Silent Film Actor's Funeral Plunged NYC Into Anarchy in 1926

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla wasn't destined to have his name in lights. First off, his name was way too long. Secondly, his family had other plans. Born to a bourgeois Italian family in 1865, he was shipped off to the Royal Naval Academy when he came of age. Luckily for flapper-kind, his poor eyesight disqualified him from service—so he placated his mother by earning a degree from the Royal Academy of Agriculture. But America's heartthrob-in-waiting wasn't too keen on his agrarian calling. In 1913, the 18-year-old packed a suitcase full of Brilliantine and boarded a ship to Ellis Island. continue