maria Inn in Room 221. He has been seen lying on the bed in the room and his indentation on the top of the covers is clearly seen. His favorite tactic seems to be knocking on doors, particularly of Room 221. We read several accounts of people being awakened by knocking on the door, some of them as negative reviews about the hotel where people are completely unaware that they may have experienced something supernatural. A podcaster friend had joined us on the episode, Elliot, and he said he experienced this type of haunting during one of his stays.
Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel
The Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel on Ivar Avenue is now the Hollywood Knickerbocker Apartments. This had been the hotel of the Stars in the 1940s. The hotel was designed by John M. Cooper in the Classical style and started as a luxury apartment house when it opened in 1925. It converted into a hotel in 1929 and had 500 rooms and 200 suites. Valentino was a frequent guest and is still spotted sometimes in the former lounge, The Lido Room, that is today a restaurant. He apparently loved to dance the tango there.
Movie Studios
There is the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, which had once been the Famous Players-Lasky studio. The commissary from the 1920s is now a restaurant called George’s, which is right next to the studio. Valentino filmed many of his movies here. The new studio films Sesame Street and was also the home of Orange Is The New Black and Nurse Jackie. People claim to have spied Valentino sitting at the bar at George's, sipping martinis. Paramount Studios is next to Hollywood Forever Cemetery and people claim that Valentino visits from there on occasion. He had filmed at the studio and the gates at the front were originally crafted to keep out his crowds, although the gates wouldn't be finished until after Valentino died.
Hollywood Forever Grave
Rudolph Valentino's grave is the site of an apparition of a woman in a black dress and many claim this woman is Ditra Flame. Ditra had been seriously ill in the hospital when she was a little girl. Valentino was freinds with her mother, so he showed up at the hospital bearing a single red rose. He whispered to her, “You’re not going to die at all. You’re going to outlive me by many years. But one thing for sure—if I die before you do, will you please come and stay by me because I don’t want to be alone either. You come and talk to me.” Valentino was right. Ditra got better and he died a few years later from complications from gastric ulcer surgery. As an adult, she brought red roses to his crypt every year on his death date. She died in 1984 and ever since then, people claim to see a ghost woman in black kneeling in front of Valentino’s tomb. Some visitors have seen a rose just appear in the vase on the wall. Disembodied footsteps have been heard and there is a feeling as though being watched by someone unseen.
Valentino came from humble beginnings and worked his way to the upper echelons of Hollywood. He demanded to be respected and wanted to be allowed to be a real actor. And he was finally getting to that place when death came calling at far too young an age. Does Rudolph Valentino haunt these various locations? That is for you to decide!
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