- published: 25 Jan 2015
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George Fitzmaurice (13 February 1885 – 13 June 1940) was a French-born film director and producer.
Fitzmaurice's career first started as a set designer on stage. Beginning in 1914 until his death in 1940, he directed over 80 films, including several successful movies such as The Son of the Sheik, Raffles, Mata Hari, and Suzy.
At the beginning of his directorial career, Fitzmaurice was astute at directing stage actresses in their initial films with the first wave of great Broadway stars that migrated to motion pictures during the World War I era, including Mae Murray, Elsie Ferguson, Fannie Ward, Helene Chadwick, Irene Fenwick, Gail Kane, and Edna Goodrich.
Son of the Sheik is his most famous extant silent film, no doubt aided by the sudden death of its star, Rudolph Valentino. Lilac Time is a classic war/romance film. Fitzmaurice however directed scores of silent films of which the majority of them are lost to the ravages of decompostion. Recent discoveries in Gosfilmofond in Russia include 1919's Witness for the Defense with Elsie Ferguson and 1923's Kick In with Bert Lytell. A restoration of his 1928 part talkie hybrid The Barker is winning praise from many film buffs. Rumors of other Fitzmaurice films in Gosfilmofond include 1920s Idols of Clay (with Mae Murray) and Three Live Ghosts with Norman Kerry, Anna Q. Nilsson, Cyril Chadwick, and Edmund Goulding.
Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, professionally known as Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), was an Italian-born American actor who starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik. An early pop icon, a sex symbol of the 1920s, he was known as the "Latin Lover" or simply as "Valentino". He had applied for American citizenship shortly before his death, which occurred at age 31, causing mass hysteria among his female fans and further propelling him into iconic status.
Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla in Castellaneta, Apulia, Kingdom of Italy. His mother, Marie Berta Gabrielle (née Barbin; 1856–1919), was French, born in Lure in Franche-Comté. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fedele Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, was Italian; he was a veterinarian who died of malaria when Valentino was 11. He had an older brother, Alberto (1892–1981), a younger sister, Maria, and an older sister, Beatrice, who had died in infancy.