Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova

Rating:
Summary: Madame Rambova
Review: A book about the fascinating Natacha Rambova is long overdue. Well known as the much-maligned wife of early Hollywood heart-throb Rudolph Valentino, she was also a dancer, set designer, mystic, and art collector to name just a few of her talents. However, the author's excessively rosy view of his very complex subject makes this a good book, not a great one.

Morris works hard to reverse the numerous unflattering stereotypes and rumours built around Natacha during her life. By refusing to at least explore them, he weakens the book considerably. All negative claims are swiftly - perhaps a little too swiftly - shot down. The bare details are subtly poked and prodded into a much more pleasant picture than was strictly the case. In particular, very little is made of `Monsieur Beaucaire', the notorious flop which nearly ended Valentino's career and his rough, mysterious image. This movie represented a major crisis in the marriage of the couple, as Rambova has convinced Valentino and his studio to make the film in the first place.

The end (and for that matter, much) of the Valentinos' marriage was far more acrimonious than Morris leads us to believe, and thus the portrait of Natacha he paints remains disappointingly bloodless. One topic of which more exploration is needed by further biographers of Natacha (and I hope that more is written of her) is made evident by the numerous references to her ability to work all day having had nothing to eat, and by the stomach ailment that eventually killed her. Natacha was quite obviously anorexic, and exploration into her affliction might have told us much more about her.

Natacha was not the wilful but essentially benign artiste that Morris portrays here, but nor was she the cold-hearted, ruthlessly ambitious lesbian of other historical accounts. The truth, presumably, was somewhere in between - a person far more interesting than either cliched extreme. What cannot be denied is that Rambova was an interesting, talented, and ambitious woman whose story is very worthy of telling, and the book is worth reading for that alone.

What a shame that, even after Morris' attempt to bring her out from under the shadow of her famous husband, the book must still be titled `Madame Valentino'.

Rating:
Summary: New Perspective on a Facinating Woman
Review: The author of this bio did not discover She-Who-Became Valentino's wife in the usual fashion, and his perspective on her is wonderful as a result. Where most people who know of her at all only experience the harpie images given by Hollywood mudrakers, Morris learned of Winifred/Natcha through her art. His interest in Natcha is the whole of her life, not just the bit with Valentino. The result is a thoughtfull, well-researched and facinating account of a remarkable life -- and one of my favorite biographies.

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Portrait of a Fascinating Woman
Review: This biography is a fascinating read of the woman that was Rudolph Valentino's second wife, and love of his life (it has been said her leaving him led to his death, due to stress and increased drinking, which may have led to worsening his ulcer).
Anyone who wants to know more about Valentino, and about the way certain artists of the more 'Bohemian' set were crushed by the glove of Hollywood, needs to read this book. An astoundingly beautiful woman, Natacha's life reads like the epitome of Art Deco elegance; a schooling in Europe, a career as a ballet dancer with a Russian troupe (and a stormy love affair with its leader), and finally as confidante to the power Alla Nazimova and Hollywood art director.
Valentino fell under her spell before he catapulted to fame, they wed, and spent their time indulging their passions; animals, spending sprees (which led into major debt) on antiques and clothes, love of art and culture, and study of spiritualism.
Natacha's own independent personality and adherence to the aesthetic tenets of 'high art' led the Hollywood execs to like her less and less. The final straw, when Valentino signed his United Artists contract *banning* Natacha from the set, led to her leaving him and his subsequent heartbreak. She wanted a career; Valentino wanted a career and a family.
After his death, Natacha's life did not cease to be interesting, with her continued study into Spiritualism, and her endeavors in Egyptology, along with her second, also doomed (though this time in divorce), marriage to a spanish rebel.
The photographs in the book are numerous, some rare, and still pictures show her as a radiant, almost unnaturally beautiful woman; I could imagine what she must have been like in real life!
A well researched, well written, engaging biography that I read cover to cover with much interest.