Overview

For over a century, Rudolph Valentino's life and death have magnetized myth, rumor, gatekeepers and entire subcultures devoted to shaping, or suppressing, the truth. First published in 2011, Affairs Valentino broke that monopoly. Drawing on rare documents, probate case files, letters and eyewitness testimony, Evelyn Zumaya Floris revealed the contested world surrounding Hollywood's most enigmatic icon and the enduring struggle to control his legacy. This Legacy Edition is the definitive author-prepared version of the book which was attacked, censored, denounced and ultimately made iconic by the very forces that tried to stop it. Revised, reorganized and meticulously indexed, it restores sources long hidden, incorporates significant archival discoveries and provides updated commentary and context drawn from more than two decades of research. No other biography of Valentino presents this level of documentation or exposes, with clarity, the real history behind Valentino's posthumous battles: the legal wars, the family conflicts, the lost business manager's accounts, the vanished probate files and the suppression of evidence by modern collectors. In charting the journey of Valentino's legacy, Zumaya Floris also documents her own twenty-year experience confronting a hostile, cult of self-appointed gatekeepers determined to silence the record. Part biography, part historical investigation, part cultural autopsy, Affairs Valentino - Legacy Edition stands as both a work of scholarship and a testament to the resilience of truth. This is the Valentino story restored, unredacted and fully illuminated by the archives.

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Evelyn Zumaya Floris is an author, historian and independent scholar whose work focuses on the cultural legacy of silent film icon Rudolph Valentino. For more than two decades, she has researched Valentino's life, the legal and financial controversies surrounding his estate and the suppressed archival materials which shape his historical narrative. Her previous books include, Affairs Valentino, Affairs Valentino Legacy Edition, The Affairs Valentino Companion Guide, Astral Affairs Rambova and Norma: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino's Beauty Queen. Working alongside her late husband and collaborator Renato Floris, she has built one of the most comprehensive private archives on Valentino and his manager George Ullman. Floris is known for her meticulous documentation, fearless investigative approach and unwavering commitment to historical truth. She publishes widely on the Valentino era through books, blogs and digital archives and her work has sparked international interest for its revelations about narrative control, celebrity culture and the power dynamics within collector communities. Renato Floris (1946-2023) was an accomplished translator, editor, and independent publisher whose work played a central role in the modern preservation of Rudolph Valentino history. Fluent in multiple languages, he translated several cornerstone Valentino-era texts, including the serialized fan-magazine memoir ""My Private Diary"" into Italian; Baltasar Cue's 1927 Spanish biography ""El Verdadero Rudolph Valentino"" (which he brought into English as ""The True Rudolph Valentino""); and Jeanne de Recqueville's seminal French study ""Rudolph Valentino.""Across two decades, Renato translated countless archival articles, legal documents, and rare period sources, making primary material accessible to English-language readers for the first time. As CEO of his publishing company, Viale Industria Pubblicazioni, he shepherded numerous Valentino-related works into print being his publications' meticulous editorial force, design integrity and historical fidelity. His contribution to Valentino scholarship remains immeasurable.

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