Evelyn Zumaya's Affairs Valentino Companion Guide

The case file of Rudolph Valentino's probate court records has been missing from its lawful location in the Los Angeles County Hall of Records for decades. With no access to these documents, those endeavoring to tell the tale of the lengthy settlement of the movie star's estate have relied upon surmise and speculation unsupported by facts and figures. As a result, this aspect of Rudolph Valentino's life story has remained a fractionalized, meager and inaccurate account. This would change when Valentino biographer, Evelyn Zumaya conducted a search for the missing archive. Zumaya discovered that the entire case file had been stolen. After a lengthy investigation, she located more than one thousand hand-copied pages of the original missing file. As the first Valentino biographer to access these records, Zumaya based her book Affairs Valentino upon her remarkable discovery. (This book is currently for purchase @ http: //www.vivaceedizioni.com). The wealth of new information divulged in these court records inspired ground-breaking directions in her research, culminating in her creation of the most accurate and documented account of Valentino's business and personal affairs. In this Companion Guide, Zumaya shares the documents which are most relevant to her work. She believes this lost and now found archive of court records to be vital in documenting her work and in the understanding of her new and true story of silent film icon, Rudolph Valentino"