Book Review: Rudolph Valentino Case Files (Part 1)

 I just finished this book The Rudolph Valentino Case Files last night.  It gives me no pleasure to say that I give this book a 'Thumbs Down'  book review.  I waited to purchase it until Amazon had a steep price reduction and bought it for a fraction of it's original asking price.  After reading, I know why it's on clearance.

I plan to review this book in seperate parts  because unlike the other Valentino books, this is a hodge-podge of essays, newspaper reprints, translations, guesswork theories passed off as research, some appear to be amateur blog posts disguised as additional chapters.  It's finished out with colorized B&W images, ironically many of them have no connection whatsoever to Rudolph Valentino.  

Part 1 of my book review  

There is a Valentino Book Bibliography List which starts on page 317.  The books are listed alphabetically under the respective author's last name rather than the actual title of the Valentino book.  When I looked for Valentino Dream Of Desire under the name of it's author, David Bret, it was nowhere to be found.  Odd, I thought since Zumaya spent 8 entire pages discussing Valentino Dream Of Desire and even mentioned it's actual title on four occasions within those eight pages.  

It's common knowledge Evelyn Zumaya has long attacked his book, but I felt surely she wouldn't censor a title from  the Valentino book bibliography list simply because of that. After all, she equally rallied against the book by Brad Steiger and Chaw Mank in the same chapter she rails on Bret.  She even included additional chapters for them, the authors of Valentino An Intimate And Shocking Expose, called "Mr Mank" and "The Brad Steiger Interview"  Yet, their book Valentino An Intimate And Shocking Expose was indeed included in their Valentino Bibliography yet Bret's appears to be deliberately banished.

For the record; Evelyn Zumaya and Renalto Floris have never been shy about venting their outrage of having their own Valentino books eliminated from a prominent Valentino website's book list. 

 Yet, they are A-OK with doing it to the books they don't approve of?  This is hypocrisy and they frankly should be called out on doing the very thing they complain about being done to them. 

Renato Floris expresses his "utmost disgust" that "none of our books were included"

                                                                Quote dated  6/23/21

Renato Floris says it is "intellectually dishonest" that she "does not include
books which are not to her liking"  Quote dated 10/11/21

So, I ask you - are Evelyn Zumaya and Renato Floris "intellectually dishonest"?  After all, it is he, himself who said a person not including Valentino books not to their liking on their bibliography list  makes them intellectually dishonest.  Yet that is what they have done in The Rudolph Valentino Case Files.  I'll let you decide for yourself.

This is a good example of why, in my opinion, that neither they themselves nor the multiple Valentino books put out by Evelyn Zumaya and Renato Floris will ever be taken seriously nor found in any scholarly book depository. 

This is end of my book review Part 1. The discussion of The Rudolph Valentino Case Files will continue in Part 2  

Homophobia? What Evelyn Zumaya Doesnt Want You To Know She Did With The Ullman Memoir

***BOMBSHELL ALERT ***

Did Rudolph Valentino think Natacha Rambova was a lesbian?   Yes.  In the S. George Ullman manuscript Ullman wrote of a quick exchange with Rudy telling him Nita Naldi had been seen around New York with Natacha Rambova.   Rudy turns to Ullman and (referring to Naldi) says "Dont tell me she's a lesbian too!"  That means he already thought Rambova was a lesbian.

Sadly, you wont get to read that passage in the book marketed by Viale Industria Publications called "The S. George Ullman Memoir"  Evelyn Zumaya, who wrote the foreward to the book is a fierce opponent to anyone who dares to question Valentino's sexuality. Certainly Rudy calling Rambova a lesbian threw Zumaya a curve ball. In 2009 Zumaya gave a public lecture on Valentino's sexuality and ripped apart two Valentino authors who's viewpoints on his sexuality differed from hers. At the time she received the Ullman manuscript she mistakenly thought she held the only copy, therefore she probably thought that she could quietly censor the lesbian paragraph out and no one would be the wiser.  To me that stands as a true example of homophobia.

To think that Evelyn Zumaya who on her podcasts wailed about censorship of her book and even brought up book burning would, at the same time quietly snip the lesbian paragraph out and thus deliberately extracting a part of George Ullman's Valentino history.  Would S. George Ullman approve of her deed? I would think not. I fully believe he would denounce both Evelyn Zumaya and her self-publisher "husband" Renato Floris.