Rudolph Valentino Books

Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see was something I learned a long time ago. I would certainly apply the adage to this book.

In all of his "biographies, according to David Bret, every (deceased) person in the movie industry; male and female, from the lighting technicians to the highest paid stars and the movie moguls themselves; the single and the married as well, were all either, bi-sexual, lesbian, homosexual... or wish they were. Mr. Bret offers no proof except what apparently exists in the fantasy dream world of others or his own imagination... and perhaps wishful thinking.

It makes for titillating reading but unless the author can back up his claims it is all fiction and the reader should take it with a grain of salt.

Oh, my! As soon as I opened this book, I noticed a typo in the index. Marion Davies is misspelled as "Marian" (page 221). Also noticed a typo on page 4 of the photographs, where Nita Naldi is referred to as "Nita Kaldi." I need to race back to Barnes and Noble to get a refund for this trash. I can only imagine the other errors I would find upon actually reading this book.

Bret, David. "Valentino: A Dream of Desire", Carroll & Graf, 2007.

Was He?

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Valentino has been dead a very long time but his mystique lives boldly. Rumor has it that he was perhaps the most beautiful and most mysterious man ever to be in the movies. Both sexes swooned at his sight and when he suddenly died at the age of 31 there were riots and suicides. What was it about this man that caused people to behave as they did? David Bret has tried to figure that out n his new biography, "Valentino: A Dream of Desire". Using previously unpublished material he reveals that Valentino was only attracted to other men ad that the affairs he had with women not only meant nothing but caused heartbreak and, many times, disaster. In fact Valentino was at home with his sexuality. Valentino rose above the popular stereotype of the [...] which characterized [...] men in the 1920's as effeminate degenerates. He was masculine and built large and excelled at sports. Bret maintains that it was Valentino's constant need to prove that he was indeed a man that killed him.
If you like reading about celebrities, this is a book for you. However if your favorite stats have to be heterosexual, don't read this. Bret names people and uses citations for his sources that show that "The Sheik" enjoyed having sex with men. Bret researched thoroughly so that he could make this statement and it is the research that hurts the smooth flow this book might have had. Te book comes off as sensational and somewhat shallow despite the research. Yet it is an important book for those who want to have some background on the star.
Valentino was Latin and Latins are characterized as lovers. With Latins, appearance means everything and with most Latins anything goes sexually. Why we care about Valentino's sexuality I really don't know but evidently it is important to some. Supposedly Bret managed to get h shads on Valentino's diary and he quotes from it freely. I have read elsewhere that the very same diary is a fake, written by someone trying to discredit the man. Bret says that Valentino was not only [...] but an exhibitionist as well. I mean who really cares? The man is dead, his lovers are dead and those that swooned for him are dead. The show is over, the coffin is in the ground and life goes on. If Valentino had slept with all of the people that Bret maintains, he would never have had rime to make a movie. If Valentino was [...] and had to hide, then I feel bad for him but why should I concern myself with it now? Valentino was taken from this world 75 years ago. That is a very long time. Let the man rest in peace.

If you are the kind of person (and there are a lot of your ilk out there) who can respect a celebrity only if you can believe he is heterosexual and only if you aren't subjected to details about his sexual life if he isn't, then DREAM OF DESIRE is a must-to-avoid for you. Save yourself the need to write a hateful, vitriolic review. David Bret names names, cites sources and leaves no doubt that Rudolph Valentino enjoyed having sexual relations with other men. (However, his contention that Valentino was gay and not bisexual is less convincing.) There is a wealth of information in this biography, and not just about sex . . . Bret's research is so thorough, and his descriptions so detailed, you'd think he had been there at the elbows of Valentino and his wife Natacha Rambova while these events were taking place. That said, I would NOT call this book well-written. Bret's writing tends toward the sensationalistic and shallow, and he contradicts himself fairly often (Valentino is "only" attracted to men, and yet on the next page he becomes sexually attracted to a woman; he supposedly had no physical desire for Rambova, yet he tries numerous times to bed her, and so on). It's not a great book, and the picture it paints of the silent screen legend is anything but flattering. And there are far too few photos. Yet because of the voluminous information it contains, I would say it's an essential stop along the road to learning all there is to know about the star of silent classics like "The Sheik," "The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse" and "A Sainted Devil."

Curiousity got the better of me, so I read the whole thing in less than two hours at the neighborhood Borders. Well, at least I didn't waste my money this time around.This was a repeat performance of his last book about Joan Crawford. David Bret seems to be following a recipe for mediocrity......collect all the salacious stories you can about your long dead victim (Valentino), throw in a heavy doses of gossip about friends and acquaintances (also long dead), flesh out the stories with graphic detail, call it a book, and sell it. Seriously, if you want to read an excellent Valentino bio read Emily Leider's book which is an objective treatment and well researched. Bret's book is a joke and not worth your $.