The Silent Film Quarterly・!37
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Does Rudy Speak From the Beyond? By Natacha Rambova
Just months after the death of her exhusband Rudolph Valentino, Photoplay magazine interviewed Natacha Rambova, who was allegedly communicating with the recently-deceased Sheik through a spirit medium. Rambova was well-known throughout her life for her intense spiritualist beliefs, as can be seen in this interview. Her insights into the afterlife of the Latin Lover are presented in full below. ・・・ Is Valentino happy? At first he was anything from happy. That was immediately after his passing. Three days after his passing I received his first message. Incoherent as it was, it showed Rudy as resentful and bitter at his taking at the height of his career. The spirit of his mother spoke, too, protesting at Rudy’s terrible unhappiness. Then the tone of Rudy’s message changed. Not, however, until after his final burial service in Hollywood. Concentrated public thought had held him earthbound. The prolonged cross-country funeral had held him in the agonies of the spirit in passing. Rudy, of course, saw his funeral. He was torn with unhappiness as New York mobs fought for a view of his body. He realized his great popularity as he had never realized it and knew what he had lost by being taken. To him it was wonderful but cruel. He was lonely, too. He could not reach his friends. He could not touch their sorrow. He tried to talk to them but they could not hear. Of course, he felt the loss of adulation. Soon, however, the interests of the astral world began to hold him. Now he is radiantly happy, anxious to begin his work there.
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Whom has he met?
He has named Wallie Reid, Barbara La Marr and little Olive Thomas. He has been most interested in meeting and talking with Enrico Caruso. Caruso, of course, was the idol of all young Italians. When Valentino first came to America, to make his living as best he could, Caruso was at the apex of his operatic career. To Rudy he represented all success and all greatness. You can imagine, then, his joy at meeting the great tenor over there. Caruso has taken Rudy to the opera and to hear astral concerts. Rudy, too, has met the personal friends with whom we used to communicate by means of automatic writing. What have they said? They have explained the astral world to him. He is slowly coming to comprehend the sublime qualities of the new life about him. Does Valentino know of the sorrow that swept the world at his death? Naturally, he was conscious of the world's sorrow. It was visible all about him. It tortured him in those earthbound days. Valentino has referred to the opera and the spoken
