FILM · 1977 · UK
Valentino
38 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (38)
- #001
Rex Ingram was played by Ken Russell himself. In his autobiography, Russell says the actor cast as the director was too drunk to work, so Russell took the role himself. The drunk actor later complained, and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) insisted the scene be reshot with a "real" actor and union member. Because the scene involved a battle sequence, this would have been very expensive. Fortunately, Russell had been an actor years before becoming a director and still held SAG membership. He paid his dues and the scene stayed in the film. Russell continued to act in various films for himself and others during the second half of his career.
- #002
Before the production of this film, Rudolf Nureyev said of the films he watched to research Rudolph Valentino: "I was pleasantly surprised. Contrary to what I had always heard and read, Valentino's acting was very primitive; I found him very restrained. Everyone around him was overacting by our modern standards, while he was very good and very effective. And of course he was a very handsome man. He was one of the men of the early 20th century. Idols who brought indirect romance and passion to many women among his audiences who might not have experienced it otherwise."
- #003
Director Ken Russell said after the premiere that making the film was the biggest mistake of his career.
- #004
Rudolf Nureyev and Michelle Phillips reportedly got along so badly during the making of this film that they were said to have had slapping matches on set while filming their love scenes.
- #005
Rudolf Nureyev once said of being cast as Rudolph Valentino, the silent-film star with a heartthrob reputation: "I asked how long it would take, and he (director Ken Russell) said sixteen weeks. I was worried that this would mean four months away from dancing. In the end I said yes, but I was still worried. I said to myself: 'What am I doing for my career? What am I doing for my dancing?' Dancing is everything to me, it is my religion. If this film works, there may be others, but for me only dancing matters."
- #006
The four suits worn by Rudolf Nureyev were made by Anderson and Shepherd on Savile Row in London. They had made the originals for Rudolph Valentino, and still had records of Valentino's measurements: he was about 216 cm tall, with a 114 cm (38 inch) chest and a 96 cm (32 inch) waist.
- #007
The picture was a critical and commercial failure at the box office.
- #008
A promotional photo of Rudolf Nureyev embracing Michelle Phillips had to be retouched after someone noticed that he was wearing a fashionable watch that did not exist in the 1920s.
- #009
Most of the film's exteriors were shot in Spain.
- #010
This was the last of the numerous collaborations between director Ken Russell and his wife, costume designer Shirley Russell. After finishing this film, Russell left her for another woman and divorced her after 21 years of marriage.
- #011
Rudolph Valentino's real full name was "Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla".
- #012
The publicity for this film stated that it was Rudolf Nureyev's first film. Nureyev had previously appeared in Don Quixote (1973), Swan Lake (1966), Nijinsky: Unfinished Project (1970) and Romeo and Juliet (1966).
- #013
Carol Kane appeared the same year in The World's Greatest Lover (1977), another film about the silent era. Rudolph Valentino featured in both films. Kane was made up to resemble the silent-film star Zasu Pitts in Wilder's film.
- #014
The show-business trade paper Variety reported that the film was the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev's feature-film "pic bow". Nureyev gave up acting after this film but later appeared alongside Nastassja Kinski in Exposed (1983).
- #015
After the failure of this film, director Ken Russell was reportedly forced to retreat to television for several years until he directed Altered States (1980).
- #016
The film began shooting on 16 August 1976, almost exactly fifty years after Rudolph Valentino's death.
- #017
Before filming, director Ken Russell arranged for star Rudolf Nureyev to see many of Rudolph Valentino's silent films, including Monsieur Beaucaire (1924) and Blood and Sand (1922).
- #018
Vaslav Nijinsky reportedly taught Rudolph Valentino how to dance the tango. Director Ken Russell initially offered Rudolf Nureyev the role of Nijinsky, but his wife, costume designer Shirley Russell, suggested casting him as Valentino because of their physical resemblance. Nureyev had previously played Nijinsky in the never-completed Nijinsky: Unfinished Project (1970). Russell was later offered Nijinsky (1980) to direct, but he was determined to make Altered States (1980).
- #019
Rudolf Nureyev, the Russian dancer and actor, took extensive dialect and dialogue training to play the Italian silent-film star Rudolph Valentino in this biographical film.
- #020
During principal photography, Rudolf Nureyev was given the time and facilities to practise ballet for three hours a day.
- #021
The film's story references the homemade production of Salomé (1922). That film's director, Ken Russell, later directed Salome's Last Dance (1988).
- #022
The film premiered the same year as Gene Wilder's The World's Greatest Lover (1977), which follows a neurotic baker who travels to Hollywood to find an actor to rival the great Rudolph Valentino. Though not an actor, he succeeds to a certain degree through sheer luck. Wilder came up with the idea for that film in late 1975, when he told his friend, production designer Terence Marsh, that he wanted to play Valentino's double and that Valentino would play a silent, secondary supporting role instead of the lead. Marsh liked the concept and Wilder continued to develop it formally.
- #023
Director Ken Russell said the following about casting Rudolf Nureyev to play silent-cinema legend Rudolph Valentino in this film: "I could have taken any Italian waiter in London and made him look like Valentino, but where would the magic be in that for the public?"
- #024
In this film, silent-film director Rex Ingram and silent-film star Rudolph Valentino, played respectively by director Ken Russell and Rudolf Nureyev, made two silent films together, both released in 1921: The Conquering Power (1921) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921).
- #025
This is one of two film screenplays co-written by screenwriter Mardik Martin that were first released in 1977. The other is New York, New York (1977).
- #026
Rudolf Nureyev played his first dramatic leading role in an English-language feature film here; his second and final role was in James Toback's Exposed (1983). The ballet dancer Nureyev appeared in non-dancing roles in both films, though the latter was a musical in which his character was a violinist.
- #027
The film begins and ends with scenes at Rudolph Valentino's funeral. It all starts in 1926 with the exterior of McBride's funeral parlor in New York City.
- #028
Both actor/dancer Rudolf Nureyev and silent-film star Rudolph Valentino shared the same nickname, "Rudi"/"Rudy". The Valentino impostor film The World's Greatest Lover (1977) premiered the same year as this film; Gene Wilder's character's real name was Rudy Hickman, but he appears on stage in the film as Rudy Valentino, and Wilder's character is referred to as Rudy Valentino at the end of the film, with no mention of Rudy Hickman. The name "Rudy Valentine" was invented by Rudy Hickman (Wilder). In the film, it is thought to be a direct copy of Valentino's name.
- #029
This film and the mock film The World's Greatest Lover (1977) both premiered in 1977, fifty-one years after Rudolph Valentino's death.
- #030
According to MRQE (Movie Review Query Engine): "In this film, [director] Ken Russell used the events of the famous actor's [Rudolph Valentino] life as the basis for an extensive meditation on the nature of stardom and especially on what it means to be a sex idol."
- #031
The film began shooting in Spain on 16 August 1976, on the 50th anniversary of the death of Rudolph Valentino, who died on 23 August 1926, so the film was shot during the period of the exact 50th anniversary of Valentino's passing. Before Valentino died, the date on which he was hospitalized in critical condition after an uneventful night of dancing was 16 August 1926.
- #032
This is the second and last of two collaborations between Jennie Linden and director Ken Russell. They had previously worked together on Women in Love (1969).
- #033
This was Diana Weston's first feature film (though she had previously appeared in three television projects).
- #034
Actors Carol Kane and John Ratzenberger would go on to be part of the casts of two of the most acclaimed television comedy series of the early 1980s, both largely under the creative direction of James Burrows, Glen Charles and Les Charles: Kane in Taxi (1978) and Ratzenberger in Cheers (1982).
- #035
The cast includes four Oscar nominees: Leslie Caron, Carol Kane, Seymour Cassel and Penelope Milford.
- #036
The January-February 1977 issue of the Australian magazine 'Movie News' stated: "… the film about a great Hollywood idol was mostly shot in Britain and Europe; it starred a Russian ballet dancer, French and American leading ladies and a British director!"
- #037
Rudolf Nureyev plays silent-film legend Rudolph Valentino, whose name has a similar spelling and sound to his own.
- #038
Italian censorship visa # 70993 was issued on 13 October 1977.
Continue through the archive
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work