Born On This Day- May 11th... Fashion Icon- Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani

I have had a hard time getting around the notion of why it would be difficult to come out if you were a successful fashion designer. It is similar to being a closeted chorus boy or proffesional figure skater. Really?

It's no surprise that of all the great gay fashion designers to have chosen to be open about their gayness in recent years: Versace, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Valentino should be the last to come out, because being out on the leading edge has never been the style of the designer who burst on to the fashion scene in 1959 & quickly established himself as the favorite of the ladies who lunch.


The "secret that is not a secret", is what Valentino's partner in business & in life for 50 years- Giancarlo Giammetti called it, in an feature on the designer in an issue of Vanity Fair in 2004.


Giammetti has run the business side of Valentino's fashion house until their retirment in 2008. Giammetti: "Ours was not a story of money or fashion. It was a story of love. There has never been an article about us in this sense. I think the world has changed a lot, and that once it would have been embarrassing to read but it's not any more."

Valentino: "Giancarlo & I understand each other, but his character is the opposite of mine. There are only 3 things that I know how to do: make a dress, decorate a house & receive guests ..."


Giammetti: “We were lovers for 22 years. Now it's a fraternal love, a relationship with nothing sexual in it. Yet a great love remains, ancient, surviving."


Their affectionate but testy relationship began when the pair met at a cafe in Rome in 1960. Giammetti claims if you added up the days they have spent apart since meeting, it amounts to only 2 months.


Altough they are open about being gay, Valentino & Giammetti are prudish in their perceptions. Bruce Hoeksema, Valentino's assistant for the past 15 years: "When Giancarlo sees male couple kissing in a restaurant he says, 'Disgusting!'. If he sees 2 men holding hands on the street, 'Queers!'."


The Husband & I caught the documentary- Valentino: The Last Emperor on Logo one Saturday morning. Watching the diminutive, majestically coiffed, hidden-eyed, orange-tinted, ill-tempered, impatient absolute monarch- Valentino was like enjoying chocolate & Champagne until that queasy moment arrives when you realize you’ve consumed far too much.


He travels exclusively on his own jets & yachts with a full entourage.

One of the very few things we have in common,Valentino adores dogs. He named a second line of clothing after his late pug Oliver. Today Valentino has pugs: the mother, Molly; her sons, Milton & Monty; & her daughters, Margot, Maude & Maggie. When traveling on his 14-seat jet, 3 cars are needed to move Valentino & his group to the airport: one to move Valentino & Giammetti, another for the luggage & the staff, & one to transport 5 pugs, Maude, the 6th canine, always travels with Valentino.

Born On This Day- May 6th... Silent Star Rudolph Valentino

Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla was born in Italy. He arrived in NYC in 1913 where he became a taxi dancer & an exhibition dancer. He found his way to Los Angeles, where he played a number of small parts in silent movies. He was impressive enough to be cast as the lead in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). The film was a success & made him a star. Later the same year, The Sheik made him a legend.

In 1926, Rudolph Valntino collapsed with a perforated ulcer; after an apparently successful operation, peritonitis set in & 8 days later, the greatest romantic leading man of the silent era was dead. He was just 31 & had been a star for just 5 years. More than 100,000 distraught women mobbed his funeral.

Male audiences were offended by Valentino's extravagant dress, makeup, & willingness to display his body on screen. Valentino disrupted the era's rigid codes of sex & gender.
 

His legendary star status is set in history, but the legacy of his work died with the silent film era. He retains an extraordinary beauty, star quality & charisma on screen,  but the body of work is lacking compared with other cinematic greats. Like his style of acting, Valentino's work is frozen in time & almost incomprehensible to modern viewers with the heavy makeup & exaggerate, melodramatic emoting. Accused at the time of denigrating masculinity with his perceived effeminacy, time has not been kind & Valentino now appears camp.

Valentino's sexuality was a badly kept secret in Hollywood gay circles, despite his marriages to & divorces from Jean Acker & Natacha Rambova, both lesbian.