📅 On this day
23 August
1926 · Rudolph Valentino died at thirty-one
The biggest male star of the silent screen died in New York of complications following surgery. Tens of thousands of people queued around the block for the lying in state and the police lost control of the crowd — arguably the first modern celebrity funeral, decades before the phrase existed.
He made about forty films in six years. The hysteria he caused is the template every screaming crowd since has followed, from Sinatra to the Beatles to the boy bands your grandchildren went mad for.
Your turn
Who was the first film star you were properly besotted with?