“Valentino loved George Ullman in the manner of a devoted brother. He did nothing of importance without “discussing it with George”. And no one was so grievously stricken by his passing as Ullman. It was a heart-wrench that will be with him always.”
Introduction to George Ullman’s “Valentino As I Knew Him” by O.O. McIntyre.

Although S. George Ullman was a classically trained violinist, he is not remembered today for his mastery of the violin. It would be his affiliation with silent movie star Rudolph Valentino that would grant him a place of distinction in Hollywood history. It has been nearly eighty years since Valentino’s death and George Ullman continues to play a dominant role in any film production, publication or discussion on the subject of Rudolph Valentino. Even though little has ever been known about this pioneer in celebrity management, George Ullman has been portrayed on screen and written about for decades.

Ullman’s business and personal involvement with Valentino was as complex as it was controversial and for Valentino’s fans and film history scholars the name George Ullman still generates no small amount of heated exchange. One fact is indisputable; George Ullman gained international recognition as Rudolph Valentino’s trusted mentor, best friend and manager. At the height of Valentino’s fame, he was responsible for every facet of the star’s affairs from the mundane daily tasks of procuring his bootleg whisky, imported cigarettes and shaving soap to the negotiations of the intricate details of his studio contracts. Affairs Valentino is George and Rudy’s story which is now ready for publication by author Evelyn Zumaya.

While researching Affairs Valentino Evelyn Zumaya interviewed Ullman’s children. At that time they presented her with the only copy of a personal memoir their famous father wrote just before his death in 1975. Ullman initially began this memoir as a rewrite of a small book Valentino As I Knew Him which he published a few weeks after Valentino’s death in August of 1926. But in 1972 he abandoned this direction and chose instead to divulge his own personal behind-the-scenes memories of his friend, “Rudy.”

While researching and writing Affairs Valentino Evelyn Zumaya had exclusive access to Ullman’s memoir and a cache of never-before-accessed documents, photographs and other archival materials relating to Ullman’s association with Rudolph Valentino. Zumaya faced the daunting task of incorporating this overwhelming amount of new information into a story which extended far beyond Rudolph Valentino’s thirty-one years of life and his personal and professional affiliation with George Ullman.

With a growing cast of characters and newly discovered plots and subplots, she devised a unique format to provide a clear understanding of the entire saga: two integrated storylines. One storyline presents the revised version of Rudolph Valentino’s life story as revealed by George Ullman and the other tells a parallel storyline which details the “ back story” of Valentino’s life as it unfolded after his death.

Zumaya’s challenge in writing Affairs Valentino was to avoid the pitfalls of previous biographers of Valentino who have repeated the same sanitized version of his life “as advertised” and often buried their subject under tedious data and undocumented, erroneous information. Some twenty-five years after George Ullman’s death, his words have found their way into print and resulted in the first telling of Rudolph Valentino’s true story, in the first telling of the untold saga of George’s life with Rudy and in Affairs Valentino.