Natacha Rambova
| Natacha Rambova | |
|---|---|
Natacha Rambova
|
|
| Born |
Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy January 19, 1897 Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Died | June 5, 1966 (aged 69) Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Natasha Rambova |
| Occupation | Costume and set designer, artistic director, screenwriter, producer, actress, fashion designer |
| Spouse(s) |
Rudolph Valentino (m. 1923–25) Alvaro de Urzaiz (m. 1934–39) |
Natacha Rambova (January 19, 1897 – June 5, 1966) was an American film costume and set designer, best known for her marriage to Rudolph Valentino. Although they shared many interests such as art, poetry and spiritualism, his colleagues felt that she exercised too much control over his work and blamed her for several expensive flops. In later life, she continued her spiritualist activities, as well as studying Egyptology.
Rambova was born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy in Salt Lake City. Her father, Michael Shaughnessy, was an Irish Catholic who fought for the Union during the American Civil War and then worked in the mining industry. Her mother, Winifred Kimball, was a granddaughter of Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball.
Winifred (senior) was four times married, settling eventually on millionaire perfume mogul Richard Hudnut, and becoming a well-connected interior designer in San Francisco. Rambova was adopted by her stepfather, making her legal name Winifred Hudnut. A rebellious teenager, Rambova was sent to a strict British boarding-school, where she proved especially gifted at ballet. Her family had encouraged her to study ballet purely as a social grace, and were appalled when she chose it as her career. But an aunt intervened and took her to New York, where she studied under the Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Theodore Kosloff in his Imperial Russian Ballet Company, and adopted the name Natacha Rambova. Although too tall to be a classical ballerina, she was given leading parts by Kosloff, who soon became her lover. Rambova’s mother was outraged at this affair with a much-older married man, and tried to have Kosloff deported. But when Rambova fled abroad, her mother relented and agreed to her continuing to perform with the company.
When Kosloff was hired by Cecil B. DeMille as a performer and costume designer for Hollywood films, Rambova carried out much of the creative work as well as the historical research. Kosloff would then steal her sketches and claim credit for them as his own. Both professionally and personally, her partnership with Kosloff was tempestuous. He was a controlling and abusive man with many other lovers, who once shot her in the leg when she tried to leave him.
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