Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor.

Childhood and Youth

He was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla in Castellaneta, Apulia, Italy to a solidly middle-class family (his father was a former officer and veterinarian), in the same year as the invention of cinema. His mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin, was French and his father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fidele Guglielmi, was Italian.

Related Topics:
Castellaneta - Apulia - Italy - Cinema - French - Italian

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Although imaginative and well read, he was an indifferent student for the most part, balking at classroom routine and defying his teachers. His troubled behaviour may have been caused in part by the death of his father when Valentino was eleven. At fifteen he tried to enroll in a military academy, but was not accepted because he did not met the physical requirements (his chest circumference was one inch too small). Eventually he studied and qualified in Agricultural Science at Nervi in Genoa. He spent some time in Paris, where he became a talented dancer, and then returned to Italy for a while, where his apparent lack of ambition angered his family.

Related Topics:
Agricultural Science - Nervi - Genoa

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