Rudolph Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Italy, on 6th May, 1895. When he was eighteen he emigrated to the United States. He worked as a gardener, waiter and dancer in New York before moving to California.

Valentino played a series of minor parts in films before being given the lead-role in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). The film turned Valentino into a romantic star and he followed this success with The Sheik (1921), Uncharted Seas (1921), Beyond the Rocks (1922), Blood and Sand (1922), Cobra (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). Rudolph Valentino died of a perforated ulcer on 23rd August, 1926.