Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-26
VALENTINO SPENT PATRIMONY ON RIVIERA;
BROKE, HE DECIDED TO COME TO AMERICA
Life Story Reveals How He
Wasted Money Seeing
Resorts.
First Months Over Here
Marked by Acute Need
for Jobs.
BY'GEORGE BUCHANAN FIFE.
CHAPTER II.

BY'GEORGE BUCHANAN FIFE.
CHAPTER II.
Now was Rudolph Valentino ready
to brave the world with his agricul-
turai diploma. He had done remark
| ably we'll at the royal school for hus-
bandmen at San Ilario Lagure, on
the outskirts of Naples. and it must
have seemed to his mother that her
lnsistence upon his education had been
rewarded. He was now II years OF
age, his birthday having occurred on
May 6, 1895. in the inconspicuous viii
lage OF Castellaneta, in the south of
Italy. In physique he was slender,
yet strong; in temperament he was
rather more volatile than his mother
would have wished: but he had d.
ploma, and that was that.
But this youth had precious little
of the farmer in him. He had seen
farmers all his life. knew ething
Of the drudgery involved in making
two Of anything grow whore only one
/, had been grown before. There wasn't
any romance in ii from his viewpoint
1T was far more to his liking to see
. the world otherwise than from the
warm furroW that rolled back from
shining Dlowshare.
He had had a taste of freedom and
adventure in the college at Perugia,
where he and his fellows had sWag-
gered about in their long blue cloaks,
smoked. read romantic novels and
! rather fancied themselves as blades
even if he had paid for it all with
expulsion.
Soil Not for Him.
No. the soil was not for him. He
had bit of patrimony. Now was
the time to spend it before he should
become an old man in the twenties.
So off he went on his own. off to take
the young bucks rightful place in the
world.
There must have been many mis-
givinGs in the mothers heart when
her young hopeful. who. as yet mad
proved rather hopeless. declared his
intention to take Paris by storm. But
wasn't that the place TO begin? Ru-
dolph was sure 1t was. He disguised
the journey as a vacation after the
effort expended in getting that de-
gree. SO Signora Guglielmi consented,
and away he went.
Just what happened to him in Paris
is not known in detail, but 1t may not
! have been very far from what the
Signora expected. Certainly there was
much of diversion and money spend
what was left in his purse carried him
TO Monte Carlo and elsewhere along
! the so-aptly named Cote d AZur. Nice,
| Cannes. Beulieu, Mention, Villefranche.
| one after another, light -heartedness,
and the cea seless outflow of the Gug
lielmi patrimony.
Then Comes Bankruptcy.
Next, Paris again. and then the
craS h. Bankruptcy. Somehow or other
the youngster had managed to pur-
chase an automobile and. according to
one of his later statements. two Irish
jumpers. When the dust settled after
the crash both motor car and horses
had vanished
But there was more than the dust
to settle. and the Signora Guglielmi
had to attend to this. and back to
Castellaneta went Rudolph. undoubt
eddy cha stened--for the time, at least.
Farming? After Paris and the
Riviera? He should say not. What
else was there? Why, America That
was the place. And, on second
thought, even agriculture over there
might not he such an earthly thing as
it was in Castellaneta.
When this project was preached
Rudolph found that it met with I'M
matter of fact, there is good reason
for believing that the Guglielmi fam
| lily had already decided to ship him
to the United States, where he
couldn't do worse than he had done
on his own side of the globe.
The source of the money to trans
port the young man hither from his
Italian home has been VariouSly
ascribed. One version is that he OBJ
1 4 Ill
ton of his patrimony. Another that
the family scraped together the neces-
| sary amount. Still another, that the
indomitably optimistic mother gave it
to her son.
As for the amount involved. $4,000
has been mentioned. But this is rath-
err unlik ely, for there could have been
little reason to believe that Rudolph
had been utterly reformed by his Paris
and Monte Carlo experiences, and
81 900 is quite a sum of money to in
trust to an 1Syear-old with high,
wide and handsome record behind him.
Could Speak No English.
However. with enough to see him
through. the youth-he was RodolfO
Guglielmi then-embarked for Amer
lea and. on December %, 1913. the
Hamburg American Line steamship
I
He came as a firSt-cabin immigrant.
When the Ellis Island authorities in
terrogated him. he wrote 'agricultur-
ist' on that line of the blank form
which required designation of his Oc-
rupation. He remembered the diploma
after all At that time he could speak
no word of English.
II was not difficult for him to meet
in this large city any number OF per
sons who knew Italian, besides cana
rets. night clubs and the like demand
cd no linguistic requirements of their
patrouS. So those early days imposed
no hardships. The boy knew how to
,,ncnd money. or throw il away, if you
Will and Broadway soon took most
of what he possessed. Now he was
face to face with the actual problem
of food and lodging, because the fam
liz had assured him he was on his
own for the first time.
Taking stock of his assets. he found
that he had youth and health. q sInat-
tering now of English, that obtruding
diploma. and native grace and ap-
titude for dancing. The latter was
esneciallv true of the sensuous dances
Of the I.atins. the Argentine tango.
the Apache acrobatics and their il<.
But he set little store by his feet in
those days, save as agencies to be
used In conveying him 10 places of
possible employment. But, the more
he thought of II the more convinced
was he that the sole thing he was
fitted to do was agricultural work.
The conviction hung about his neck
like an Old Man of the Sea. Yet 1t
was to afford him his first real EN-
ployment in America, short-lived as
it proved to be.
Bliss First Employer.
This employment came from Cor