Transcript of handwritten text:

33A.

One result of Mrs. Montgomery’s broadcast actually occurred to me. During or about December 10, 1972 my phone rang and a man’s voice asked whether I was the George Ullman identified with Rudolph Valentino. When I answered affirmatively, he said, “I’m back! This is Rudy!” I asked him which Rudy and he said “Rudy Valentino!” Of course I scoffed at this but he insisted that he wanted to see me.

I told him that I was too ill to talk to him and for him to not annoy me. But he did find his way to our apartment and when my wife answered the door, there was the tall young man who said to her, “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Rudy” He asked for me, but she told him that I was ill and in bed. She closed the door and when another visitor came he said, “Someone left you a present.”

There, on the carpet of our landing was an opened raw egg spilled there. This fellow has phoned several times, once at 7 a.m.! He wrote an angry letter to me, but I haven’t heard from him in about two months.

This isn’t the only time men have believed themselves the reincarnation of Valentino, but this one was the most persistent and annoying.

The Chateau

Rudy spoke frequently to me of his first impression of Mr. & Mrs. Hudnut’s chateau in Juan les Pins. He and Natacha had driven from Paris –a particularly rough and dangerous automobile journey- and in order to arrive at the chateau before dark, Rudy had driven too fast to test his new Voison car. Neither Natacha nor Rudy had seen the house before and they were overwhelmed by its size and grandeur. He described some of the furnishings, almost entirely in the 18th century, with an apartment especially furnished in ultra modern style for them.

They only remained at the chateau for ten days, he said, when he decided to drive to Italy to again see the home and surroundings where he grew into manhood. He didn’t have many nice things to say about his treatment by the officials, either upon his entry through customs where they put an enormous tax on the cigarettes he had in his luggage, nor of the officials and people in other parts of Italy where his name was known. All had their hands out for some of the great sums of money he was presumed to have with him. This was especially true in his birthplace, the southern-most part of Italy, the little city of Castellaneta where he met his brother and family.

Another of his favorite monologues was when he felt like talking to me of some of his adventures in Madrid, Spain. There he first saw dozens of pieces of armor, many of which he purchased then and there and at great length told me the history of many in his collection. This visit to Madrid was very costly, because, while Rudy was buying swords and old guns, daggers, and other armor, Natacha was purchasing a great many pieces of ivory and her mother was buying jade. All of this accounts for the constant shortage of funds here, because these purchases were all charged to our production company.

On several occasions Rudy told me of the tremendous thrill he experienced while watching the bull fights in Seville. He demonstrated the toreador’s art and his grace and enthusiasm was a sight to behold. I don’t believe that he seriously meant it, but he did say to me that he would like to get out of motion pictures and begin to seriously take up the art of bull fighting!

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After we were more or less settled in Hollywood for about 6 months, I felt the need of a larger home for my little family and talked to Rudy about this. He was all for the idea of my building a house in Beverly Hills, but I knew that I didn’t have the time or the money to start such a project at that time. Nothing could deter him from going with me to inspect the various houses referred to me by agents, and we finally found one that pleased him immensely. It was a modern home but the builder and owner had been in the ornamental tile and marble business and there was much travertine marble and black marble fireplaces and beautiful tile in the bathrooms.

The house was really somewhat out of my financial reach, but his enthusiasm overcame my usual restraint and I bought the house. Sadly enough, I lost the house during the panic of 1929-30, but Rudy had already been dead for three years.

Because we had an orderly and well managed home, Rudy spent a great deal of time with us during the months that he and Natacha were separated. The children began to regard him as a member of the family.