The True Rudolph Valentino by Baltasar Cue

https://www.amazon.com/True-Rudolph-Valentino-Baltasar-Fern%C3%A1ndez/dp/B0GZCTQJ7Q/

Fictionalized versions of Rudolph Valentino’s life circulated even before his death, shaped in part by studio publicity. In early 1926, Valentino set out to correct the record, collaborating with Spanish journalist Baltasar Fernández Cué on what was intended to be an authorized autobiography.

Cué was granted rare access to Valentino’s private world and became a close observer of the actor’s final months. Before departing for New York, Valentino entrusted him with personal letters and documents, expecting to return and complete the work. His sudden death left the project unfinished.

Determined to fulfill that intention, Cué completed The True Rudolph Valentino from his firsthand experiences and materials, producing a vivid account of the actor’s life, relationships and final days. Published in Spanish in 1927 in serialized form in the fan magazine Cine-Mundial, the work reflects both the immediacy of its moment and the mythology Valentino sought to dispel.

Presented here for the first time in English, and translated by Renato Floris, this edition restores a rare and revealing document to the historical record, accompanied by reproductions of the original Cine-Mundial illustrations.

Rudolph Valentino by Jeanne De Recqueville

https://www.amazon.com/Rudolph-Valentino-English-Jeanne-Derecqueville/dp/B0GZFZ4YQJ

“Fifty-one years after his death and because the practice of massacring Valentino continues with impunity, some facts should be restored to their proper measure. The reader should be given an update based on more serious sources of information than those of gossip peddlers and the imaginative yet noticeably ill-intentioned.”

Jeanne DeRecqueville – Rudolph Valentino, 1978

“Jeanne DeRecqueville devoted her life to the worship and defense of Rudolph Valentino. She has been interviewed in recent months on numerous occasions to defend the memory of her hero as a recent film places him back in the news. Indeed, Rudolph Valentino has survived the test of time and his legacy, fifty years after his death, retains as much fascination and inspires as much devotion as during his lifetime.”

Cercle de la Librarie, Collection Cinema Theatre, 1978

“In translating this book, I carry Jeanne DeRecqueville’s torch forward to illuminate the path of knowledge for the sincere lovers of the great ‘Il Divo’, Rudolph Valentino.”

Renato Floris, Translator & Publisher

Valentino Fugitive

Valentino Fugitive is Evelyn Zumaya Floris' deeply personal and meticulously documented account of a two-decade campaign of censorship, gaslighting, and targeted harassment waged by a cult-like faction embedded in the world of Rudolph Valentino studies. 

Part memoir, part legal archive and part investigative chronicle, the book traces the author’s persistent search for truth in the face of organized attempts to silence her research into Valentino, his manager George Ullman, and the hidden power structures that have long dominated his legacy. 

Drawing from court records, correspondence, forensic timelines, and thousands of preserved documents, Floris exposes not only the campaign against her and her late husband Renato Floris, but the broader system of manipulation within the celebrity/collector subculture. 

At its heart, Valentino Fugitive is also a love story; an elegy for a creative partnership forged through scholarship, resilience, and devotion. Both a witness statement and a warning, the book reveals how narratives can be seized, controlled, and weaponized, and how reclaiming them becomes an act of survival. 

Unflinching, urgent, and fiercely original, Valentino Fugitive stands as the definitive account of the truth they tried to bury.

 AVAILABLE ON AMAZON:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKX9YH91

Norma - The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino's Beauty Queen

 Available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFMPBL1B/

All respected biographies of Rudolph Valentino share the vicissitudes of secondary characters in his story and most often in an appendix. One secondary character in his legend, is a fifteen-year-old girl from Toronto, Canada, Norma Audrey Niblock. She was crowned his beauty queen in 1923, during a national competition, being declared the most beautiful among eighty-eight contestants.

While researching her life after her crowning, an articulated, complex story emerged, often worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. Through the memories of her two children, shared during one year of interviews, the story of Norma's fascinating life and tragic death is told. Through their accounts and generosity sharing an archive of photographs and mementos, including their mother's personal scrapbook, Norma takes center stage once again.  

In Italian - Il Mio Diario Privato

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1088231861

My Private Diary fu davvero scritto da Rodolfo Valentino, oppure il suo autore fu un ghostwriter? Quanto c’è di vero nel celebre diario? In questo volume, frutto di un’approfondita ricerca, lo studioso di Valentino Renato Floris ricostruisce la storia di My Private Diary, pubblicato per la prima volta a puntate nelle riviste per appassionati di cinema degli anni Venti come racconto in prima persona di Valentino della luna di miele del 1923 con Natacha Rambova.

Attraverso 227 annotazioni documentate, Floris esamina l’accuratezza storica e la questione dell’autorialità del diario, individua i passaggi eliminati dalle versioni successive e porta alla luce fatti precedentemente sconosciuti riguardanti questa celebre pubblicazione. Il volume è illustrato con trentuno immagini della luna di miele di Valentino e Rambova e trentaquattro immagini tratte dalla versione del diario pubblicata nel 1925 da Pictures and Picturegoers.

Un’opera di Renato Floris pubblicata postuma e un’importante risorsa per gli studiosi del cinema muto e di Rodolfo Valentino.