Natacha Rambova
Natacha Rambova (
January 19,
1897 –
May 6,
1966) was a costume and set designer, art director, playwright,
silent film actress, fashion designer, Egyptologist, collector of antiquities, and the second wife of the silent film star
Rudolph Valentino. She was born in
Salt Lake City, Utah, and died in
Pasadena, California at the age of 69.
Rambova, a great-granddaughter of Mormon church leader
Heber C. Kimball, was born
Winifred Shaughnessy to Winifred Kimball and her first husband, Michael Shaughnessy. She was not adopted by her mother's third husband, cosmetics millionaire
Richard Hudnut, and was thus not, as is sometimes claimed, appropriately known as
Winifred Hudnut, the name some news reports used during her lifetime. Her mother was also briefly married to
Edgar Sands de Wolfe, a brother of the pioneering American interior decorator
Elsie de Wolfe, whose business partner she became.
She was educated in the
United States and the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, at a school recommended by her step-aunt, Elsie de Wolfe.
After a tumultuous love affair with the dancer
Theodore Kosloff, with whose dance company she performed, Kosloff's
Imperial Russian Ballet, Rambova worked as an art director for an extended period with the Yalta-born film and stage star
Alla Nazimova. There were rumors that Nazimova and Rambova were involved in a
lesbian affair (they are discussed at length in Emily Leider's biography of Rudolph Valentino,
Dark Lover), but they have never been definitely confirmed.
Nazimova, however, recognized her professional talent. The innovative
Art Deco sets she designed for
Camille and the sets and costumes Rambova created for
Salome (which were based on the drawings of
Aubrey Beardsley) are highly regarded today.
Rambova met Rudolph Valentino on the set of
Camille in
1921 and they married on
March 14,
1922, in
Mexicali, Mexico. Their marriage resulted in Valentino's being arrested and charged with bigamy because his divorce from his first wife, actress
Jean Acker, was not final. Rambova and Valentino remarried in
1923.
When, following a dispute with
Paramount Pictures, Valentino was legally barred from working for any other studio, he and Rambova embarked on a dance tour across the United States and
Canada. Later, Rambova's involvement with such of her husband's films as
Monsieur Beaucaire came to be resented by many at Paramount who accused her of driving up production costs and felt she was pushing Valentino into static, arty films with little box office potential.
Their marriage broke apart in
1925 shortly after
United Artists offered Valentino a contract with a clause forbidding Rambova from being present on any of his film sets. Valentino died in 1926 at age 31 following surgery for a perforated ulcer.
For several years thereafter, Rambova worked as a mildly successful fashion designer [
1] in New York City. Also during this time, she designed costumes for and appeared in Broadway shows. She was also heavily involved with the Roerich Museum. Rambova married her second husband, Count Alvaro de Urzaiz, a Spanish aristocrat, in 1934 and went to live on the Balearic isle of
Majorca off the Spanish coast.
In 1962, Rambova gave the Utah Museum of Art a large collection of Egyptian artifacts, and also edited books about
Ancient Egyptian art for the
Bollingen Foundation.
Her collection of
Nepali and
Lamaistic art now belongs to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Emily Leider (2003), Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino, (ISBN 0374282390).
*Contains much material about Rambova
