Plot: Section F, Grave 21
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Today the fans of Rudolph Valentino arrived in the heat and humidity to Hollywood Forever Cemetery for the actors 82nd annual memorial service. The Memorial Committee once again surpassed their previous efforts in providing a dignified and entertaining celebration of the life of silent film actor, Rudolph Valentino.
Fans enter the Cathedral Mausoleum (above) to attend the the 82nd Annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial Service.
The foyer of the Cathedral Mausoleum where fans gathered to begin today’s service.
Chanell O Farrill welcomes everyone on behalf of Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Valentino author and emcee, Tracy Ryan Terhune gave the opening remarks and introduced each of today’s speakers. The first speaker for the day, Jeanine Villalobos, the great-granddaughter of Rudy’s brother, Alberto, was delayed by that-infamous Los Angeles traffic, but the show must go on so a Valentino video based on the upcoming photo book by Valentino authority, Donna Hill, was premiered.
Actor Garrett Brant gave a reading of three selected poems from Valentino’s book of poetry, Daydreams.
There was a moving tribute to organist Bob Mitchell as a recording of Mitchell’s organ music played. Mitchell, who played the organ at many former Valentino services, passed away on July 4th and is also interred at Hollywood Forever.
Tracy Terhune presents an award for the late Bob Mitchell to his partner and friend, Vince Morton (above), who also perfomed the music for today’s service.
Jeanine Villalobos (above), the great-granddaughter of Alberto Guglielmi Valentino, spoke about her uncle’s funeral and read from archival letters of Alberto to his wife Ada. Ms Villalobos also commended the memorial committee for conducting the services, both past and present, with respect and decorum.
Craig MacPherson (above) shared his thoughts on the influence of Natacha Rambova in the life of Valentino. The 2009 Valentino Memorial Video showing the relationship of Valentino and Rambova was premiered to the song, “If I Love Again.”
Christopher Riordan (above), manager of Falcon Lair, shared his memories and the current and future of Valentino’s former home. Singer Ian Whitcomb entertained the audience with the songs, “My Buddy” and the perennial, “The Sheik Of Araby.” Valentino Memorial Committee member, Stella Grace, then led the audience in repeating the 23rd Psalm.
The Valentino Memorial Committee: Marvin Page, Stella Grace, Chanell O Farrill and Tracy Ryan Terhune (missing is Jay Boileau).
Celebrating the life of Rudolph Valentino are Michael Francis, Kari Bible, the Lady in Black and Allison Francis.
Flowers surround the crypt of Rudolph Valentino.
The mysterious Sue Guldin reads a newspaper account of Valentino’s death.
Valentino memorabilia on display provided by Marvin Page.
Valentino authorities and memorial committee members, Stella Grace and Tracy Ryan Terhune (above). Stella, Tracy and the rest of the committee worked hard to produce a service that was respectful and entertaining. They should be congratulated. We look forward to next year.
Photos by Allan R. Ellenberger
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With news of the impending burial of singer Michael Jackson (September 3) in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn-Glendale, fans will be deprived of making the pilgrimage to his grave – if this is indeed his final resting place. Forest Lawn is infamous for their so-called privacy issues, and with the burial of the King of Pop within their granite walls, security will be tightened. Sadly though, security is sometimes taken to extremes. At times, overzealous cemetery personnel often harass people who have every right to be there.
How differently the entombment of silent film star, Rudolph Valentino was handled at Hollywood Cemetery almost 83 years ago. Valentino, whose death and burial was as controversial in 1926 as Jackson’s is today, was interred in the Cathedral Mausoleum – not as imposing or opulent as the gothic Great Mausoleum, but just as stately and on a smaller scale.
For two years after Valentino’s death, it’s estimated that more than 100,000 people from around the world visited his borrowed crypt. This early pilgrimage by fans was documented in the 1938 book, Valentino the Unforgotten by Roger C. Peterson. In it, Peterson, who was custodian of the Cathedral Mausoleum, documents the almost daily invasion of visitors to the actors’ tomb.
Peterson began working at the mausoleum the year following Valentino’s death. At that time, the only celebrities interred in the vast granite edifice besides Valentino were director and still-unsolved murder victim, William Desmond Taylor and the “Too Beautiful” actress, Barbara La Marr.
Over the eleven years that Peterson worked at the mausoleum, he met and talked to literally hundreds of Valentino admirers. In the book Peterson shares some of those stories — some peculiar and others very poignant. One story in particular was about a simple middle-aged woman, a devoted fan, but whose purpose at the mausoleum was more than just about Valentino. In a few paragraphs, Peterson describes his experience with this woman:
“Of all the people who are loyal to Valentino’s memory, there is one who stands out. She is an Italian woman and comes to the mausoleum three or four times a week. Although she had never seen Valentino in real life she had formed such an attachment for him in pictures, that when he died, she and her husband sold their home in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles. They now have a home within walking distance of the cemetery.
“A few years after they came here she had a baby which died at birth. She named it after Valentino. The baby’s crypt is near that of Valentino, and many people mistake it for his. She brings fresh flowers from her garden. These she divides equally between her baby and Rudy. She also takes care of the flowers brought in by other visitors and fixes these with loving care. Then, with her Bible in hand, she sits for hours reading and saying her prayers. Often I have heard her crying, and it is quite pitiful to hear her weep for her loved ones. Many times after I have closed the mausoleum, she will walk by the windows nearest her crypts and continue to say her prayers.
“She claims Valentino has come to her at night and talked with her. In her broken English she says, ‘Mr. Pete, the spirit of Rudy come to my house. He knocks on walls, sometime on door. I feel him close to me. He say he help me to be happy and he is glad I come to bring flowers to him.’
“She has met Valentino’s brother and sister. On Rudy’s birthday and anniversary of his death, she always arranges the flowers so that it is very pretty when they arrive. They have become good friends and she tells me that Alberto has been to her home for a visit.”
When I first read this account many years ago, I searched the walls around Valentino’s crypt looking for the remains of this child, but to no avail. I wondered if perhaps Peterson’s imagination had at some point taken over his storytelling, but decided to do more digging.
Based on Peterson’s story, the infant Rudolph was located near Valentino’s crypt and was sometimes confused for his. So I narrowed my search to the same wall where Valentino rests looking for an Italian surname. On the very top row and a few columns to the left of Valentino are the crypts of a couple named Coppola – Matthew and Angelina.
The Coppola’s story is typical of many immigrants who came to this country at the turn of the last century. Both Matthew and Angelina were born in Italy – Matthew’s family arriving here in 1894 when he was 13 years old. They settled in Paterson, New Jersey where Matthew met fellow immigrant, Angelina Rosa Federico. The two were married and started a family – Thomas, Lewis, Dante and Virgilio – all sons. Matthew was a carpenter by trade and in 1919 he moved his family to California to find work – first in San Jose and soon after moving to 2371 Brant Street in San Diego.
True to Peterson’s account, the Coppola’s moved again sometime in late 1926 to Los Angeles – specifically to 1316 Tamarind Avenue (demolished) in Hollywood – only two and a half blocks from Hollywood Cemetery. (The Coppola’s next door neighbor was future singer/actor and Valentino look-a-like, Russ Columbo)
Early in 1928, at the age of 45, Angelina found that she was pregnant, but sadly the baby boy died at birth on September 28. The state records list the child only as Baby Coppola but Angelina named him Rodolfo Valentino Coppola in honor of the actor.
Roger Peterson first met the Coppola’s when their child was interred in the top row crypt on October 15, 1928. Peterson, whom Angelina called ‘Mr. Pete,’ became friends with the Coppola’s during her frequent visits to the mausoleum. In his diary, dated November 24, 1928, Peterson wrote of Angelina’s personal encounter with Valentino:
“Mrs. Coppola was happier today than I have ever seen her. I asked her why and she told me a strange story of Valentino coming to her last night and talking to her. She said his spirit came to her house and knocked on the door. When she let him in, he told her that her baby was happy and not to grieve so much.”
However, it was difficult for the Coppola’s to entirely release their grief for they felt their child’s death was due to the doctor’s negligence. In 1930 they sued Dr. Rodolfo E. Monaco for $75,000 for asserted malpractice. During the trial, Angelina was on the stand being questioned about a statement she made to the effect that “she had been warned by a voice.”
At this point in her testimony, a woman jumped from her seat in the gallery and rushed to the front of the courtroom. Later identified as Shelly Roane Vier, a Long Beach psychic, she claimed she was sent to protect Angelina Coppola. She told the court that the spirit of Rudolph Valentino had directed her to Hollywood Cemetery the previous Christmas, where she met Angelina, and that his spirit had sent her to the courtroom that day. She was in a trance, she said, and for the moment, the spirit of a departed Indian chief, Gray Eagle, possessed her as she spoke in a strange tongue.
It was several minutes before order was restored and Vier was led from the courtroom by a companion. When court reconvened, the judge granted a motion of the plaintiff’s counsel declaring a mistrial. A second trial held two years later was suddenly ended by the judge who held that there was no evidence to show negligence on the part of Monaco.
We assume that Angelina continued her frequent visits to the mausoleum for many years afterward, but who can say for sure. Baby Rodolfo’s grave is no longer marked with his name, but it’s likely that he was interred with his mother in the same crypt (1172) when she died on March 23, 1956 at age 72. Perhaps his marker, the one that confused so many fans, was also placed inside.
Peterson remained the custodian of the Cathedral Mausoleum until 1940 when he left to become a home contractor. The cemetery did not replace Peterson and there would never be another custodian to walk the corridors of the mausoleum, directing visitors to Valentino’s crypt.
Roger Peterson died on July 31, 1972 and was laid to rest at Grandview Cemetery in Glendale. One wonders why he wasn’t interred at Hollywood Cemetery where he had worked for so many years.
Valentino the Unforgotten, the book that Roger C. Peterson wrote based on his diaries of the never-ending procession of visitors to Valentino’s crypt, was published in 1938. However, after only one shipment was sent to stores, a fire destroyed the warehouse where the remaining copies were held. The book was never republished so copies of the original are rare. In 2007, Tracy Ryan Terhune brought the book back into print, adding new information on Peterson. The book can be purchased on Amazon.
If you attend the 82nd Annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial on Sunday, August 23, 2009, before visiting the crypt of Valentino, pause for a moment below the resting place of Angelina and Matthew Coppola and their son Rodolfo, and remember a mother’s devotion and love for her child.
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NOTE: The following article by actor Gilbert Roland is reprinted from the November 22, 1975 issue of TV Guide
We cannot turn back to so little as yesterday. But remembering Valentino, I return to the days when I was a Hollywood movie extra at $3 a day and box lunch, and lived in a small room on Temple and Olive Street next to a synagogue. I covered the somber walls with photos of movie stars, and by a crucifix over the bed, my boyhood idol – Rudolph Valentino.
We cannot shun our destiny. What God has written will come to be. And it was to that one day I would meet Valentino. His real name was Rodolpho Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi de Valentina D’Antonguolla. He selected Rodolpho Valentino for the screen. Friends called him Rudy. We, the young bohemian movie extras, penniless, undefeated romanticists, called him – Valentino.
He arrived in Hollywood, broke. Emmett Flynn gave him his first job as an extra at five dollars a day. Rex Ingram, a great director, selected him for Julio in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” and Valentino was a star. After the success of The Sheik, he became the great Latin Lover – Valentino was humble in success, yet a man misunderstood. An editorial writer for a Chicago paper called him “a pink powder puff.” Valentino went to Chicago and angrily challenged the writer openly to a duel or fist fight. The challenge was not accepted.
Valentino had dignity, wore elegant English clothes, made bow ties popular, drove fast cards, was a hard-riding horseman, and loved women. We imitated his graceful walk; grew sideburns, pomaded our hair a la Valentino. He grew a beard and it became fashionable. Barbers were alarmed, protested and begged him to shave it off. He introduced the platinum slave bracelet. We wore cheap imitations. He made the tango popular. We danced with beautiful girls who called us – Latin lovers – a sobriquet we did not contradict.
He was a man of charm, magnetismo, the power to attract, captivate. He brought romance to the screen, and to millions of women. Valentino filled an emptiness. The Heartthrob. Women fainted. I saw him at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. Women screamed hysterically to touch him. The stormed the theater with a vengeance, like the Bastille. It was like a page out of the French Revolution.
Central Casting called for Spanish and Mexican extras to report at Paramount Studio, $3 a day and box lunch. Over a thousand of us were hauled into trucks and driven through the narrow dusty Cahuenga Pass to Lasky ranch. The picture – Blood and Sand. The star playing the matador – Rudolph Valentino. My father had been a famous matador from Spain. It is an art to be properly dressed for the arena. Often in Mexico I had helped my father. A Spaniard, Jarita, the technical adviser, demanded Valentino to be perfectly dressed as a matador, and knew my background.
He took me to Valentino’s dressing room on the lot. “This boy will help you dress,” Jarita said politely. Valentino smiled, shook my hand, and I trembled. He stood naked, a towel around his trim bronzed body, the slant eyes, a scar on his cheek like a saber cut. I helped him into the taleguilla, the pink stockings, red sash, zapatillas, chaquetilla… All through the ritual he sat motionless, silent, his eyes far away. A tear rolled down his cheek. He brushed it off, lit a cigarette, and walked away.
During lunch a violent fight erupted between the extras. Someone stuck me with a banderilla, and there was blood. Valentino sat under a shady tree with his lady love, exotic Natacha Rambova, as I went by. He saw the blood, cleaned the wound, wrapped his monogrammed handkerchief around my hand and gave me a glass of wine. The lovely lady smiled… the courtesy, gallantry, chivalry of the great; all these things not here any more. I treasured Valentino’s handkerchief a long time. Then a lovely blonde girl came along and went off with it.
The last time I saw Valentino he was driving the Isotta-Fraschini fast along Sunset Boulevard. I raced my old second-hand Moon roadster to catch him. I wanted to wave to him. I kept going faster, the car rattling, then a motorcycle cop gave me a ticket for speeding. I appeared in court before Judge Chambers, expecting to pay a fine, but the judge sentenced me to five days in jail. And I never saw Valentino again. Destiny.
But we had a few things in common. We were both Latin’s, proud of our heritage. We had worked as extras, bus boys, been hungry, loved classical music, believed in God. He had slept on a park bench in New York, I on a church bench in Los Angeles. We loved America, became citizens. We were athletic, healthy. We did not believe in drugs or medicine. We drank good wine, and loved women. On the screen we played the same romantic role of Armand Duval in Dumas’s – Camille. He with Alla Nazimova. I with Norma Talmadge.
One day he died. He was 31. His death plunged America into a nation of mourners. Women wept with unashamed tears. Two killed themselves that day; a day of vertigo, delirium. A dolorous whisper stunned the land. “Valentino is dead.” The whisper made the heart ache.
After his death I was lauded as one of his successors. A Hollywood weekly heralded: “Gilbert Roland Looms As Valentino’s Successor!” It was absurd. An infamy. No one could replace Valentino. He was not cast of an ordinary mold. This was sacrilege. I resented it. It gave me the coraje, that rage I’ve had all my life about injustice. For this was in injustice. There could never be another Valentino.
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Walt Disney was a struggling young cartoon filmmaker in Kansas City, Mo., in 1923 when he came up with the idea of having a young girl interact with animated characters in a series of silent comedy shorts. But who would play the girl?
Click here to continue reading the Los Angeles Times obituary for Virginia Davis
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6 a.m. The Chase (1966) 3 a.m.
8:15 a.m. The Richest Girl in the World (1934) 5:15 a.m.
9:45 a.m. Wise Girl (1937) 6:45 a.m.
11 a.m. Woman Chases Man (1937) 8 a.m.
12:15 p.m. The Old Maid (1939) 9:15 a.m.
2 p.m. Old Acquaintance (1943) 11 a.m.
4 p.m. Virginia City (1940) 1 p.m.
6 p.m. The Heiress (1949) 3 p.m.
8 p.m. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) 5 p.m.
9:45 p.m. Trouble in Paradise (1932) 6:45 p.m.
11:15 p.m. Design for Living (1933) 8:15 p.m.
1 a.m. Barbary Coast (1935) 10 p.m.
2:45 a.m. These Three (1936) 11:45 p.m.
4:30 a.m. Lady with Red Hair (1940) 1:30 a.m.
*****
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cinespia cemetery screenings season 09
gates 7:00 pm movie 8:30 pm
hollywood forever cemetery
6000 santa monica boulevard at gower
no reservation necessary
$10 donation tickets available at gate
as a courtesy to other moviegoers: NO TALL CHAIRS!!
starring gene kelly and debbie reynolds
dj jun spins before and after the screening
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Ruth Ford, a onetime member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre who appeared in numerous Broadway plays and in films and television, has died. She was 98.
Click here to continue reading the Los Angeles Times obituary for Ruth Ford
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The life & legacy of Rudolph Valentino will be remembered at the annual Valentino Memorial Service which will be held on August 23rd, just as it has every year, steadfastly without fail for the past 82 years.
Also – the Valentino outdoor screening the evening of the 23rd returns after a two year absence. “A Society Sensation” and “Stolen Moments” will be shown. Bob Mitchell recorded his only in-studio recording for a silent movie when he did the score for “A Society Sensation” and that will be presented with his score, and Vince Morton will play live for “Stolen Moments.”
– Tracy Terhune
More to be announced.
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