Rudolph Valentino & The Andre Daven Hoax

Rudolph Valentino, That Left Eye & More

Not Such a Small Detail

I guess it is true, André Daven needed the dental makeover. In the photograph below #1, we can see Daven's teeth had issues. This photo was taken in 1923. So by 1926, we see in a photograph with Daven and his greatest love, his wife Daniela Parola how his teeth appear sparkling white and perfect. This seems a small detail but in a grander picture it is not.

In 1923, Daven was given a great advantage with the Valentino's sponsorship as they believed he had a future in the movies. But within a year, Daven would be returning to France and “on the run” after ringing up a tab for the Valentinos of some 35,000 francs (by today's exchange rate $29,400  U.S. Dollars). Valentino would write their mutual friend Jacques Hebertot on July 4, 1924, just a few days after Daven's departure...expressing his disappointment in Daven's “ingratitude and hypocrisy”.

George Ullman reports Valentino had him send an invoice to Daven demanding full payment. Daven replied by saying the Valentinos interrupted his journalistic career and he would pay them nothing.

These two photos represent a sort of “before and after” scenario. But I have to wonder.. during the filming of Monsieur Beaucaire, had the issue of Daven's teeth already been remedied or did they just tell him to keep his mouth shut?

#1 - Left to Right - Daven, Valentino & Rene Clair

Daven with the great love of his life, his wife Daniela Parola

Rudolph Valentino's Own Truth - Part VII

Link to the Rudolph Valentino Podcast here:

Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax


In the interest of providing documentation and truth about André L. Daven and his affiliation with Rudolph Valentino, I recorded a podcast episode which I titled, "Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax". In this blog, I share further documentation, images and research material along with excerpts from the podcast script. Please view the podcast's accompanying video through this link: https://youtu.be/B-oaxXfm2sQ

This description of a letter sold at auction in Paris at the Drouot Estimations auction house on March 31, 2006, is transcribed in part in the auction house catalog. The letter was written by Rudolph Valentino to Jacques Hébertot on July 4, 1924 and the English translation reads as follows:

"He (Valentino) thanks him (Hébertot), '...for the always loyal and generous way with which you defended me against the quite nasty slanders that Ciné-Magazine and Comedia made towards me'. Then he, Valentino talks at length about their friend André Daven whom he took under his wing in New York, '...it seems that I think it is my duty, knowing the sincere affection you have for the boy, to let you know the very dishonest way he has thanked me for all that I did for him and tried to do for him....' 

Valentino remarks how he gave Daven numerous clothes, paid for his voyage, paid him a salary, set him up in a good hotel, got him, '...hired by Paramount to play the role of my brother in Monsieur Beaucaire', etc. Then he advised him, he got him a job as a 'publicity man' for Paramount in Paris, he paid for his return and an advance... He learns now that André Daven borrowed money and tried to borrow money from many of his friends to whom he had introduced him. Valentino writes, '...he owes me nearly 35,000 francs, which I consider lost. What hurts me most is not the money but the ingratitude and hypocrisy with which he has acted towards me..' etc.

The calculated rate of exchange today makes this debt $28,131.18. U.S. dollars. 

In addition to the account given by Valentino's trusted business manager and closest friend, George Ullman in 1975, we now have a second authoritative source confirming just what happened between André Daven and Rudolph Valentino. This second source is this letter written by Rudolph Valentino himself.

Recently I was in receipt of an email from the talented translator who contacted me regarding her excellent translation of the Robert Florey piece The Magic Lantern which we discussed in a podcast episode. She forwarded information to me about the sale of the letter written by Valentino to Jacques Hébertot in which he reveals the truth about André Daven.

George Ullman's account of why Daven left New York was true and is now supported by Valentino's letter. As Ullman wrote in his 1975 memoir, The S. George Ullman Memoir:

Daven was not a great love when Valentino paid him a twenty dollar bill more than his handyman (refer to Part I of this blog); not a great love when Daven dishonestly exploited Valentino's generosity by leaving him with a debt in the amount of 35,000 francs. What would have happened if Valentino had not died when he did? How would André Daven's Hollywood career as a producer and agent have gone then? If Valentino had lived would he have eventually told his public the truth about what happened? 

The brazen self promotion by Daven after Valentino's death did not go unnoticed as we learned from the Michel Duran article (refer to Part VI). He went on to exploit his Hollywood contacts and find work as a French producer for American and German companies. He was not a great love but as Rudolph Valentino referred to him.."ungrateful and hypocritical"...

Yet the perpetrators of this hoax, the Daven Affair blog and the Valentino porn fiction writer's account published as a biography of Valentino in 1996, have had a calamitous effect on Valentino and Daven's actual truth. Until definitive proof is presented, it is my opinion, after twenty years researching Valentino's history, that Valentino and Daven were not lovers and both men, according to all the existing first hand testimony and documentation, lived their lives as heterosexuals.

I found André Daven to be an extremely sharp and clever man whose good looks opened many doors for him while he seized all advantages in his personal situations. This, in my opinion, ultimately revealed him to be a man of questionable moral fiber. I think he demonstrates a cavalier attitude in inflicting debt on friends who trusted him.  And as we read in Rudolph Valentino letter above, a conniving André Daven bilked him for a great deal of cash and royally so. That is a fact and not a theory. 

I want to ring out 2019 by heaving this obviously contrived hoax to the wind forever and ring in 2020 by giving voice to Rudolph Valentino himself as he finally has his own say about this.

The Real Pallbearer & Daven's Girlfriends - Part VI

Link to the Rudolph Valentino Podcast here:

Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax


In the interest of providing documentation and truth about André L. Daven and his affiliation with Rudolph Valentino, I recorded a podcast episode which I titled, "Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax". In this blog, I share further documentation, images and research material along with excerpts from the podcast script. Please view the podcast's accompanying video through this link: https://youtu.be/B-oaxXfm2sQ

I address the claim made that Daven was a love sick and grieving pallbearer at Valentino's funeral in August of 1926. In researching André Daven's port of entry and departure documents, it has now been proven Daven was not in America during the summer of 1926. Not at all.

Daven was not a pallbearer and the gentleman the perpetrators of the hoax have erroneously identified as Daven is actually Michael Romano, assistant state attorney of Illinois who is positioned between Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino's Godfather, the great Italian gentleman, Frank Mennillo. I cite this to the article below as found in the New York Daily News, August 30, 1926, and cite also to the same publication on the 31^st.  Michael Romano was a friend of Valentino's who also organized the memorial for him in Chicago.

Michael Romano between Douglas Fairbanks and Frank Mennillo.

While researching Daven's comings and goings during the summer of 1926, we discovered how six months earlier around the end of January 1926, Daven was working a new angle exploiting those Hollywood connections he made through the Valentinos. It is obvious neither Rudolph Valentino or Natacha Rambova made any public statement about Daven's leaving them with an enormous and unpaid debt.

By 1926, Daven appears as a French press agent for stars such as the Talmadge sisters and Gloria Swanson. One has to think how brazen this was under the circumstances of his leaving in June of 1924. This surely demonstrates he was taking advantage of Valentino's and Ullman's silence to embark on a new career.

During the time frame when those perpetuating the hoax place a grief stricken Daven in New York City at Valentino's funeral in August of 1926, he was in fact in Paris and embroiled in a complicated breakup with his girlfriend Yvonne Legeay. In January of 1926, they ended their relationship which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit widely covered in the French news. Daven's lawsuit with Yvonne involved another great deal of money needing to be paid.

Considering the circumstances of how Daven left the Valentino's sponsorship, the details of his lawsuit with Yvonne Legeay are revealing and tell us more about who he was. He left New York and his benefactors holding a debt which he incurred personally. By 1926, he was being sued by a French furniture designer at the Maison Martine in Paris for another debt he incurred. A side note; the owner of this establishment was Natacha Rambova's favorite designer Paul Poiret. 

It was also learned Daven returned to New York City for two weeks the beginning of February 1926 and at that time Valentino was not in New York but in Kansas. He returned from his European trip with his brother Alberto and his family on the Leviathan which stopped in Le Havre, France on its way to New York. But by February 2, Valentino and family were on a westbound train headed home to California.

Daven garnered some press on February 2, 1926, upon his arrival with the nationally carried piece with photo reading:

   Corsicana - February 2, 1926

In researching the timing of Valentino's trip west, the following article was found which was published on February 2, 1926. I share it as it appeared by wire services in the Visalia Daily Times.

If André Daven was Valentino's great love, would Valentino not have known he was arriving in New York City around the same time? Would they not have traveled together or spent time together in New York? Would Valentino not have seen him in La Havre? Nothing was found to reveal they ever met again after June of 1924. I believe they did not.

By the time Daven arrives as the guest of his client Gloria Swanson, life was then seriously complicating for him. His lawsuit with Yvonne Legeay and the Maison Martine was being covered extensively by the Parisian press. Such as articles appearing in Le Petit Parisien and Candide with titles of the coverage being sentiments such as, “When Love Dies or the Danger of Not Knowing How to Hate” and “The Liquidation of Love”.

                      
                                                       Yvonne Legeay by Julien Pavil

The coverage of the Daven/Legeay lawsuit reads like a soap opera and reveals more about who André Daven truly was. André and Yvonne were lovers and lived together, sharing a household in Paris. They began dating sometime around 1922 and broke up in January of 1926. They had no children but according to court reports, they shared a dog and also shared the financial management of their household.

                                                                      Yvonne Legeay

Yvonne was seven years older than André and would claim in court that when she met him, he was broke and working as a gigolo and that it was she who financed their home and supported him. They both had expensive tastes and their home was finely appointed. 

When they broke up, Yvonne moved out and into a new apartment on the Rue Magellan and André refused to allow her take their commonly-owned furniture. Somewhat remorseful, he agreed to pay for a year of her rent and agreed to assist her in furnishing her new apartment. They were off to Poiret's Maison Martine where they placed an order for some 45,000 francs worth of fabulous furniture including lamps, carpets, throw pillows, etc.

When the bill came due in the summer of 1926, André had just returned from a trek to Africa where he was bitten by a tse tse fly which infected him with a debilitating sleeping sickness. He slept for most of the summer of 1926 and would contract pneumonia which further complicated his recovery. Meanwhile Yvonne phoned Daven's office in Paris and his secretary agreed to write a note to the furniture designers assuring them André would soon be awake and pay the 44,860 franc invoice.

When André did wake up, he was livid with the news and said he had no intention of paying for the huge order. (Sounding reminiscent of his telling Valentino he owed him money for time lost) He and Yvonne fought, things turned ugly and both retained lawyers to set in for the long haul which it turned out to be. André's lawyer arguing he had only given Yvonne advice in her selections of the furnishings and Yvonne saying he bought it all for her.

Daven argued he gave Yvonne a ring worth 120,000 francs and she argued she never saw such a ring. So it went until 1932 with Daven determined not to pay for Yvonne's furniture. The case ground its way through all eight levels of jurisdiction in Paris with the court eventually ordering both Yvonne and André to pay Paul Poiret's house of design, 44, 860 francs.

Meanwhile, André had fallen in love with Danièle Parola; a beautiful performer at the Champs Élysées Theater. By the time he was embroiled in court with Yvonne and waking up from his tse tse fly slumber, he was already in bed with Danièle Parola and obviously very much in love with the young beauty because they would marry on June 21, 1927. Rolf de Maré acted as their best man and André and Danièle would live together the rest of their very long lives. Interestingly, Danièle Parola, as reported in Le Gaulois on May 14, 1926, appeared as a supportive performer in a show titled, "The Paris Review" starring Yvonne Legeay.

So while the Valentino porn fiction writer and the author of the Daven Affair blog claim André was in New York acting as Rudolph Valentino's pallbearer, he was actually in Paris, sleeping through the tse tse fly bite while embroiled in a messy lawsuit with his ex-girlfriend Yvonne Legeay and while beginning his love affair with Danièle Parola.

Who was the actual greatest love of Valentino? Natacha Rambova of course. And for André Daven this was obviously his wife Danièle Parola.

French Valentino biographer Jeanne de Recqueville did not address the claim/the hoax that Daven was Valentino's lover in her book in 1978, because the Valentino porn fiction writer had not written a single book by then and had just not thought it up yet.

Previous to the creation of this hoax, Daven had little mention in the histories of Jacques Hébertot, the theater Champs Élysées or in Josephine Baker's life and her discovery.

In Hébertot's official history, Hébertot is granted the title of Director during his tenure. During Daven's tenure, the director is cited as Rolf de Maré and Daven has no mention in this history. Daven gets few mentions in the biography of Baker by her adopted son and he is not credited as having discovered her on any of Baker's fan websites.

We learn more about Daven's future activities in an article written by Michel Duran, which appeared in the August 1933 issue of Marianne: The French Great Illustrated Literary Weekly.

Translated into English:

"The French cinema has its faithful yet obscure servants. It is good from time to time to mention them to the admiration and gratitude of the crowd. Today I want to ensure the French audience knows one of the most ignored yet obstinate personalities, but whose work tends to give the French cinema the place which is due to it, that is to say the foremost position. (the bell tolls!) This is Mr. Andre L. Daven. You do not know him? Naturally you do not. We know of our glories only when they have past, we reward them only when they are ancient. I do not want him to suffer the same injustice.

A. L. Daven is a pretty dark-skinned boy, small in stature, with black eyes. He is perfectly elegant with a reserved politeness. His hands are strong and broad, which is surprising for one with such refinement. I knew him more than 10 years ago. He already demonstrated an elegance which filled us with the most legitimate admiration, us being writers at Bonsoir, that fascinating and ephemeral journal. Daven worked at Bonsoir, in charge of writing about cinema and in this he contributed an echo or a small article now and then written with care.

And he borrowed money. First from one, then another 10 francs from another. (Never from me, for I was his most formidable competitor.) When he procured this money, he used to go the Clown Footit bar and order expensive cocktails. That's how we, as journalists... establish contacts. In this way Daven came to know many people and I had the pleasure of shooting a film by Louis Delluc with him. He was charming. Since that time, I have not seen him again, but I have often heard of him. His career is varied, but exceptional.

He was the representative of Gloria Swanson in Europe, the unofficial manager of the Talmadge sisters at the height of their movie glory. It was also on this summit that he met Rudolph Valentino, whom he also met in the fashionable bar. Valentino took him to America and had him act at his side in "Monsieur Beaucaire". Daven then returned to France and quite abruptly.

After being a manager of a male variety music group, Daven entered the vast organization of Jacques Hébertot where he became his devoted collaborator. Daven's defeat was soon to come.

Rolf de Maré, sponsor of Hébertot, decided to spend his money himself(with no ones help). He hired Daven and appointed him director of the Champs Élysées Music Hall. The destiny of this establishment was resounding, but very brief. Mr. Rolf de Maré soon preferred to spend the money he had left by himself, alone and withdrew the funding for the theater. We spectators, amused by this miraculous career, did not hear any more about Daven for a while. He took to the stock exchange they said. That's when the talking cinema arrived.

Paramount established a subsidiary in Europe, in Paris, to produce films there. Daven reappeared to our very surprised eyes, impeccably groomed and full of haughty airs. He was then given the title of Director of Production and a new career opened before him. He found his way. He began to serve his country with an implacable will. The French cinema had found its most valiant defender.

Paramount's studios were magnificent, their safes full of dollars, skillful technicians arrived from Hollywood. Everything was done to produce films and colonize the French film market. Fortunately, (for the French film industry) Andre Daven was an active participant. During the two years Daven was employed by Paramount studios, he produced nothing but flops; absurd comedies, hilarious dramas, tear jerking comics.

Under his direction, we never saw money more effectively squandered, better efforts completely annihilated. When he gave up, he left quietly, with his momentum spent: 18 months after his quiet departure, Paramount France was declared a complete failure.

When he left the Paramount's Joinville studios, the German film production was threatening. U.F.A. produced films which were, in France a resounding success. It was on this German side that Daven decided to carry his patriotic efforts. He was soon appointed director of French production in Berlin. The danger from Daven's presence was momentarily delayed, but his German failure did not take too long to explode in Neubalsberg where the films were being produced. After a few months, of hard work, A. L. Daven resigned.

(Let us add again to his praise that one of his best and most generous innovations during his all too brief stay in Berlin... was to drastically reduce the salaries of all the French actors working there.)

Now, our brave knight was off to continue his effort for French film in America, whose film quality became dominating. There, Daven is appointed director of the French production for Fox film. Then again, the hour of Daven's achievements arrives. We were promised wonderful movies. We gasp in anticipation and excitement. Here is another competitor of French film who will soon be defeated and thrown to the ground.

When Mr. A. L. Daven becomes the director of the French production for Metro Goldwyn Pictures our last enemy will be destroyed. The competition will be definitively eradicated. With André L. Daven having been instrumental in destroying all the competition, the true French film will shine throughout the world unchallenged, as an unparalleled product. That's when I'll stand up again, having just reported on his efforts. I will ask for him to be rewarded. The Legion of Honor could not have a more suitable breast, or jacket lapel upon which to flourish. A. L. Daven, tireless servant of our national film production, oh this will be well deserved." - Published in, "Marianne: Grand Hebdomardarie Littéraire Illustré", August 3. 1933 By Michel Duran

I point out the homophobic basis of this hoax by stating that this is found in the repeated mention that Valentino and Daven had homosexual associates. This is given as proof they were gay.

In my opinion it is homophobic to presume someone is gay because they have homosexual associates, family and or friends. How does this in any manner influence anyone's sexual orientation?

In making this claim, those perpetuating the hoax imply, if not state that one's sexual identity is contagious.Yet this is the basis for the claim Valentino and Daven were lovers. This lust to claim the insinuation as fact is also homophobic in that it perpetuates antiquated and negative homosexual stereotypes. Why is this? Why did this happen?

For a bit of insight to this I cite an excerpt from Jeanne de Recqueville where she comments in 1978. 

"Homosexual claims about Valentino are a relatively recent insinuation. It came about because it has been discovered that the subject of someone's homosexuality in general is selling very well and when this is claimed about Valentino it sells better than any other."

The hoax was just about successful marketing and still is.

I think Valentino's death gave Daven and many others an opportunity to invent and reinvent their relationship with him. Obviously he was not about to come out and dispute any of it.

But I do not think we find through this documentation, which is primarily taken from French archives, that Rudolph Valentino treated Daven like a great love and Daven did not treat Valentino like a great love either. They were not lovers and with the existing documentation I allege neither man was gay. Previous to this latest research I did think Daven was gay but now I doubt this. His years of messy heterosexuality has been very publicly documented.

And for Valentino, despite having the adoration and the applause of the world, he was vulnerable on a private level because he was an honest person himself and trusting. Ullman reveals the Daven truth in 1975 to demonstrate how extravagant both Rudy and Natacha were.

The Hunting Trip & Josephine Baker- Part V

Link to the Rudolph Valentino Podcast here:

Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax


In the interest of providing documentation and truth about André L. Daven and his affiliation with Rudolph Valentino, I recorded a podcast episode which I titled, "Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax". In this blog, I share further documentation, images and research material along with excerpts from the podcast script. Please view the podcast's accompanying video through this link: https://youtu.be/B-oaxXfm2sQ

Josephine Baker, center, with the troupe of Harlem Dancers arriving in France in the fall of 1925. 

There are other cobbled together points in the Daven hoax arsenal; falsehoods which are perpetuated and worked into an unsourced narrative. I feel these main points and their perpetrators need to be exposed.Who are these perpetrators so deeply obsessed with André Daven being someone he was not and doing things he did not do?

Of course the most notorious and loudest voice in this campaign is the person I refer to as the Valentino porn fiction writer. He is the architect of the hoax itself and one who in my opinion bears nearly 99% of the blame for this travesty of inaccuracies and lies.

In the porn fiction writers' Valentino biography, published in 1999, he emphasizes his theme of Daven being the great love of Valentino and contributes to his frenzy of uncited fabrication by claiming he has secret and publicly unavailable proof that nearly every single man in Rudolph Valentino's life was his lover.

From his handyman Lou Mahoney to his manager George Ullman to his godfather Frank Mennillo, to all of his male friends... every last one.. and to even movie censorship czar Will Hays. In his zeal to market the Valentino and Daven affair, the porn fiction writer mistakenly labels a photograph of Valentino's brother Alberto in his book as, “André Daven, Rudolph Valentino's greatest love". The porn fiction writer built the Daven hoax by flooding the internet with the lies and fantasy woven together with facts to give the impression it was truth. The catch phrase soon appeared everywhere online.

Over the years his followers have picked up the torch to carry his work into a more troubling reality with blogs such the "The Daven Affair" appearing. In their campaign to have Daven known as Valentino's greatest love, they focus on several main points. I will refer to these main points as: the hunting trip, Josephine Baker and the pallbearer.

In regards to... the hunting trip.

I will say first of all that contrary to what is posted on the Daven Affair blog, I did not dispute the hunting trip existed and on page 234 of Affairs Valentino, I mention Valentino and Daven going on the hunting trip. I probably have said on many occasions that I believe events on that hunting trip did not happen as those perpetuating the hoax imply they did with their industrial grade innuendo.

As featured prominently in the Valentino/Daven hoax, it is stated as fact that because the two men went on a hunting trip together, this is proof they were homosexual lovers. I refute the implication that a choice of sporting activity and enjoying said activity with a friend can be cited as definitive evidence of one's sexual orientation. I do not think a hunting trip is proof of anything other than proof Rudolph Valentino and his minimally paid understudy, André Daven killed some unlucky and innocent creatures, butchered them and took their trophies home.

The Valentino porn fiction writer and his following have rendered this scenario of butchering innocent animals for sport into a romantic, x-rated romp by two closeted homosexuals. Now there would be nothing wrong with that at all if it was claimed to be fan fiction and the author's sexual fantasy with two real men as characters in the story. But that is not the case because they repeat the story everywhere as being true. As they present no proof other than their innuendo and suppositions, I state that a hunting trip is not proof of homosexuality.

On to the Josephine Baker falsehood....

The hoax purports Daven discovered the iconic jazz performer Josephine Baker and that he was responsible for her success in bringing jazz to Paris.

According to several articles and other documentation presented this is not the case.

The Valentino porn fiction writer claims Daven discovered Baker in a Harlem nightclub during his 1924 stay in New York City and that he took her and a troupe of thirty other African American performers from New York, at his own expense, back to Paris with him when he returned so “abruptly” that June. This is not true. Fiction writer goes on to claim this proves Daven was fabulously wealthy and that the account of Valentino paying Daven 50$ a week for clerical work, such as his witnessing documents to be signed... was a false theory.

As I stated before this is not a theory but something Daven wrote to his girlfriend Yvonne Legeay. And if Daven had incredibly returned then in June of 1924 with, as the fiction writer claims, thirty other people... he would have had to support them for about a year and a half because Baker's show, "La Revue Negre" did not open until October 2^nd of 1925. According to the site of the Museum of Harlem in Montmartre, it all came about in a very different way.

It was Caroline Dudley Reagan, an entrepreneur who was in Paris at the time, who discovered Josephine Baker in Harlem as well as the dance troupe. It was she who brought them all to Paris and she who spent the summer of 1925 organizing the dance troupe and their relocation to France. Andre Daven's involvement in the Josephine Baker story actually goes like this:

Jacques Hébertot left the theater Champs Élysées in January of 1925 and the Swedish owner Rolf de Maré appointed André Daven as artistic director; with de Maré holding the actual title of Director of the Champs Élysées theater. The theater was then converted to a music hall; a rather vaudevillian venue and it was suffering financial duress. When Caroline Dudley Reagan proposed to André Daven that she organize an act comprised entirely of black performers, he agreed it might be a good idea. Upon his approval, she returned to New York City where she set to work producing the show which would launch the career of Josephine Baker.

André Daven did not pay to bring thirty dancers from New York because he was in Paris when this show was being organized by Caroline Reagen. I found it fascinating how Josephine Baker became the star of the show "La Revue Negre" because of the renown artist, Paul Colin who created the poster for the opening night. The artist singled out Baker for the iconic poster.

In regards to the importance the Valentino porn fiction writer and the author of the Daven affair blog place on Daven being a director of the theater and discovering Baker; this is curious because we contacted the official historian of the theater and there is no mention of Daven in either the official history of Jacques Hébertot or of the theater. Yet we find even Daven telling the press he was the director for several years forward.

And in response to the hoax narrative which gives André Daven credit for the choreography of Baker's famous routines, I cite an article posted on http://www.plaisirsdujazz.fr/ which reveals this is not true.

"Caroline Dudley spent the summer of 1925 in New York, organizing the dance troupe and details of the show, to be produced under the scenographic authority of Louis Douglas, African-American dancer and choreographer who performed regularly in Paris since 1903. But their collaboration faced problems when Rolf de Maré and André Daven (artistic director of the theater Champs Élysées) attended rehearsals of the dance troupe, which arrived on September 22, just four days before the preview, and ten days before the premiere. 

They felt the show was not "black" enough for the Parisian public - not Parisian enough, in short. On the one hand, the star of the show, Maud de Forest, exhibited no taste and below the standard they expected for the French show. She was too fat compared to feminine standards of the Parisian music hall, less a dancer than a singer, and which was worst she was a singer of the blues: these properties, which correspond to a niche in vogue in New York since 1920, have no appeal in Paris. Daven found the collective female choreographies of the Harlem dance troupe too prudish, that is to say too "American", but also neither sufficiently "French" (remember the Parisian music hall emphasizes eroticism) or sufficiently "black" (French colonial curiosity for black female bodies having essentially been based upon their nudity, showing this as their sensuality)."

The Harlem dancers arrived in Paris so close to the scheduled premiere that when Daven first saw the show he panicked. It was not at all what he expected. He recruited Jacques Charles, a director from the Moulin Rouge, who rushed to the theater to see what could be done. Jacques Charles recollects about rescuing Daven in the Parisian literary weekly Candide on June 16, 1932: 

                         Excerpted from Candide - June 6, 1932

Translated into English:

"...André Daven came to call me for help! He hired a group of African Americans without seeing them, on the sole recommendation of an impresario who proposed a review to him. However, the troop had arrived from New York to begin in two days, and the first rehearsal of the so-called review was a complete collapse for Daven and Rolf de Maré.

-They tap-tap for two hours, and it is all going to the dogs. Only you, he added, can get us out of there.

No matter how hard I worked, my contract with the Moulin-Rouge, which forbade me to collaborate outside, Daven was convincing so I put on my overcoat and followed him to the theater...

-You must save us, do whatever you need to do.

-There is no question of that, I said, I do not know if we can do something in forty-eight hours with what you have in this troupe. I will first see what they do and then I will tell you if you can announce your “black show” or terminate their contract.

On the stage, I found ladies and gentlemen of color, with sad faces, because they realized the managers' Andre Daven and Rolf de Mare's rejection of their “talents”. By chance the lead dancer, was Lewis Douglas, whom I know well. I explained the situation to him:

-Two alternatives for you: do the show's premiere or take the boat home, choose. I ask you all the most absolute obedience. It's your only chance.

After a brief “chat”, Douglas came to tell me on behalf of all that I had only to tell them what to do.

-So show me everything you do..."
                                                   Excerpted - Candide, June 6, 1932

Jacques Charles writes further about the changes made to the show and ends his recollection with:

"Josephine Baker indignantly rejected my “Suggestions” for a number in which she and Joe Alex, almost naked, would dance a savage dance - half shimmy, half poi-poi - a Hawaiian and south African cocktail, with a pinch of New Zealanders. In vain I left it to dancer Joe Alex to convince her. When I returned, Josephine Baker was in tears and shouting she wanted to take the boat home to New York...

I am still waiting for a simple letter of thanks. Theater directors quickly become oblivious when they stop being worried."

                                                     Excerpted - Candide, June 6, 1932

Josephine Baker went on to incredible success but how tragic for the dance troupe as they arrived in Paris with their song and dance ready to go, to be told the women had to take off their shirts, expose their breasts and dance like the European white man's perception of African Americans as savages. It is not surprising to read Josephine Baker was sobbing and ready to return home to Harlem.

George Ullman's 1975 Revelation - Part IV

Link to the Rudolph Valentino Podcast here:

Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax


In the interest of providing documentation and truth about André L. Daven and his affiliation with Rudolph Valentino, I recorded a podcast episode which I titled, "Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax". In this blog, I share further documentation, images and research material along with excerpts from the podcast script. Please view the podcast's accompanying video through this link: https://youtu.be/B-oaxXfm2sQ

At the time of the Valentino's visit to France in 1923, the Champs Élysées Theater was under the direction of Jacques Hébertot. By the way, it was Hébertot who met Rudy and Natacha at the airport Le Bourget and not Daven which is alleged. And also Jacques Hébertot who would become a respected and close friend of both the Valentinos.

As much of this story takes place in the Champs Élysées Theater, I share a bit of lore about this theater. The theater was owned and founded by Swedish millionaire Rolf de Maré in 1919, who established the venue to profile his lover and partner, the famed actor and dancer Jean Börlin.

By the fall of 1920, Jacques Hébertot assumed directorial management of the theater and it was under his direction the theater came to be known for ambitious cultural productions including ballet performances, art exhibitions and stage productions. It was in his position, Jacques Hébertot would greet Rudy and Natacha, act as their host and embrace them as artists of merit. André Daven was then working as Hébertot's assistant.

And this is how Daven found himself, upon the Valentino's invitation, arriving in New York City on the ocean liner Aquitania on January 23, 1924. 

We have every reason to presume he was confident he would soon become a movie star like Rudolph Valentino. Manhattan awaited and he envisioned all the trappings of Valentino's wild success for himself and a glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous. As Jeanne de Recqueville observed , André Daven was granted an auspicious beginning in the American movie industry when Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova agreed to act as his sponsors and mentors. But the reality of Daven's lifestyle in New York was something less than he imagined.

In André Daven's letter written to his girlfriend, Yvonne Legeay, he reveals Rudolph and Natacha were paying him 60$ a week for his appearance in Monsieur Beaucaire and an extra 50$ a week to do clerical work generated by advertising.

$110.00 a week, even with the rate of exchange, was still not a millionaire's ransom in New York City at the time. I know it is purported online that this is just a “theory” I wrote about in Affairs Valentino, but the salary breakdown was done by Daven himself.

Bear in mind Valentino paid his staff, working in his home Falcon Lair in Los Angeles, 30$ to 50$ a week with his handyman Lou Mahoney being paid $40.00 a week. I cite this to the court records I recovered in the California Court of Appeals case of Valentino's manager, George Ullman, taken from the court-ordered Baskerville audit of the Falcon Lair expenses under the heading of, “Salaries, February 1926”.

For example, Rudy paid his Los Angeles secretary and clerical assistant Raymond Fager, 60$ a week and his New York secretary Estelle Dick, $40.00 a week. André Daven was paid a staff's salary with only slightly more financial prestige than the secretary or the handyman.

It is well-documented André Daven had expensive taste in clothing and was accustomed to frequenting the swankiest bars and nightclubs in Paris to hob nob with the elite. He needed to secure substantial funding for such a New York City lifestyle to supplement his $110 a week paycheck from Valentino and Rambova.

And this brings us to the reason Daven left New York, as Parisian journalist Michel Duren mentioned, “Daven came back to France quite abruptly”. It was then Daven lost his sponsorship of the Valentinos; when he sailed from New York City in June of 1924. This departure date is confirmed by Daven's own statement in 1926 upon his arrival in New York when he confirmed upon entry that his last departure from New York was June of 1924.

The keepers of the Valentino and Daven hoax claim Daven left “abruptly” after a lovers quarrel and there would be rumors Daven left because he was offended having so few scenes in Monsieur Beaucaire.

It was also rumored Alla Nazimova commented on Daven's beauty and this made Natacha Rambova so concerned Daven would upstage Rudolph that she cut Daven's scenes. In light of what really happened, in my opinion this appears to be the explanation Daven gave to the press and to those who asked why he left New York. There was never any competition between Rudolph Valentino and André Daven and anyone watching Monsieur Beaucaire would recognize this and there is no disputing Rambova's seriousness in the editing of the film. This had nothing to do with why Daven left NY.

In an interview Valentino gave with the Los Angeles Times' reporter Alma Whitaker which I have excerpted several times in our podcast episodes, he praises Natacha's editing of Monsieur Beaucaire.

I have been and still am accused online of lying during my speech delivered in Turin in 2009 at the International Valentino conference, or Convegno Valentino, when I revealed for the first time the true reason why André Daven left New York when he did.

This allegation is made on the Daven Affair blog. It is stated by the author of this blog in his opening post that the very reason for the blog is to rebuke my account of why Daven left New York City in June of 1924.

In my revelation in 2009, I referenced the 1975 memoir of Valentino's trusted business manager and close friend, George Ullman who wrote on p. 24 of The S. George Ullman Memoir,

I add that I cited this source at the time I delivered my speech. This was not surmise or a theory but a direct quote from George Ullman, who was there when Daven left, who paid Valentino's bills and ran his professional life at the time. Ullman knew about this situation and revealed the details only in 1975 when as an elderly gentleman he wrote a memoir of his life and times with Rudolph Valentino.

I think in learning much more about Daven's departure, it became clear why this was not mentioned until Ullman finally told the details of the story in 1975. This was something Valentino did not want to make public.

To the author of "The Daven Affair blog"... I stand by my source, George Ullman, in saying André Daven was not a great love, but Valentino's understudy who borrowed money from his friends without his benefactor's knowledge and then executed a complete and expensive restoration of his teeth with the Valentino's dentist and left New York City “abruptly” without the meekest thank you or goodbye. This is what happened. This is not by any stretch of the imagination, the narrative of a great love affair.

The Valentinos Meet Daven - Part III

Link to the Rudolph Valentino Podcast here:

Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax

In the interest of providing documentation and truth about André L. Daven and his affiliation with Rudolph Valentino, I recorded a podcast episode which I titled, "Rudolph Valentino & The André Daven Hoax". In this blog, I share further documentation, images and research material along with excerpts from the podcast script. Please view the podcast's accompanying video through this link: https://youtu.be/B-oaxXfm2sQ

How did André Daven come to be cast in his brief appearance in Valentino's 1924 movie, Monsieur Beaucaire? This came about as the result of an invitation from Natacha and Rudolph Valentino with a couple of different versions of how and where the Valentino's first met André Daven.

At the time, in the summer of 1923, Daven was working as a free-lance journalist in Paris and as an assistant to Jacques Hébertot who was then the director of the Champs Élyseés Theater.

One version alleges the Valentinos met Daven when he interviewed them during their visit to Paris in 1923. While another version is purported by the French journalist, Michel Duran, who wrote in Marianne: Grand Hebdomadaire Litteraire Illustre, (The Great Illustrated Literary Weekly) published on August 3, 1933, that André Daven met Mr. and Mrs. Valentino in an upscale bar in Paris, called the Clown Footit. This bar was located on the Rue Montaigne close by the Hotel Plaza Athenée where the Valentino's stayed when in Paris.

It was in bars such as the Clown Footit where Daven and other Parisian journalists cultivated their well-to-do contacts. Whether for an article they could sell by the inch to a newspaper or magazine or for nothing more than social prestige, there was competition among the ranks of those local reporters. Conversely, celebrities visiting Paris exploited the hungry reporters by sauntering in for a few cocktails with a guarantee of garnering some fabulous press.

By all accounts, André Daven is described as having been an extremely handsome, dark-skinned young man of slight build who greatly resembled Rudolph Valentino. At the time he was twenty-four years old and as we mentioned he was then living with his girlfriend Yvonne Legeay who was seven years older than he was.

And by all accounts, André Daven is reported to have exuded the demeanor of a prince while decked out in a wardrobe demonstrating an admirably fastidious personal taste. So it is not surprising Natacha and Rudolph Valentino would be charmed and comment immediately upon Daven's potential career in the movies. They both also saw him as a perfect double for Rudy and in this they recognized his value.

I think it is relevant to place this into a broader perspective by mentioning how Daven was not the only French citizen Rudolph Valentino gave a nod to professionally on that trip to France in 1923. His desire to establish a collaboration with French cinema was duly noted by the French press. According to the Valentino's friend, the French director, René Clair, Rudy extended his famous hand not only to André Daven but to other actors whom he also agreed to cast in Monsieur Beaucaire.

I excerpt a letter written by René Clair which is published in its entirety in Jeanne de Recqueville's book Rudolph Valentino.

As translated into English:

“He (Rudolph Valentino) is the only one, to my knowledge, who tried to have a French film produced in America. This is a very recent matter and I know well about this subject. Yet knowing the hostility towards France, of the germanoganglican world of the Hollywood studios and, moreover, of one of our supposed friends, we can only feel, toward Rudolph Valentino, true gratitude. Finally, he does not announce, like so many others, large work projects in France. He is the only one to really think about it. It is possible that in the future he will allow me to give you details on this point.

I would add that for his latest film, Monsieur Beaucaire, Rudolph Valentino hired, in addition to André Daven, a French girl, Ms. Paulette Duval, and he commissioned the costumes for the movie to a French artist.”

So it was not unusual for the Valentino's to spot a new discovery.  Natacha Rambova discovered the designer Adrian, the actress Myrna Loy and Rudolph would have his business manager George Ullman negotiate a contract with Metro studios for his Monsieur Beaucaire co-star Doris Kenyon and I cite that to Ullman's 1975 memoir titled, The S. George Ullman Memoir on p. 37. I think this is all evidence of Valentino's entrepreneurial interest in cinema as an art form which is also apparent in Natacha. These two certainly recognized their power as talent scouts and mentors.

In the nationally serialized, “My Life by Rudolph Valentino”, which was reissued after his death, Rudolph Valentino explains why he selected someone like Daven to come to America and appear in movies.

As excerpted from, The Oakland Tribune, September 25, 1926 issue which was carried by wire services and appeared in papers across the country.