Valentino, Walsh, Young, Ziegfeld
Silent Screen Star Scandals – Sex, Sanity, Substance Abuse and So On
Apr 14, 2009
Continuing from P-T Silent Silver Screen Stars, the murderous, sexual, economic, political scandals of the silent film era were torrid, sorrowful, and extreme.
V – Rudolph Valentino
Italian actor Rudolph Valentina (1895-1926) became an icon of the silent screen. He is particularly remembered for starring in The Sheik (1921). However, his personal life was as eventful as any scripted story.
Valentino first wed in 1919, but his bride regretted the marriage immediately, locking him out of her bedroom on their wedding night. Although the marriage went unconsummated, they did not divorce until 1921. Valentino remarried before the finalization, causing him to be arrested for bigamy.
Valentino eventually legally married his second wife, Natasha Rambova, who came to be considered controversial. She was sometimes considered controlling, while other times she was praised for her business sense, but the couple divorced bitterly.
Not long after the failure of his second marriage, Valentino became ill and underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. Only about a week after the operation, he died at the age of thirty-one.
His funeral proved to be a circus. His now girlfriend or perhaps fiancé, fellow screen-star Pola Negri became hysterical, crazed fans smashed windows in an attempt to gain admittance, and, as a publicity stunt, actors impersonating soldiers arrived claiming to have been sent by Benito Mussolini.
W – Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh (1887-1980) was an actor and director. During his youth he was friends with Virginia O’Hanlon, who is the little girl referred to by the line, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
Walsh was successful as a screen actor, but a car accident caused by a jackrabbit jumping onto the windshield caused Walsh to lose his right eye. He refused to have a glass eye, and chose not to continue acting, instead focusing on directing.
Supposedly, a few days after the death of John Barrymore, Walsh used the corpse as a practical joke, propping up the suite-dressed body in an armchair of the home of Errol Flynn. This story was told by both Walsh and Flynn, but the event is disputed by others.
Y – Clara Kimball Young
Clara Kimball Young (1890-1960) became a successful screen actress playing mainly virtuous female characters. However, the career of the married Young became threatened by her very publicized affair with the also married Lewis J. Selznick, father of David O. Selznick.
Young’s husband, who was a successful director, sued for divorce. Selznick and Young became business partners, as well as remaining romantically involved, but the business and personal relationship soon soured. Young asserted that Selznick defrauded her, and before her divorce was complete, she began a new affair with Harry Garson, who also became a temporary business partner.
Z – Billie Burke Ziegfeld
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke (1884-1970) began life touring with the circus which employed her father Billy Burke as a clown. Herself known as “Billie Burke,” she is now most remembered for playing Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939). However, she began her career as a stage and silent screen actress.
In 1914, Burke became the wife of the famed Florenz Ziegfeld, who was almost twenty years her senior and previously lived with common-law wife, polish actress Anna Held, who had suggested the format for the controversial Ziegfeld Follies.
Florenz first cheated on Anna with actress Lilliane Lorraine, and when the affair ended he moved on to Billie. Billie and Florenz had one daughter, and led a lavish lifestyle, even keeping a menagerie of animals, including an elephant named “Ziggy.” However, the 1929 Stock Market Crash wiped out their money, forcing Burke to return to work for the remainder of her life.
