Rudolph Valentino by Alexander Walker
Rudolph Valentino (First Edition Hardcover Copy)
The Definitive, Critical Exploration of the Silver Screen’s Ultimate Latin Lover and the Birth of Modern Celebrity Hysteria
The Definitive, Critical Exploration of the Silver Screen’s Ultimate Latin Lover and the Birth of Modern Celebrity Hysteria
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Rudolph Valentino
- Author: Alexander Walker
- Publisher: Elm Tree Books (Hamish Hamilton Ltd), London
- Publication Date: 1976
- ISBN-10: 0241893494
- ISBN-13: 9780241893494
- Edition Details: First UK Edition, First Printing. Standard hardcover release with original unclipped dust jacket.
- Binding: Original publisher's premium textured cloth-covered boards with crisp gold/silver gilt-stamped typography across the spine, complete with structurally sound heavy-stock endpapers.
- Physical Format: Octavo (8vo), 127 pages. Lavishly enhanced with a vast archival program of high-gloss historical film stills, studio portraits, and contemporary sheet music reproductions tracking the silent film era.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Exterior / Cloth Boards: The cloth casing remains in exceptional condition, sitting flat, square, and structurally sound. The outer boards show only very limited, microscopic signs of edge wear or storage friction along the corners, fully consistent with careful handling over decades. The original spine remains crisp, completely uncreased, and undamaged, retaining its original textbook rigidity.
- Interior: The text block is robustly bound, perfectly clean, and tight. The internal pages and extensive photographic layouts are clean, crisp, and intact. Entirely free of standard user highlighting, ink underlining, dealer pencil marks, or dog-ears.
- Provenance: An exemplary archival-grade volume showing no signs of institutional library stamps, previous owner nameplates, or remainder marks. Backed by our absolute satisfaction money-back guarantee.
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The Dust Jacket: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Condition Details: The original vintage 1976 dust jacket exhibits excellent color contrast and strong paper structural integrity. It shows very limited, superficial signs of handling and slight edge wear along the outer extremities. It features no significant tears, fading, or open chips, and comes protected in a clear, archival Cellophane cover.
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1976 to mark the 50th anniversary of the actor's tragic, premature death, Rudolph Valentino stands as a brilliant milestone in silent cinema biography. Born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella, the young Italian immigrated to the United States in 1913, enduring hardscrabble early years before moving to Hollywood. After picking up small, uncredited film roles, he landed his historic breakout role as Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), instantly transforming into cinema's ultimate "Latin Lover."
Acclaimed film historian Alexander Walker moves past standard studio public relations to deliver a savvy, highly sophisticated analysis of a cultural phenomenon. The biography explores how Valentino became the prototype for the modern multi-million-dollar celebrity machine, charting the mass mass-media manipulation behind blockbusters like The Sheik and Blood and Sand. Walker documents the fragile, chameleonic man caught in the eye of a terrifying storm of global fan hysteria—a public mania so severe that his death at age 31 triggered riots and dynamic waves of mass grief across the globe. It remains an essential primary record of the birth of Hollywood's golden age.
Author Profile: Alexander Walker
Alexander Walker (1930–2003) was a highly distinguished Northern Irish film critic, author, and cinematic historian. He served as the legendary, multi-award-winning film critic for the London Evening Standard for over three decades, becoming one of the most influential voices in British film journalism. Walker authored over twenty acclaimed books, including definitive biographical studies of stars like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Peter Sellers. His writings are widely praised by academics for their elegant narrative pace, uncompromising integrity, and exceptional insider knowledge of global cinema history.
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