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Natacha Rambova (Winifred Shaughnessy, January 19, 1897 – June 5, 1966) was an American film costume and set designer, best known for her marriage to Rudolph Valentino.
Although they shared many interests such as art, poetry and spiritualism, his colleagues felt that she exercised too much control over his work and blamed her for several expensive flops.
In later life, she continued her spiritualist activities, as well as studying Egyptology.
When Kosloff was hired by Cecil B.
DeMille as a performer and costume designer for Hollywood films, Rambova carried out much of the creative work as well as the historical research.
Kosloff would then steal her sketches and claim credit for them as his own.
Both professionally and personally, her partnership with Kosloff was tempestuous.
He was a controlling and abusive man with many other lovers, who once shot her in the leg when she tried to leave him.
When Kosloff started work for fellow-Russian film producer Alla Nazimova at Metro Pictures Corporation (later MGM), he sent Rambova to present some designs.
Nazimova requested some alterations, and was most impressed when Rambova was able to make these changes immediately in her own hand.
So she offered Rambova a position on her production staff as an art director and costume designer, enabling her to leave Kosloff at last.
Rambova's first film for Nazimova was Billions (1920), followed by Uncharted Seas (1921), on which she first met Rudolph Valentino, and the two of them worked together on Camille.
Although Valentino was still married to American film actress Jean Acker, he and Rambova moved in together within a year, having formed a relationship based more on friendship and shared interests than on emotional or professional rapport.
They legally remarried on March 14, 1923.
From 1927 Rambova ran an elite couture shop on Fifth Avenue, until she met her second husband Álvaro de Urzaiz, a British-educated Spanish aristocrat on a trip to Europe in 1934, and they went to live on the island of Mallorca.
In the Spanish Civil War, Urzaiz was on the pro-fascist nationalist side, becoming a naval commander.
Rambova fled to Nice, where she suffered a heart attack at age 40.
Soon after, she and Urzaiz divorced.
Rambova remained in France until the Nazi invasion, when she returned to New York.
Her interest in the metaphysical grew during the 1940s, and she supported the Bollingen Foundation, through which she believed she could see a past life in Egypt.
She published articles on healing and astrology, and helped decipher ancient scarabs and tomb inscriptions, which led her to edit a series titled Egyptian Texts and Religious Representations.
She also conducted classes in her apartment about myths, symbolism and comparative religion.
In the mid-1960s she was struck with scleroderma, and became malnourished and delusional as a result.
A cousin brought her to Pasadena, California where she died of a heart attack on June 5, 1966 at the age of 69.
Her ashes were scattered in Arizona.
The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.
A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death.
Rodrigo, an impoverished Italian nobleman takes a job with a New York antique dealer he met overseas. Swearing off women, Rodrigo focuses on his job. But complications arise when he falls in love with his friend's secretary-- and his friend's wife looks to make a date with him.
A disloyal wife abandons her husband and child to become a cabaret dancer. Her lover goes to jail to protect her. In his absence she marries an artist whom she deserts when her lover is released from prison. Aware of the futility of awaiting her return, the second husband returns to his birthplace, Martinique, and to his childhood sweetheart.
A young man raised in the American South discovers he is an Indian prince whose throne was taken by usurpers.
Sheik Ahmed desperately desires feisty British socialite Diana, so he abducts her and carries her off to his luxurious tent-palace in the desert. The free-spirited Diana recoils from his passionate embraces and yearns to be released. Later, allowed to go into the desert, she escapes and makes her way across the sands...
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hope of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.
Princess Triloff, an emigrée from Czarist Russia, escapes to America where she becomes a patron of the arts. She falls in love with the verses of impoverished poet Owen Carey and becomes his anonymous benefactor. When Owen inherits a fortune from his rich Uncle Krakerfeller, he assumes his uncle's identity and confers his own upon an impoverished friend, Frank Manners. At a resort, Owen meets the princess and falls in love with her, but is chagrined to discover that she is enamored with Manners. The princess finally discovers Owen's real identity and the two fall in love.
Wealthy cripple Markley finances the education of blacksmith's daughter Ruth. When she returns to their small town he asks to marry her, but she runs off with city worker Jim Dirk who is then killed in a subway accident. Markley offers to marry her in name only to protect her new son.
Robert and Beth Bordon are married but share little. He runs into Sally at a cabaret and the Gordons are soon divorced. Just as he gets bored with Sally's superficiality, Beth strives to improve her looks. The original couple falls in love again at a summer resort.
Cortez sends Alvarado to Montezuma who throws him into a dungeon from which he is rescued by Tecza who loves him. He is recaptured when her lover Guatemoco finds Alvarado hiding in her chambers. Tecza next leads Cortez into the city, thus causing the destruction of her nation and securing the love of Alvarado.