George Ullman's next few months were also spent hurriedly arranging for the auction of Rudy's estate to the public. Ullman's greed showed in his arrangement of this event. He was so anxious to go to work for Joseph Schenck ... he apparently was sure that Schenck's offer of employment was going to come through ... that he rushed the auctions.
I believe that Alberto took more than just Kabar before the auctions, and, in fact, Alberto was ordered by the court to return Kabar to the estate kennels until it was finally decided it would be in the best interest of the dog's welfare to live with Alberto. This did not turn out to be true, but that is another tale. Ullman made preparations to sell the rest to the highest bidders, with the exception of another dog, 'Mission Rudy,' which was returned to the Mayor of San Francisco, since it had been a recent gift to Rudy. There were many moving parts to this, and it encompassed four auctions, in all.
George did not get anywhere near the return he expected from these auctions. Sadly, it appears that many of the items that may have brought some real money had already been taken by either Alberto or Ullman, himself. I am of the firm opinion that George Ullman held back several items to sell in later years. I shall be providing proof of this before this series is complete, but I'm not sure it will happen in this particular blog post. It looks like we have a ways to go, yet ...
Here is an entry from George Ullman's 1975 memoir:
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"Much as I disliked the idea of a public auction of Valentino's personal belongings, I had no other choice, because there was no other way to dispose of the hundreds of items he and his wife had collected - and some still unpaid in Spain and London and Paris and here in the United States. I engaged a responsible and well-known Los Angeles auctioneer, A.H. Weil. We prepared an elaborate catalogue with Rudy's photograph on the fly leaf."
(Link to the estate catalog for Rudolph Valentino)
"The cost of this catalogue was defrayed by its sale for $2.00 each to those attending the auction.
The days of the auction and the agony of seeing all the things Rudy had collected sold to anyone who bid the highest, were almost unbearable. Many of the better pieces were sold for rather high prices. The books, especially the art works acquired by Natacha and Rudy at great expense, were not even bid on. The auction in total brought in a gross amount of $94,000 from which, of course, the auctioneer received the customary fee for himself and his staff. He made several attempts to create interest in the many jewelry pieces collected by Rudy but there were no reasonable bids and Alberto took the case containing the jewels. He also took all of the clothing and accessories which were enough in quantity and quality to provide for his sartorial needs for very many years.
The harassment by Alberto and his legal representatives eventually compelled me to resign as administrator and to turn all of the Valentino assets over to the court, but before doing this I undertook to contest claims of the U.S. Treasury Department for delinquent taxes assessed against Valentino for several years before his death and other taxes levied against the estate. This was a difficult task and I had to carry the case to the last court of appeals in Washington to prove that the large assessment against Rudy was improper. They ruled in my favor.
I persuaded Mr. Schenck to try spot releases for 'What Price Beauty?', Natacha's brain child, so that he could determine whether he wanted to release the picture generally throughout the U.S. These showings were not received well enough, in his judgment, to warrant the cost of prints and advertising for a general release. I did finally get a release agreement from Pathé but all they ever returned to me were monthly bills for additional prints they said they needed. In about a year these bills stopped coming. When I asked for the return of the negative I was told that it had been destroyed!"
Pierre Gendron and Nita Naldi in 'What Price Beauty?'
"Pola Negri filed an action against the Valentino estate in the probate court for the sum of $15,000 plus interest. She had loaned this sum to Rudy for some obscure purpose. The court approved this claim and I issued a check to her.
Since this is an entirely honest account of the last days of Rudolph Valentino, I think that I should mention his 'great romance' with Pola Negri. The 'romance' between Rudy and Pola Negri was not as great as Pola later professed it to be. They did spend some time together, of course, but Rudy actually had no intention of marrying Pola or anyone else! They did have several telephone conversations while he was at 'The Ambassador Hotel' in New York and she in Hollywood. I didn't try to listen to his words until one night at about 12 o'clock midnight, which was 9 o'clock in Hollywood.
Angry words were spoken and he became quite upset. The last words he ever said to Pola were, 'Well, you can go to hell!' and he slammed down the receiver. He only told me something to the effect that she could go out with that 'so-called Prince if she wants to but not with me.' These were the last words ever spoken to Pola by Rudy. In June of 1927, Pola married her Prince Serge Mdivani! "
Pola Negri
"'Photoplay' magazine, through its editor James Quirk, took umbrage with Miss Negri in its July 1927 issue because of her public demonstration of her loves and even went so far as to engage a genealogist to investigate the claims of the Mdivani brothers princely titles. The report showed that it was customary for any young man coming from the Province of Georgia in Russia to assume the label of Prince, but only in the United States."
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I have some photos of the auctions which I have posted in a previous blog. I have selected some to post again, not all of them, but some that I feel will be of interest for the purpose of this series. I shall label each one for you and then provide a short commentary as appropriate.
Allow me to give you an overview of the four auctions before posting the photos.
The first one was on Friday, December 10, 1926 at 'Falcon Lair' for the automobiles and livestock. There were also bids taken for 'Falcon Lair' although this was done privately through a realtor. I would think that tours were only given to serious bidders in person.
The second one took place on December 11, 1926 which was conducted for the Whitley Heights home. Serious bidders only ... not for looky loos.
A third auction for Rudy's personal effects, furniture, art objects, yacht (the yacht which Ullman had brought to dry land and set up for all to view) and studio properties was held on Tuesday, December 14, 1926 at Hollywood's Hall of Art Studios on North Highland Avenue, conducted by A.H. Weil, auctioneer, the same man who gaveled the other auctions.
A fourth auction was held a few months later in San Francisco in an attempt to sell off the remaining items
Automobiles and livestock auction at Falcon Lair
Dog being auctioned off at Falcon Lair
Auction at Falcon Lair
Falcon Lair
Whitley Heights
A few more things about the auctions I would like to point out ... the auctions themselves were ticketed events. In other words, you had to buy a ticket (I do not know the price) in order to attend the auctions. Lew Mahoney figured in greatly in these auctions, as it appears from the information I have been able to glean that Mahoney, under the instruction of Ullman, really was the supervisor of almost everything while George took the credit.
Lew Mahoney, 1926
Lew was responsible for keeping the auctions' inventories in order at 'Falcon Lair,' the company prop house, and at the Whitley Heights home. Of course, he had staff under him who assisted, but it just goes to show that Ullman gave Lew a great deal of responsibility on an unsupervised basis. If George did not trust Lew, and truly thought Lew was removing things from Rudy's estate that were inappropriate, I can't see him keeping Lew on the payroll.
Then there were the books ... the books that actually did not sell very well despite George Ullman's scheme to make them seem more valuable than they really were. Rudy did not read very much, even though people think he was an avid reader. He posed for a lot of photos as a reader, but he just had too much to do to keep his nose in a book all the time! Rudy also did not collect book sets. He preferred to collect individual books as he found them.
George Ullman was faced with the monumental task of unloading the books, something which most of us when moving or having a garage sale find difficult to sell. So he figured that if people thought they were getting a 'special' Rudy-book, they would buy more of the books. Rudy had never had a bookplate ... also known as an 'Ex Libris.' George created an 'Ex Libris' for Rudy.
George made a trip down to a local printer's shop and had several bookplates printed up, which he then took back and pasted into the books he planned to sell at the estate sale. The books still did not sell as he hoped, but they did better than they would have had they NOT had the bookplates pasted into the front cover. Even today, if you are able to get your hands on one of these, there is a chance that Rudy did read it, and it did sit in the library at 'Falcon Lair,' so it is worth having!
I would certainly like to have one of these, and I don't care what the book is. My understanding is that Rudy and Natacha had a bit of a collection of foreign porn, so that would be an interesting addition to my own small library of books!
When the jewels and other items did not sell for the prices Ullman and the auctioneer were looking for, Alberto and Maria decided to take their picks of them. Maria did not arrive from Italy until January of 1927, but it is clear that her actions set the precedent for all others to openly begin taking items they wanted, and this included Alberto, Ullman and Mahoney. Maria took home with her Rudy's emerald and platinum cuff links, an emerald ring, a sapphire ring, his white gold cigarette case and an amber and sapphire cigarette holder which was worth around $3,500.
Alberto also took most of Rudy's clothing, but Ullman had already stashed away some of Rudy's belongings for himself to sell off in the coming years, as we shall see in my next blog post when we get into the relationship with Bill Self. We don't know exactly what happened to the 'slave bracelet.' There was a 'slave bracelet' on display during the auction, and it was advertised in the auction catalogue as being the original one that Natacha gave to Rudy ... but then there are also rumors that Rudy was buried with that same bracelet. Short of exhuming Rudy's body, we will never really know. There was a guard stationed beside the chain-link bracelet displayed at the auction, I do know that much. Whether he was there to work or for show is anyone's guess.
Rudy's 'slave bracelet' that Natacha gave him.
Life went on and the years passed. George struggled to pay off Rudy's debts and tried to support his own family. He and Bee welcomed a baby girl on April 4, 1928 and named her Brenda Ullman. She was promptly 'renamed' Bunny by brother Bobby, since it was around Easter-time and somehow seemed appropriate. The name stuck. In 1928, George Ullman also opened 'The S. George Ullman Agency,' meant to represent various acting talents while he still managed 'Rudolph Valentino Productions, Inc.'
George Ullman's wife, Bee, became very ill with tuberculosis and lost a lung to the disease the following year. George cared for her himself, as well as the three children all while seeing to his business concerns. The Ullman family became somewhat of a popular staple in Hollywood society and I find it noteworthy that George was close to radio host Jack Paar when they were both in their younger days; a friendship which lasted their lifetimes.
Ullman had the respect of Hollywood. The truth about Ullman had not been realized ... that Rudy did not trust him in the end, and that Rudy was probably going to investigate his business dealings. Furthermore, the truth would reveal that Rudy would end up firing Ullman when Rudy found that Ullman was a fraud and con man ... and Rudy would have found this out, I believe. If anything was going to bring Rudy and Natacha back together, it would have been the revelation of this information.
There is a good reason that Ullman was too ashamed to contact Natacha in any meaningful sense after Rudy's death. He did try to get some promotion for 'What Price Beauty?' but that was all. However, it is also interesting that he did not write anything blatantly negative about Natacha in his 1926 or 1975 memoir, but if one reads between the lines, he says volumes.
Natacha and Teresa Werner were not so quiet. They both admitted that there was a likely lawsuit they could have filed against Ullman for various reasons, but he was having enough problems, they did not need the money, and he had an ill wife and children to consider. I think it was a last kindness, in their minds, they could do for Rudy. Ullman was getting his karma in his own life, as it was!
George Ullman's business card... his business founded in 1928
When March of 1930 rolled around, Ullman was, in addition to running his talent agency, acting as the executor of Rudy's estate, heading up 'Rudolph Valentino Productions,' also still involved with 'Cosmic Arts, Inc.' 'Cosmic Arts' was still a subsidiary of 'Rudolph Valentino Productions' and we have discussed it in at least four other blog entries. You can easily use the search function (little spyglass at the top of the pages) to check it all out.
George made a critical error when he recorded the expenses from 'Cosmic Arts' under 'Rudolph Valentino Productions,' even though he may have thought at the time that he was doing the smart thing and using the production company as a shelter. Alberto was watching (which meant that Schenck was watching) and the attorneys soon decided to inquire whether or not 'Cosmic Arts' was a legal means to handle expenses regarding Rudy's estate. They basically accused George of overstepping his duties as executor.
Alberto was happy that George had cleared so much of Rudy's debt and added to the estate's worth for him. George had told Alberto that Rudy had verbally outlined the instructions to him, yet George had no hard copy of instructions to back up his word. In other words, the old mantra we had to keep repeating in my medical secretary training school ... 'if it's not written down, it didn't happen.' Alberto even loved that George had cleared Rudy's debt with the U.S. Treasury Department to the tune of $61,432.
I find it extremely interesting and suspicious that this list of instructions (which probably never existed) was brought up in court. It was later claimed by another party in recent years that a carbon copy was found that proved the story, which I believe was another lie. Especially since this carbon copy was never produced, to the best of my knowledge. We are supposed to believe that after days of emptying the trash, a crumpled piece of carbon paper was found that a secretary had left in trash can and this proved Ullman's claim. I'm not buying this ridiculous story. No, I believe there was fabrication of paperwork then and possibly in recent years when it came to both Ullman and Valentino's 'lost' court papers.
Alberto filed a lawsuit which accused George Ullman of mismanagement of the funds of Rudy's estate since Alberto denied that Rudy had ever granted George the authority to act as both executor and head of 'Rudolph Valentino Productions.' Alberto also felt that there had never been any 'sheet of instructions' that Rudy had made in the first place. The petitions were endless, it seemed, the pressure continuously on.
Alberto wanted cash liquidation of 'Rudolph Valentino Productions' and he wanted himself to be appointed the executor of Rudy's estate going forward.
The accounts were reviewed by an independent auditor; the pressure on Ullman was tremendous. So tremendous, in fact, that Ullman ended up resigning as executor of Rudy's estate and giving it up to the 'Bank of America.' Alberto never did claim that position of executor.
We would think that is the end of Ullman's involvement, but no, most certainly it was not. If anything, things got even more complicated from here on out!
Darkmum
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