About Rudyfan

One of the questions I get asked the most is a two part question, "Who are you and how did you get interested in Rudolph Valentino."  Gosh that is such a long question and would generate a really long answer and why bore you with facts?   

So who is rudyfan?  Well, plain and simple, I'm a nice, average person who happens to be a huge film fan.  I was practically fed films at a very early age, especially in the day when classic films were shown on television as a special viewing.  Our family would enjoy them together and my parents would also take us to films and not just Disney films.  I was 12 and my parents asked me if I wanted to see The Godfather with them, for example.  I declined, which was probably a good thing at the time. 

Once I got my library card, I worked my way through the Sunnyvale Public Library's film and biography sections.  Which in the days of larger budgets, was a very good collection of books.  It was at this time I discovered the book that changed my film life, Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By.  This book made me want to see silent films, and in the days before VHS, this was very hard to do, especially when you were about 10 years old, like me.

After all of this, why Valentino?  Well, the first bio I read was the Irving Shulman book Valentino and I was fascinated by the man described in the book and shown in the photos.  I had not yet seen a Valentino film, it would be a little while before I was afforded that opportunity.  When I did, well, consider me to have been struck by lightening.  What a presence, what magnetism and what a smile!  The film was Blood and Sand, telecast on our local PBS station, and so a lifelong fascination, truly began.....