Sunday 10 June 2012

Rudolph Valentino Dead

Daily Mirror dated Tuesday August 24th 1926
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Rudolph Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla in 1895 of French/Italian parentage and was brought up in Italy. He moved to the USA in 1913 and appeared in his first film in 1914. From then until 1921 he turned up as an extra, or un-credited or under a variety of variations of his name in about 20 films, but in 1921 he stared in ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ and his career as a one of the most popular Silent era stars was off and running. Unfortunately, particularly for his many many female fans, it came to a sudden end in 1926 when he died as a result of complications after an appendix operation.   

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Pola Negri, who claimed to be engaged to Valentino at the time of his death, was born in Poland and died at the age of 90 in 1987. Her film career spanned from 1914 to 1964 but she made very few films after the coming of Sound. In her most popular silent films she was a strong rival to Theda Bara as the leading ‘Vamp’ of the time.

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Miss Esther Rodrigues was born during the reign of William IV and was only 2 years old when Queen Victoria came to the throne. She was 26 when the American Civil War broke out, 30 when President Lincoln was assassinated, 37 when Stanley found Livingstone in Africa, 50 when Daimler and Benz build their first car, 62 at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 68 when the Wright Brothers flew the first powered aircraft and 79 when the World went to War.

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So much for “in the old days everyone knew everyone else and no-one locked their front doors so that neighbours could just pop in for a cuppa”. My mother moved to London from Lincolnshire as a single young woman in the 1920’s and said that it was the loneliest place on earth.

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Health and Safety anyone?  I would have thought that even the sloshing about of the petrol in the fuel tank would upset the balance, not to mention one of the boatmen having a sneezing fit.

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Breakfast at 3pm with a blonde beauty while wearing a yachting cap - what more could you wish for!
The coastal town of Deauville in north-western France was the resort for the rich and famous throughout the 1920’s and 30’s. Its casino was featured in the long but fascinating heist film ‘Bob le Flambeur’ directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.

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Greece was having it's problems even then.
Major General Theodoros Pangalos was involved in the 1922 revolt that deposed King Constantine I of Greece and in June 1925 he headed a bloodless coup, which ended with him as Prime Minister. It was his turn to be ousted in August 1926. He died in 1952.

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This is the Claude Rains who 16 years later was told by Humphrey Bogart “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” (Casablanca)
Apart from one minor role in 1920, Rains’ film career didn’t start until he sort of appeared in ‘The Invisible Man’ in 1933, by which time he was an established stage actor on both sides of the Atlantic and an acting teacher (his pupils included Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud).

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Edwin Creed was murdered in his cheese shop in Bayswater on the night of July 28th 1926. The crime remains unsolved.
Frederick Porter Wensley joined the police in 1888 just in time to patrol Whitechapel looking for Jack the Ripper. He became Chief Constable (CID), Metropolitan Police in 1924 and retired in 1929.


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If you believe that film star, actress and theatre manager Gladys Cooper had a personal laboratory in her house turning out beauty products then maybe I can interest you in my world famous hand-woven breeze-blocks – personally signed at only £150 each.
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