Rudolph Valentino in "The Sheik", 1921, (1935). Portrait of Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926), film actor born in Italy, one of the first Hollywood heartthrobs. Valentino arrived in the United States in 1913 and found fame as a film star and sex symbol of the 1920s. When he died at the age of 31, of complications after surgery for appendicitis and gastric ulcers, 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan in New York to pay their respects at his funeral. From "The Silver Jubilee Book - The Story of 25 Eventful Years in Pictures". [Odhams Press Ltd., London, 1935], (Colorised black and white print).