Mr. Jerry Tallmer was a journalist and movie/book critic. He also created the 'Obie Awards,' which honor the highest caliber of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theatre to recognize brave work, champion new material, and advance careers. He passed in 2014. There were a few articles that appeared in "The Village Voice" in the 2000s that I would like to discuss. In them, Tallmer mentions Natacha Rambova and how she influenced him in his teenage years.
It all started while I was searching for Natacha's second husband, Álvaro de Urzaiz many years ago. You, who have followed Natacha's story, will remember Alvaro. As often happens with my research, I was taken off my trail and decided to pursue a different path at the time. I have never forgotten where all this took me ... into the land of fantasy and the coming of age, which we all go through in different ways.
I seem to have snagged those same genes Natacha had which made her a free spirit, as did my son, Dallas.
Flash forward to a time after Rudolph Valentino has long passed away, and Natacha has had her experiences with her next relationship resulting in a broken engagement and teaching in New York. Let us land on the island of Mallorca just before the Spanish Civil War where Natacha is embroiled in her five-year second marriage.
The French-born Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau (February 16, 1848 - February 16, 1917) and Natacha Rambova would have been friends, I am sure. They had a lot in common. They were both those free spirits I spoke of earlier; both bohemians. Mirbeau was a critic, a journalist, a novelist, a playwright, a man of letters, a profound (and ill-married) cynic, and an anarchist. Among his many writings, and the only one I am familiar with, is, "Diary of a Chambermaid."
Natacha Rambova was the most beautiful woman whom a small 15-year-old American boy (Jerry Tallmer) during one summer in Mallorca just before the Spanish Civil War had ever laid eyes on. She had a somewhat 'scandalous' past, had been married to the glamorous Rudolph Valentino, and was now married to a tall, gracious, handsome, young Spanish aristocrat named Alvaro de Urzaiz. She was, in short, mesmerizing.
Alvaro de Urzaiz, Mallorca, early 1930s
Natacha took a fondness that summer to the small American boy, whose grandparents, Californians-to-be by way of Berlin and Budapest, had a rented villa just below hers on a steep hillside of terraces and olive trees overlooking the blue-blue Mediterranean. She taught that boy how to make and serve cocktails to her guests (he grown-ups) on many a lovely late afternoon -- guests including the boy's mother, who had traveled across the Atlantic to ask her parents for money (the boy did not know this, either) with which to obtain her divorce from the boy's father.
Alvaro (sitting), and Natacha (standing behind him wearing a turban), entertain guests
In between serving cocktails, the boy, while the grownups were out on the terrace would pull down the shades and read here and there bits in the interesting books on Natacha Rambova's bookshelves -- and it was standing up secretly at these shelves that the boy, over several days, read and got several sexual charges out of reading Natacha's literature collection.
It seems that a favorite of our American boy's was Alfred Dreyfus' novel called "Torture Garden." But he did finally become introduced to "Diary of a Chambermaid" and discovered its delights, as well. "Diary of a Chambermaid" was so shocking that the U.S. Postal Service in 1901 decided that the work was to be banned in America, sight unseen, for obscenity.
In fact, "Diary of a Chambermaid" first appeared in the United States as a play, and was described as 'a dirty little book with the picture of a French maid on the cover.' Although the little French maid denied any untoward action on her part in her diary, we are always left to wonder what really happened ... because what else is a good working girl to do?
Our American boy whom Natacha was so fond of, Jerry Tallmer, had a mother by the name of Ilona Lowenthal Tallmer Müller-Munk. Ilona was a friend of Natacha's and was staying with her while she convinced her parents to give her the cash to divorce Jerry Tallmer's father, who was Peter F. Tallmer. I do not know if this woman was an actress and if this name was her real name, or exactly what she did in society if anything, but she was special enough to stay with Natacha and her husband.
Jerry Tallmer (12/9/1920 - 11/9/2014)
I don't think any of us ever forget that magical 'coming of age' time in our lives, and it was the same for Jerry Tallmer. Even though he was well into his 90s when he died, he still had vivid memories of his time with Natacha Rambova. I also keep in mind that he wrote his last memories of his life less than a month before he passed away in November of 2014. The memories were of three things ... his brother and the regrets Jerry felt in that area, his mother and the resentment that she brought to his life, and Natacha and the beauty, both physical and spiritual, that SHE brought to his life.
At the time Jerry and his mother (and Jerry's younger brother, Jonathon) were in Mallorca, Spain the children were not told the reason they were truly there. Their mother, who was abusive both physically and emotionally, told the boys years later of the true reason for the 'vacation.' Jerry's first memory of the trip was learning the song 'Stormy Weather' by listening to it being woozily sung by two young women in the ship's saloon. In 2014 he likened it to "playing casino games in Cool Cat Casino sites from here in cool cat casino online sites." I'd have to say the guy was still pretty sharp if he could make that leap.
He went on to mention all the gracious Spanish people who worked for them there -- giving us information on Isabel the housekeeper, Juan the chauffeur, and others. But his main memory truly was trying to make points with the gorgeous Natacha Rambova and fantasizing about the possibilities those points could bring his way.
It would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that young Jerry more than once saw Natacha as his own 'chambermaid."
We have heard that Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova had a collection of American and foreign pornography. I don't know if that is true or the product of the Hollywood rumor mill. I seem to remember that they had the foreign porn in the language of the country, and they both did speak and read French. Rudy was learning German, and of course, he read Italian and Spanish. I do not know of Natacha's abilities in reading foreign languages.
If they had anything like these books, I'm sure George Ullman got his hands on them and they never made their way to the estate sale. They likely were sold privately for a substantial sum, since I have not heard of George Ullman being multilingual either in speech or reading ability.
Or ... perhaps Natacha took the books she wanted for herself when she and Rudy separated. Then again, it is also possible that the books young Jerry was looking through belonged to de Urzaiz, since it would have been very difficult to get any of them through customs. Or Natacha may have had them at Juan Les Pins and had them sent to Mallorca. If she had them sent to Mallorca, they never left, since Natacha was forced to flee the island with only the clothes on her back and her little dog, Bimbo.
We'll never know ...but how avant-garde ... how very 'Natacha.'
Darkmum
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updated from March 2, 2023