Day Dreams

When silent film icon Rudolph Valentino penned this book of poetry in 1923, he was waging a ‘one man strike’ against his studio demanding higher quality production standards for his films. While he struggled to find a solution to this employment impasse, he delved into the occult and spiritualism and wrote his Daydreams poems. Shortly after Valentino’s sudden death in 1926, his ex-wife, Natacha Rambova claimed her husband was adept at receiving messages from the other side via automatic writing. She also alleged that Valentino did not write the Daydreams poems, but instead transcribed them while in a trance, channeling them from his own spirit guides and noted, deceased poets. Although these poems appear online and in other publications, they are still protected by the copyright protection of the Valentino family. In 2002, the Valentino family granted Evelyn Zumaya contractual permission to reissue the poems, “in any edition” of this publication and she has reasserted their copyright protection in this second edition. The mystery of the true authorship of Valentino’s fascinating “psychic” poems remains unsolved and continues to be the subject of discussion for Valentino’s many ardent admirers.