Kathleen, Queen of the Desert

Written July 2003

The works of Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and Claude Monet reflected French social, political, and economic conditions as well as artistic breakthroughs in the nineteenth century Realism and Impressionist movements. As the upper classes were attempting to stay in control and only valued art done in the academic tradition, these three painters pushed aside artistic boundaries and responded to a fading agrarian lifestyle, urban social unrest, and new awareness of the artistic reaction.

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An Italian-American’s portrayal of the Anglo-Spaniard adopted by an Arab sheik in two silent movies may yet still provide many Americans with vivid, romantic, and ridiculous images of Arab men

Rudolph Valentino still colors the American myth of the Arabian man. I might not have believed this if I hadn’t heard this myth spouted from the mouths of young American women living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Being stolen and locked up in a palace or desert tent at the hands of a dashing Arab on a galloping horse was on the minds of Karen, Sarah and me as we sipped mochas and picked at scones at the bustling Starbucks in the Mercato Mall along Jumeirah Beach Road. “Doesn’t that sound exciting! Karen gushed as we perused her shopping treasures from the spice souq that afternoon. “I may have a great business development job here, but I’m still looking for my sheik!” Those images came from Valentino’s iconic Jazz Age movies The Sheik and Son of the Sheik. Not even the events of 9/11 seemed to intrude on those young women’s fantasies. Whether or not they had even heard of Rudolph Valentino, I couldn’t be sure.

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Originally written for a Westminster College writing class, spring 2006.

Rudolph “The Sheik” Valentino married his second wife—a great-granddaughter of Mormon patriarch Heber C. Kimball—in 1922 and then again, legally, in 1923. Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy took it from there.

“He does not look like your husband. He is not in the least like your brother. He does not resemble the man your mother thinks you ought to marry.”
—a 1920s fan magazine describes Rudolph Valentino

Women fainted in theaters during Rudolph Valentino’s movies, and his premature death in 1926 provoked thousands of rioting fans to break out windows in the funeral parlor to see his corpse. A modern-day equivalent would be if Leonardo DiCaprio had died soon after appearing in Titanic. A mysterious, heavily veiled “Woman in Black” appeared every year on the anniversary of Valentino’s death to leave roses at his crypt in Los Angeles. Who was this “sheik,” the “male Helen of Troy,” “the Phantom Rival in every domestic establishment”? And what was Valentino’s connection to the Beehive State?

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It’s the day before Christmas, and my son Sam is helping me put together a Web site. A site will be an easy way to share what I do. Wouldn’t my dad have loved to have put his writing, music, and HO layout designs onto a Web site. Wouldn’t my mom have loved to have put her lyrics and fundraising information onto a Unitarian Universalist Web site.

A creative person needs a Web site. I’ll see you in the coming weeks.