Italian-American actor Rudolph Valentino was BOTD in 1895. Born Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla in Castellaneta, Apulia, he performed poorly in school, attending an agricultural college in Genoa. He emigrated to New York City in 1913, aged 18 supporting himself as a waiter and a taxi dancer. He befriended Chilean heiress Blanca de Saulles, with whom he may have had an affair, testifying on her behalf in her divorce trial. Blanca subsequently shot her husband after the trial, causing a media scandal. Harassed by police, unable to find employment and fearful of having to give evidence in Blanca’s murder trial, Valentino left New York, joining a travelling theatre company. Encouraged by his friend Norman Kerry, he moved to Hollywood, sharing an apartment with Kerry and teaching dance while auditioning for roles. Years of bit parts in films followed, typically playing swarthy villains opposite blond male heroes. His breakthrough came in 1921, when he was cast in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, followed by the starring role as Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan in The Sheik, which vaulted him to global celebrity. Four further Sheik films were made over the next 15 months, to massive success. His role as a Spanish bullfighter in 1922’s Blood and Sand broke box office records, establishing him as Hollywood’s biggest box office draw. Nicknamed “the Latin Lover” or “the Lover”, he became a popular sex symbol, though many critics commented on his androgynous looks and dandyish persona. One columnist labelled him a “pink powder puff”, accusing him of promoting effeminacy in American men. His turbulent personal life also provided fuel for his romantic image. His first marriage in 1919 to lesbian actress Jean Acker – arranged primarily to remove Acker from a love triangle with Grace Darmond and Alla Nazimova – was unconsummated and the couple separated. Before his divorce to Acker was finalised, Valentino married costume designer Natacha Rambova in 1922, igniting a bigamy scandal. Their union was annulled, and they remarried in 1923. Rambova took control of Valentino’s career, overseeing the design of his films and demanding high salaries from movie studios. She was, perhaps unfairly, blamed for the failure of his subsequent films and eventually banned from his sets, leading to an acrimonious divorce in 1925. Despite his misgivings about typecasting, Valentino returned to his most famous role in 1926’s The Son of the Sheik. It became his final film, cementing his star status. Valentino died suddenly in 1926 of peritonitis, aged 31. His funeral provoked hundreds and thousands of mourners, riots, fan suicides, and an hysterical scene by his lover Pola Negri, who announced that they had become engaged before his death. Valentino’s possible bisexuality has been debated by biographers and film historians since his death. In his book Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger that Valentino had affairs with a number of men, including fellow actor Ramón Novarro, whom Valentino supposedly gifted with an Art Deco dildo. (Navarro later denied knowing Valentino, and the dildo was, sadly, never discovered). He has been portrayed onscreen many times, most notably by Rudolf Nureyev in Ken Russell’s 1977 film Valentino, featuring an erotic tango between Valentino and Vaslav Nijinsky.