Marsha Hunt Discusses Anthony Dexter
In his blog, Allan Ellenberger speaks with Marsha Hunt about Anthony Dexter, who played Rudolph Valentino in the 1951 biopic Valentino (right), and with whom Hunt co-starred in a stage production of The King and I.
Here are a couple of quotes:
"Of course I remember Valentino. By the age of eight I had already seen The Sheik and his films with Vilma Banky. Valentino smoldered, didn’t he? That was fine with me. I got his message loud and clear, even at a young age."
…
"One of the first things that struck me about Tony Dexter was – and I don’t mean that it was obtrusive – but he didn’t have an ego. And I was amazed during rehearsals, this [...]
by Andre Soares | August 12, 2009
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Tags: Alice Terry, Allan Ellenberger, Anthony Dexter, Classic Movies, Columbia, Marsha Hunt, Rudolph Valentino, Valentino
Best Films – 1921
A sensation in its day, Rex Ingram’s film adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from a screenplay by June Mathis, catapulted Mathis’ protégé Rudolph Valentino to superstardom. Ingram’s wife, the highly capable Alice Terry, played the romantic interest. More than 80 years after its initial release, The Four Horsemen remains a powerful cinematic experience.
FILM
The Conquering Power
d: Rex Ingram; scr: June Mathis
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
d: Rex Ingram; scr: June Mathis
Nobody
d: Roland West; scr: Roland West, Charles H. Smith
Wallace Reid, Bebe Daniels in The Affairs of Anatol
CHECK THESE OUT
The Affairs of Anatol
d: Cecil B. DeMille; scr: Jeanie Macpherson
Richard Barthelmess in Tol’able David
ACTOR
Richard Barthelmess
Tol’able David
Jackie Coogan
The Kid
Ralph Lewis
The Conquering Power
Kenneth Harlan, [...]
by Andre Soares | April 2, 2009
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Tags: Agnes Ayres, Alice Terry, Best Films, Charles Rosher, Classic Movies, Jewel Carmen, John F. Seitz, June Mathis, Karl Struss, Nobody, Rex Ingram, Richard Barthelmess, Roland West, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films, The Affairs of Anatol, The Conquering Power, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Tol'able David, Wanda Hawley
Rudolph Valentino at the Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009
Mary Pickford in The Poor Little Rich Girl
Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009: Feb. 27
Saturday – Feb. 28, 2009
Morning – starts at 9 a.m.
Feature: The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) Mary Pickford (65 min.)
This is the feature film that put little Mary Pickford on the map as a star. She was known before, but this one put her name above the title and fans came to see her pictures after this no matter what the title was. It was also a role that typecast her forever as a child afterwards. Even when she was 33-years old, she was still playing little girls and was known as ‘America’s Sweetheart’. This delightful yet important story is about family and the importance of family. [...]
by Andre Soares | January 27, 2009
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Tags: Classic Movies, Cobra, Film Festivals, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford, Mont Alto Orchestra, Nita Naldi, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films
Lost Pola Negri Film Found
The News/Polskie Radio reports that an early (and thus far unnamed) Pola Negri vehicle has been discovered at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia by the husband-and-wife team of Marek and Malgorzata Hendrykowski from Poznan University. Dating from the 1910s, the Polish production is a detective story set in Warsaw. The print has Italian subtitles and is said to be in good condition.
Born (Barbara) Apolonia Chalupiec in 1894 in Lipno, central Poland, Pola Negri began her show business career dancing with the Imperial Ballet in Warsaw, later enrolling in Poland’s Academy of Dramatic Arts. Following her stage debut in 1913, Negri rapidly ascended to the top of her profession, and by the late 1910s she had become a [...]
by Andre Soares | December 29, 2008
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Tags: Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, Ernst Lubitsch, Gloria Swanson, Gypsy Blood, Lesbian Interest, Mazurka, Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films, The Moon-Spinners
Rex Ingram Remembered
Since it’s still Jan. 15 in large chunks of the Pacific Ocean, I have enough time to briefly mention film director Rex Ingram (top right), whose birth — as Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock — took place in Dublin exactly 113 years ago. (Some sources claim Ingram was born in 1892, but in Rex Ingram: Master of the Silent Cinema author Liam O’Leary clearly states that 1893 is the right date.)
While writing Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro, I often became more intrigued with two of the story’s top supporting players than with the biographical subject himself. One was Novarro’s lover in the mid-1920s, columnist Herbert Howe, quite likely the wittiest writer to ever cover the Hollywood scene. [...]
by Andre Soares | January 16, 2006
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Tags: Alice Terry, Barbara La Marr, Classic Movies, Herbert Howe, John F. Seitz, June Mathis, Ramon Novarro, Rex Ingram, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Trifling Women
Rudolph Valentino’s Falcon Lair for Sale
TheStreet.com reports that Rudolph Valentino’s mansion, Falcon Lair, located in the hills above Benedict Canyon overlooking Beverly Hills, is up for sale — for those who can shell out US$7.95 million. Valentino, the star of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Sheik, bought the house for $175,000 (approx. $2 million adjusting for inflation) in 1925. Billionairess Doris Duke owned the house for nearly five decades, though the property was eventually bought from the Duke estate.
Nicholas Yulico’s article explains that “The current owner says he has spent millions transforming the house since purchasing it in 1998. Renovations are still under way. From the outside, the house will look roughly the same as when Valentino had it built in [...]
by Andre Soares | January 6, 2006
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Tags: Donna Hill, Doris Duke, Falcon Lair, Los Angeles Star Homes, Natacha Rambova, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films
THE VALENTINO MYSTIQUE by Allan Ellenberger
Allan R. Ellenberger’s meticulously researched The Valentino Mystique: The Death and Afterlife of the Silent Film Idol depicts in great detail the circumstances surrounding Rudolph Valentino’s death in 1926. (The star of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Sheik was only 31 years old.)
Allan — I’ve known him for quite some time — also discusses the aftermath of the film legend’s death, including the riots, suicides, fights over the estate, and Pola Negri’s myriad fainting spells. (Negri used to claim that only death prevented Valentino from marrying her.)
Rudolph Valentino is currently back in the news following the discovery of the 1922 film Beyond the Rocks, in which he plays Gloria Swanson’s love interest. Beyond the Rocks had [...]
by Andre Soares | January 21, 2005
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Tags: Allan Ellenberger, Beyond the Rocks, Books, Classic Movies, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films, The Valentino Mystique
