Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 9:47 PM by Gene

And as the PROFIT CENTER recedes further into oblivion, something to remember from the TWXSTERS -- from 1930:

Sheik Scoop

That the late, woman-worshiped Cinemactor [sic] Valentino may have died at just the right time—before talking & singing pictures came in—for his memory to remain inviolate in countless lovelorn breasts, was indicated last week when Wanamaker's department store in Manhattan made this unexpected announcement:

"First and exclusive release of the only recording of the voice of Rudolph Valentino singing his favorite ballad

"Kashmiri Song, in English

"Also El Relicario, in Spanish."

A natural question was: If such a recording existed, why was it not released until four years after Valentino's death?

The story: In 1923, Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. asked Valentino, then, the rage in The Sheik and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to try making records. They rehearsed him on operatic arias but were not pleased. He slurred, mumbled, muffed, his diction was atrocious. Finally the Kashmiri Song (because he sang it mutely in The Sheik) and El Relicario (because of his Latin cast) were chosen. To Conductor Ralph Mazziotta who coached him, Valentino inscribed a photograph "In remembrance of my first record. (Hope it is a good one!)"

Conductor Mazziotta carefully kept the photograph but when he listened to Valentino's record he looked sad. It just would not do. The record was shelved.

At Valentino's fantastically elaborate funeral someone regretted that the voice of the dead sheik was stilled forever. "But no," declared another mourner, "he made a record! I heard. . . ." But memory failed as to where or when, and alert Walter King, president of Celebrity Recording Co. (Hollywood) who had overheard the remark, could learn no more.

Then began a search that took President King from Atlantic to Pacific. But no Valentino record did he find. By pure, accident [sic] the master record was unearthed in a dusty corner of a storeroom at Brunswick's factory in Muskegon, Mich. President King bought the rights for his company—but last week the Valentino "scoop" awaited a public that seemed not to care. What Brunswick had rejected and forgotten as unworthy of its standard. Wanamaker's [sic] vended not very successfully. In the first three days less than 1,000 records were sold. Valentino singing as with a mouthful of spaghetti seemed not to have the appeal of the sleek silent Sheik of the oldtime cinema.*

*Last week in Paris Paul Roger of the Pathe group was planning the synchronization of Valentino's Blood and Sand, as a test for making dead stars talk, with a Valentino mimic capable of gauging and timing the dialog accurately. [!]

P. S. Judging from the acoustic recordings (which are available on the Web, and both of which begin with a ludicrous stentorian announcer's intonations rather like The Amazing Criswell's) The Great Valentino sang from the back of his throat. Given his thick accent and thicker voice his stardom could have met a worse doom than John Gilbert's. It is unfortunate we cannot inflict the same career vanishing cream on the people who wouldn't leave us alone during the PROFIT CENTER.