Emily Wortis Leider Biographer & Poet

Dark Lover

The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003 · Faber and Faber, United Kingdom, 2003

Cover of Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino

In the five years between his meteoric rise to fame in the silent epic The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and his untimely death in 1926 at age thirty-one, Rudolph Valentino managed to leave an indelible imprint on our ideas of romance and sexuality that resonates to this day.

In this thoughtful retelling of Valentino’s short and tragic life — the first fully documented biography of the star — Emily W. Leider looks at the Great Lover’s life and legacy, and explores the events and issues that made him emblematic of the Jazz Age.

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Reviews

  • “Dark Lover is a compulsive read. Emily Leider’s research into the life of Rudolph Valentino is astonishing, and the authority with which she tells the story is admirable.”

    — Kevin Brownlow, author of The Parade’s Gone By

  • “A beautifully researched biography that will doubtless stand as the definitive account of Valentino’s legendary career.”

    — James Curtis, author of W.C. Fields

  • “It’s a sad story and in its broadest strokes, a timeless one. Leider tells it with grace, wit, and empathy.”

    — Vanity Fair

  • “A fluid, accomplished, deliciously readable biography of the individual who ‘helped deflower postwar America.’”

    — Barry Gewen, The New York Times Book Review

  • “Dark Lover illuminates the man behind the legend, and Leider tells his often lurid story with restraint and, above all, compassion.”

    — The New Statesman

  • “A serious and thorough biography of Rudolph Valentino has long been overdue. Emily Leider scores a bull’s eye with this perceptive and compassionate treatment of the star.”