THE DIVO AND THE DUCE P R O M O T I N G F I L M S TA R D O M A N D P O L I T I C A L L E A D E R S H I P I N 1 9 2 0 S A M E R I C A G I O R G I O B E R T E L L I N I Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Constance and William Withey Endowment Fund in History and Music. The Divo and the Duce CINEMA CULTURES IN CONTACT Richard Abel, Giorgio Bertellini, and Matthew Solomon, Series Editors 1. The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America , by Giorgio Bertellini The Divo and the Duce Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America Giorgio Bertellini UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2019 by Giorgio Bertellini Suggested citation: Bertellini, G. The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America . Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.62 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Cover illustrations: (Above) Valentino, posing before his bust-in-progress and unidentified sculptress. Rudolph Valentino, no. 194, Core Collection Biography Photos, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Courtesy of AMPAS. (Below) Mussolini, posing before his bust-in-progress and American sculptor Jo Davidson, ca. 1927. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Partito Nazionale Fascista, Ufficio Propaganda (Fotografie Istituto Luce), b.1, 90. Courtesy of ACS. Author photo by Mary Lou Chlipala. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bertellini, Giorgio, 1967– author. Title: The Divo and the Duce : promoting film stardom and political leadership in 1920s America / Giorgio Bertellini. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Series: Cinema cultures in contact ; 1 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. To view a copy of the license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/ licenses | Identifiers: LCCN 2018033486 (print) | LCCN 2018036816 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520972179 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520301368 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Publicity—United States—History—20th century. | Valentino, Rudolph, 1895–1926. | Mussolini, Benito, 1883–1945. | Mass media and publicity. | Communication in politics. | Celebrities in mass media. | Motion picture industry—United States—History— 20th century. Classification: LCC HM1226 (ebook) | LCC HM1226 .B48 2019 (print) | DDC 305.5/2--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033486 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Leila c ontents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: “Nothing Like Going to an Authority!” 1 part one. Power and Persuasion 1. Popular Sovereignty, Public Opinion, and the Presidency 17 2. Cultural Nationalism and Democracy’s Opinion Leaders 37 3. Wartime Film Stardom and Global Leadership 56 part two. The Divo, or the Governance of Romance 4. The Divo, New-Style Heavy 83 5. The Ballyhooed Art of Governing Romance 114 6. Stunts and Plebiscites 145 part Three. The Duce, or the Romance of Undemocratic Governing 7. Promoting a Romantic Biography 165 8. National Leader, International Actor 198 Conclusions 227 Archival Sources 235 Abbreviations 237 Notes 239 Selected Primary Sources 297 Index 303 Illustrations 1. Pickford, Fairbanks, and friends giving the Fascisti salute, 1927 2 2. Douglas Fairbanks in Rome at the Circo Massimo 2 3. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks at the Roman Forum, 1926 2 4. Mary Pickford sending Liberty Bond films to President Wilson, 1919 35 5. President Wilson planting the seeds of his peace treaty, 1919 43 6. Advertisement for The Little American, 1917 60 7. Douglas Fairbanks speaking about Liberty Loans, Subtreasury building 65 8. Rodolfo Di Valentina, a “new style heavy,” 1918 90 9. Valentino’s appealing gallantry in The Married Virgin, 1918 93 10. Valentino as Jimmy Calhoun in The Delicious Little Devil, 1919 96 11. Valentino stifling the cries of an innocent wife in Eyes of Youth, 1919 97 12. Key figures at Metro Studios, 1920 101 13–14. Tango scenes in Buenos Aires and in Paris, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1921 104 15. Valentino’s spiritual conversion in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1921 107 16–17. Advertisements for The Sheik , 1921 122 18. Herb Roth’s illustration for “What Europe Thinks of American Stars,” 1923 130 19. Herbert Howe on the box office as ballot box, 1926 132 20. Valentino and Elinor Glyn as collaborators, 1922 135 21. Valentino as “caveman” and as tender lover, 1922 136 22. Frontispiece in Valentino’s How You Can Keep Fit, 1923 141 23. Valentino and Rambova as tango dancers on the Mineralava tour 142 x Illustrations 24. Rube Goldberg’s cartoons about Valentino in Photoplay , 1925 143 25. Illustration inspired by Valentino’s new goatee, 1925 146 26. Cartoon about Valentino in boxing match, 1926 152 27. Crowd outside the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, 1926 156 28. Valentino and Caruso in heaven, composograph, New York Evening Graphic, 1927 157 29. New York Blackshirts with the Duce’s wreath for Valentino’s coffin, 1926 159 30. Woodrow Wilson headlined as “the supreme duce of the free peoples,” 1918 167 31. The Blackshirts compared to the KKK, 1922 171 32. Richard Washburn Child, Washington, DC, 1924 176 33. Prince Gelasio Caetani, 1922 183 34. “Mussolini: Idol of Women,” by Alice Rohe, 1927 192 35. Cartoon about Mussolini versus Valentino, 1926 196 36. Fascist leader David Rossi (Bert Lytell) in The Eternal City, 1924 200 37. The Eternal City advertisement, 1924 201 38. On the set of The Man of the Hour, Villa Torlonia, 1927 210 39. The operators of Fox-Case outfit no. 1 filming The Man of the Hour , 1927 210 40–41. An initial draft of Mussolini’s speech and its final English version 211 42. Published frames of Mussolini from The Man of the Hour , 1927 214 43. Program for Benito Mussolini in The Man of the Hour and Sunrise, 1927 215 44. Fox Movietone ad featuring celebrities, 1928 218 45–46. Title screen and close-up of Mussolini in Mussolini Speaks, 1933 224 Acknowled gments This study took (way) more than a decade of research, writing, conference presentations, and rewriting. Out of curiosity and, admittedly, inertia, I could have gone for a few more, but it was time to share my findings with readers. What follows may offer an indication of the volume of my debts. A large-scale research project requires large institutional shoulders, and I feel privileged to work at the University of Michigan. I would like to thank the Col- lege of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA); the Office of the Vice President for Research; and my two departments, Film, Television, and Media (FTVM), formerly known as Screen Arts and Cultures, and Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL), for their steady financial support and multiple accommodations. The generous resources of an associate professor fund enabled me to acquire primary materials (i.e., microfilms) and scores of secondary sources, as well as to travel to archives in the United States and Europe. An ADVANCE faculty summer writing grant allowed me to hire two amazingly competent copyeditors, Ken Garner and Rebecca Grapevine, who polished my prose. Three spring and summer grants from the Rackham Graduate School were also fundamental for compensating three remarkable gradu- ate students, Courtney Ritter, Pierluigi Erbaggio, and Roberto Vezzani, who assisted with research and with compiling the bibliography. Outside funding came from a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University and a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society (APS). I wish to thank Barbara J. Grosz, then dean of the Radcliffe Institute; Judith Vichniac, director of its Fellowship Program; and Linda Musumeci, director of Grants and Fellowships for APS. In Ann Arbor, I was also spoiled by an incredibly efficient library system that delivered in-house and interlibrary-loan volumes practically to my office door. I am grateful to all the indefatigable librarians at Michigan for making research such a pleasurable adventure. This system could be improved only if, say, after the delivery of every ten books, they served an espresso macchiato. Over the years, I relied on the unwavering support and enthusiasm of different department chairs, Markus Nornes, Caryl Flinn, Johannes von Moltke, and Yeidy Rivero of Film, Television, and Media, and Michèle Hannoosh and Cristina Moreiras-Menor of Romance Languages and Literatures. In FTVM I have also been blessed to count on the exceptional professionalism and, most importantly, the friendship of Mary Lou Chlipala, the carpooler from “Up North” and a perfect house guest, the archi- vist-librarian-cum-magician Phil Hallman, and our departmental grand master Marga Schuhwerk-Hampel. I also wish to thank all my colleagues in FTVM and RLL for their support and help with bibliographic and scholarly suggestions, par- ticularly Richard Abel, Matthew Solomon, and Johannes von Moltke, as well as Vincenzo Binetti, Alison Cornish, Karla Mallette, and Paolo Squatriti. A special thank-you also to Dario Gaggio, from Michigan’s Department of History, for the generosity of his insights. The research for this project accompanied me for years in the classroom and in many exchanges with both graduate and undergraduate students. I am deeply grateful to the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at the University of Michigan. Under its aegis, I benefitted throughout the years from the help of a tremendous group of undergraduate students. I would like to mention here some of the most dedicated ones, including Jessica M. Oyler, Sara Cecere, Olivia Glowacki, Katharine Rose Allen, Nicolette De Simone, and, especially, James Hamzey. James continued to work after his employment ended and helped me with the bibliography before Roberto Vezzani completed the task. Roberto Vezzani and Pierluigi Erbaggio also enlightened me with their doctoral dissertations on, respectively, the American circulation of Italian fiction and of nonfiction films produced during Fascism. I am also grateful to other students who took my semi- nars American Cinema and Race, Screening Fascism, Stardom, and Cinema and Propaganda. I am happy to mention Jim Carter, Syed Feroz Hassan, Vincent Longo, Simonetta Menossi, Dimitrious Pavlounis, Emily Saidel, and Marissa Spada. A very special thanks to the graduate students at NYU–Italian Studies during my tenure as a Tiro a Segno Fellow. Their contributions to our seminar on 1920s mas- culinity were extraordinary. I am happy to single out particularly Noelle Griffis, Karen Graves, Marcella Martin, and Jacobus “Jaap” Verheul. Tracking film prints and photographs has not been terribly difficult because I have been aided by talented and professional researchers and archivists. I wish to thank Nico de Klerk, Ronny Temme, Jan-Hein Bal, Leontien Bout, and Annette Schulz from the EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam); Gabrielle Claes, Jean-Paul Dorchain, Jill De Wolf, and Clémentine De Blieck at the Cinematek (Brussels); the archivists at the Cinémathèque française (Paris) and the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC; Bois d’Arcy); and Maria Chiba and Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films (Paris). I am grateful also for the help I received from xii acknowledgments the Cineteca di Bologna, especially Andrea Meneghelli; and from the Museo del Cinema (Turin), especially Roberta Basano, Paola Bortolaso, Carla Ceresa, and Donata Pesenti Campagnoni. At the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I was lucky to be aided by Stacey Behlmer, Marisa Duron, Faye Thompson (who went out of her way to be of help), Jonathan Wahl, and Elizabeth “Libby” Wertin. In Los Angeles I also worked fruitfully at the UCLA Film & Television Archive Research and Study Center (ARSC) and at the University of Southern California’s Cinematic Arts Library. At the Museum of Modern Art, I relied on the superb professionalism of Ashley Swinnerton. At the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) at the Library of Congress, Rosemary C. Hanes suggested a wealth of titles and research paths. For research into paper documents, I am also grateful to the archivists at the Special Collections at UCLA, USC, the University of Chicago, the Center for Oral History at Columbia University, the Baker Library at Harvard University, the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale, the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton, and the Bancroft Library at Berkeley. My research was also fruit- ful at the Center for Migration Studies (Staten Island), thanks to Mary Elizabeth Brown, and at the Archivio Prezzolini (Biblioteca Cantonale, Lugano), with the help of Diana Rüesch and Karin Stefanski. In Rome, I spent an amazingly produc- tive summer because of the generous assistance of Loredana Magnanti, Vincenzo Troianiello, and Alberto Cau of the Archivio Storico Capitolino; Caterina Arfè of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Stefania Ruggeri and Paola Busonero of the Archivio Storico Diplomatico of the Ministero degli Affari Esteri. They went out of their way to accommodate my endless requests and my often difficult schedule. For help with the process of reproduction and publication permissions, I am grateful to Giuseppe D’Errico of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Rome; Nicola Immediato of the Archivio Storico Capitolino (Rome); Daniela Loyola and Paolo Danilo Audino of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato; Jean-Paul Dorchain of the Cinematek (Brussels); Kristine Krueger and Faye Thompson of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Thomas Lisanti and Jeremy Megraw of the New York Public Library; Rosemary Hanes of the Library of Congress; and Ashley Swinnerton of MoMA. I began giving talks on the subject back in 2001, at Berkeley, when I was invited by Barbara Spackman. That initial talk became my first essay on the top- ic, which I published in the Journal of Urban History in 2005 in a special issue edited by Donna Gabaccia, who had also invited me to present it at the University of Pittsburgh. Barbara and Donna, along with Gaylyn Studlar, Jacqueline Reich, Ruth Ben Ghiat, and Giuliana Muscio, taught me in countless ways how to research male stardom and political authority. Gaylyn also generously gifted me her splendid collection of photographs of Valentino. Over the years, I presented various iterations of my research at different institutions and conferences at Harvard University, the Calandra Institute for Italian American Studies, the Columbia Film acknowledgments xiii Seminar, New York University, Tiro a Segno Club (New York), the University of Turin, the University of Maryland, Ohio State University, the University of Notre Dame, Michigan State University, Oxford University, the University of Southern California, and the Columbia University Seminar in Modern Italian Studies. I wish to thank the organizers of these invited talks, particularly Krin Gabbard and William Luhr; Stefano Albertini and Ruth Ben Ghiat; Anthony J. Tamburri, Fred Gardaphé, and Joseph Sciorra; Silvio Alovisio and Giulia Carluccio; Saverio Giovacchini and Elizabeth Papazian; Lucy Fisher and Mark Lynn Anderson; Gaoheng Zhang; Joseph Francese and Joshua Yumibe; Dana Renga; Zygmunt Baranski and John P. Welle; Alessandro Carlucci, Guido Bonsaver, and Matthew Reza; and Ernest Ialongo. I also had the fortune of presenting my work at a few Society for Cinema and Media Studies meetings. I wish to thank the participants for their cogent questions, which made me rethink assumptions, arguments, and conclusions in ways that I treasure as models of scholarly exchange and growth. A number of colleagues and friends have provided encouragement, informa- tion, and advice. They may not know, but their contributions at different stages have helped me in no small measure to complete the work. For this, I wish to thank Mark Lynn Anderson, Jennifer Bean, Guido Bonsaver, Francesco Casetti, Sue Collins, Mark Garret Cooper, Kathryn Cramer-Brownell, Raffaele De Berti, Simone Cinotto, Yvonne Elet, Jane Gaines, Ken Garner, Lee Grieveson, Charlie Keil, Rob King, Marcia Landy, Emily Leider, Denis Lotti, Stefano Luconi, Giovanni Montessori, Burton Peretti, Ivelise Perniola, Francesco Pitassio, Matteo Pretelli, Dana Renga, Steven J. Ross, and Matthew Solomon. In particular, Silvio Alovisio, Luca Mazzei, and Giuliana Muscio have been extraordinarily generous with their time and knowledge in replying quickly to my innumerable queries. Gian Piero Brunetta has been unwavering in his support of this project and a model of research curiosity and argumentative lucidity through his many essays on Hollywood and Fascist Italy. Needless to say, however, whatever is on the page is my sole responsibility. A very special thank-you goes to Richard Abel, who read the manuscript twice (!) and provided masterful feedback and much needed encouragement. Thank you also to Ferdinando “Nando” Fasce (University of Genoa), whom I contacted for his inspiring research on American business and cultural history (and its relation- ship with Italy). Without ever meeting with me, Nando offered very productive feedback and was a model of long-distance scholarly collegiality. I am also grateful for the productive feedback I received from two anonymous reviewers who read the manuscript for the University of California Press. To put it simply, this book would not exist without Raina Polivka. As the acquisition editor for Film Studies at the University of California Press, she showed an immediate appreciation of the project’s design and appeal, as well as its significance in our fraught media and political climate. I feel very lucky that our collaboration, which started long ago, will continue with the series Cinema Cultures in Contact, coedited with Richard xiv acknowledgments Abel and Matthew Solomon, for which this study constitutes the opening volume. At the Press I also relied on Jessica Moll and Elena Bellaart, who did a superb job in overseeing the production process, and on Barbara Armentrout for a truly mas- terful copyediting. I am grateful to Jessica, Elena and Raina for shepherding the volume through the complex, but most rewarding, process of digital publication. The volume appears in the open-access platform Luminos thanks to a generous Open Access Monograph Publication Initiative Subvention from the University of Michigan. For personal hospitality, I am grateful to Stefano Bottoni, who provided a Mantuan haven in Brussels, to Ingalisa Schrobsdorff, who arranged for my stay in Washington, DC, to C. Paul Sellors and Ken Garner, who accompanied me in my Dutch and Parisian travels, and to Pierluigi Ercole for being always there. These close friends constantly encouraged me. In particular, Giovanni Cocconi foresaw the existence of a book after hearing me talk about this project nearly twenty years ago and never stopped demanding that his prophesy become reality. I wish to thank my families: Argia Lavagnini, Davide and Elena Presutti, Enzo and Benedetta Bertellini, Irma and Teresa Lavagnini, and Giorgio Cattapan for count- less errands and forms of support. Your affection continues to sustain me. Thank you also to Jennifer, Mark, Mayya, and Suheil Kawar for welcoming me into their lives and for their splendid hospitality in Washington, DC, and Beirut. Finally, my greatest debt is to my wife, Leila Kawar, who has not only taught me about politics and public life but also showered me with love, loyalty, and trust while pretending that my prose was always fine and my cooking amazing. acknowledgments xv Introduction “Nothing Like Going to an Authority!” This element of “Caesarism” is ineradicable (in mass states). Max Weber, 1918 1 What problems does foreignness solve for us? [. . .] Is foreignness a site at which certain anxieties of democratic self-rule are managed? Bonnie Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner, 2001 2 S TA R S’ S OV E R E IG N T Y In February 1927, in a photograph published in Motion Picture Magazine, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks appeared in the pleasurable company of friends and colleagues amidst ocean breezes on sun-kissed sands at their beachfront property near Laguna Beach. It seemed a serene and much-deserved escape from their bustling careers. Yet, even a casual magazine reader likely could not help but notice that the image told more than the story of two stars’ belated vacation at their second home. Most of the individuals, including Pickford and Fairbanks, smiled for the camera while proudly raising their right arm and stretching their hand to the sky (figure 1). 3 A long caption identified their distinct gesture as the “Fascisti salute” and explained that “Doug” and “Mary” used it to “greet visitors at their beach camp in true Italian style” after learning it in Italy during a meeting with none other than Benito Mussolini. Less than a year earlier, in the spring of 1926, the two Hollywood royals had paid a much-advertised visit to Italy, with stops in Florence, Naples, and Rome, where they expressed enthusiasm for Fascism. 4 In the capital, they met with the Italian dictator, and Pickford greeted the press with what a local daily described as a “saluto fascista.” Likewise, before readying himself for the camera, Fairbanks “proudly placed the fascist pin in his buttonhole, promising to carry it in and out of Italy, as long as he was in Europe,” to his wife’s approving nod. 5 Their various public engagements, including a visit to the Circus Maximus and the Imperial Fora, where they posed doing the Fascist salute, were the subject of intense coverage and visual display (figures 2 and 3). 6 The meeting with the Duce most likely occurred on May 10, 1926. 7 It lasted only fifteen minutes, from 4:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m., but it gained wide (albeit brief) notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic. 8 At Palazzo Chigi, the headquarters of the