However, he couldn’t qualify because he was not an American citizen.Īlthough Oak Hill no longer exists, the flowering rhododendron shrubs the young gardener planted are still there, having existed for at least 100 years.
Bliss discharged him but arranged for his training with the Central Park commissioner. He longed to be closer to the sophistication of Manhattan, and became so interested in observing the manners of the rich and famous that he neglected his work. The restless young man with dark, slicked-back hair ate his meals with the other servants, but he felt that working as a servant was beneath him. Bliss’s Gold Coast mansion in the Wheatly (now Wheatley) Hills near Brookville encompassed a farmhouse, a greenhouse, a chapel, bridle paths, dog kennels, tennis courts, and a bomb shelter. H e found a position on Long Island as an apprentice landscape gardener at Oak Hill, the Georgian Revival estate of former Secretary of the Interior Cornelius N. At 17, he traveled to Paris he learned to dress well and dance, and emigrated to New York City a year later. He later said of his early years, “ I became to myself an imaginary figure of great excellence, daring, and glamour.”Ī poor student, he flunked out of school at 13, but later earned a degree in the Science of Farming from the Royal Academy of Agriculture. The hyperactive child nicknamed “Mercury” tamed donkeys and explored ancient caves, reported biographer Emily W. Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella was born in May 1895 in Castellaneta, a Southern Italian village.
Audiences were enthralled by the intense, muscular silent film star, whether he was playing a Hindu prince clad in a skimpy, bejeweled loincloth, or an erotic Arab sheik ravishing a British heiress.īut before he became famous, Rudolph Valentino slept on park benches, washed dishes, and dug dirt as a Gold Coast gardener on a Long Island estate. With sexy, catlike grace, he tangoed his way across the silver screens of the 1920s.
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