MovieChat Forums > The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Discussion > Rudy's favorite role.

Rudy's favorite role.

posted 13 years ago by georgana
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Rudolph Valentino once said that his favorite role was that of Julio Desnoyers in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." He could identify with Julio's life. Valentino's father was not wealthy but his father received a large inheritance that made it possible for Rudy to have so many advantages. There are other similarities between Rudy and Julio. Rudy had a reputation on screen as being "the Great Lover" but he was very sensitive, easily offended, and boyish in many ways. I have enjoyed reading about him in "The Dark Lover, The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino" by Emily W. Leider. Some of the things people may not be aware of is that his left ear was abnormally shaped and the 'penetrating gaze" he had was partly due to the fact that his eye sight was bad. In fact, he tried to join the Army when WWI broke out but he was rejected because of poor vision. Rudy loved to eat! His favorite meal was pasta. He also like licorice. I laughed when I read someone from the studio said "Rudy used to eat so much licorice his teeth turned black. We had to scrub mouth out until his teeth were white again before he went before the camera."

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 7 years ago

Thank you for sharing so much trivia on him! I wish I could read the book myself but it's not available in my country unfortunately!

Do you have a quote when & where he said he could identify with Julio the most?

I never realized his left ear looked weird, I never noticed it in pics. But now, I've been looking at his left ear and it does look kind of elvish doesn't it? LOL! Also, on the Valentino (1951) trivia, the actor they got to portray Valentino was Anthony Dexter - and they described how much he looked like Valentino down to his ears. I found that weird as people don't usually notice the differences in people's ears, let along comment that they have similar ears. But if Valentino had a unique left ear, then that would explain it.

I had read/seen in a bio of his that he was rejected in the army for poor vision but didn't know it was associated with his smoldering gaze! It reminds me of Christopher Lambert who has myopia and very poor eyesight, he's legally blind actually. Did Valentino have myopia perhaps?

QUOTE:
"Suffers from myopia, a condition that causes the eyes to focus incorrectly, making distant objects appear blurred. [2010]"

I didn't even know what licorice what, apparently it's native to his country and often put on tobacco? I actually noticed his teeth looked dark at times.