VALENTINO. Possibly the world’s most famous actor of all time, starred in 33 silent films without ever uttering a single word. At last he speaks! Having been provided a “parole from the Afterlife,” Rudolph Valentino returns to tango among the living as he tries to help navigate a modern-day protégé around the obstacles and trappings of sudden stardom.
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About the Book
A modern day story about the world’s most silent and puzzled actor of all time: Rudolph Valentino. . . At last he speaks. In a twelve year acting career abruptly ended by his sudden death at the age of 31, this Italian immigrant managed to accomplish–without a single audible word–33 silent films that not only stunned a conservative nation and liberated the inhibitions of a chaste society, but rather defined just what would be roaring and carefree about the 1920s.
Six decades after perforated ulcers took the young life of the World’s Greatest Lover, Valentino emerges from the Beyond to craft and guide the life of Dominick Veneziano–in his his own image. The task quickly proves more complicated than Rudy can manage alone, and soon the controversial giants of caskets-past are deployed to advise young Dominick on the finer points and dodgings of being different. Finally, from silent lips never before betraying the truth, gushes forth the confessions of the on- and off-screen actor of the century.
In this fictional postmortem biography, Rudolph Valentino tells all, outing closeted notables from antiquity and emptying some controversial crypts of Hollywood’s more recently deceased. Using 20 of the 33 movie titles to delivery the story of Valentino’s abbreviated lifetime, Michael Scott Curnes has fashioned an all-terrain vehicle which travels freely throughout a bumpy homosexual history, taking on some 20-odd passengers who don’t hesitate to impart their distinctive perspectives on an easily influenced and eager young prodigy. Val is an engaging tale of two lives: one present and one present again.
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