Talk:Natacha Rambova

---

Rambova's Sexuality

I added the material about Rambova's possible affair with Nazimova under the IP 64.228.99.78 (I had thought I was signed in to Wikipedia, but wasn't). Anyway, my source is Emily Leider's biography of Rudolph Valentino that also includes a lot of material about Rambova. Leider--who is undecided herself about whether or not Rambova had an affair with Nazimova--draws on both Gavin Lambert's biography of Alla Nazimova, Nazimova (1997) which argues Rambova was in fact bisexual, and Michael Morris's Madame Valentino (1992) which argues just as firmly that she was not.

I myself am very tired of all these dubious rumours about actresses and writers that have added to Wikipedia in recent months, but here there does seem to be some justification in at least mentioning that Rambova may have been involved with Nazimova. Leider's biography is generally well respected (going by the reviews I read anyway), and she does make an effort to treat questions about Rambova's sexuality in a balanced manner.

There are no doubt many Wikipedians whose knowledge of Nazimova and Rambova is far greater than mine, and if they chose to take issue with my source, that's fine.

Miss Tabitha 02:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Rambova was not even bisexual. Her and Nazimova's relationship was just business and some-what friendship. Her relatives and the friends she had later in her life stated she despised lesbians. Michael Morris writes of this in the biography he wrote about her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.14.226 (talk) 04:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, she was a homophobic heterosexual then.

Please correct the Lesbian end of article it was never in any Natacha Ranbova articke on wiki till now . You cannot say nobody ever says she a lesbian and then have a guy say she was ; if her friends say she was hetrosexual you go by her friends not what some unknown writer says; Her friends should know .

Filmfan65 (talk) 10:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Correction Natacha Rambova Filmfan65 (talk) 10:11, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Start again Please correct the lesbian end of the article . The unsigned writer above is correct michael morris biography of Natacha Rambova states she was hetrosexual. Also some male feminist with a agenda is not the same as friends saying she was hetrosexual. The rumours began with Anger book not before. Dock.andrew@mail con

Filmfan65 (talk) 10:17, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Rambova and Valentino were heterosexuals. Adela Rogers St. John was a writer who knew both of them well, and stayed with them during the period when their relationship was illicit because Valentino was still married to Jean Acker. She described their lovemaking as noisy. She said that Valentino was besottedly in love with Rambova, and never recovered from their divorce. Younggoldchip (talk) 15:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Mormon?

Rambova is listed in several categories stating she was Mormon. Though she was a descendent of a prominent Mormon leader, there is no evidence (that I have found, anyway) that Rambova identified as Mormon. Until someone can provide citation, I'm removing her from these categories. -Porlob 17:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

To answer both she wasnt gay; and she wasn't Mormon. She may have had somne bisexual flings but she primarily considered herself straight. As for Mormon she was a descendant but she was actually a Spiritualist and she really enjoyed Egyptian religion themes.--Maggiedane (talk) 06:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Civil War

"...she witnessed a pro Franco bishop who wouldn’t provide sanctuary to a woman when leftists were rounding up people and shooting." I don't understand why the pro-Franco bishop, who was right-wing, refused to protect a woman persecuted by the left-wing people? If the bishop (right-wing) refused to protect a woman, who was leftist and persecuted by Franco supporters, I would "understand" why he did that: because he didn't like the left-wing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.196.207.173 (talk) 02:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If you think the Spanish Civil war was as simple as "left" vs "right" you really need to read up on it a bit more! A fascist bishop denying sanctuary to a liberal/monarchist/conservative--republican catholic woman pursued by communists, trotskyists, anarchists, or "uncontrolables" sounds plausible to me. Maybe the bishop was a coward as well as a francoist and only wanted to save his own skin? Maybe the woman had skipped communion that week? Plausible, but I am just speculating. Benvenuto (talk) 07:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

One Source tag

Leider's book is fab, but Madame Valentino would be much more relevant. However it is an extremely large book, and I do not have time to go add sources. I would recommend someone who does have time might. Thanks. --Maggiedane (talk) 07:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

That was the intent. Other sources need to be added, it didn't mean you had to do it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Multiple issues

I’m hoping I’ve resolved these issues with my full re-draft of today 26/5/14.

It may seem a drastic cut in length, but much of the article seemed to be taken up with long-running feuds between people who are forgotten today - as is Rambova herself (arguably), except among arcane scholars, one of whom presumably wrote the previous version. This means that many of the citations have also been culled, but as nearly all of these have come from one source, I don’t think much has been lost.

Anyway, I’ve taken the liberty of removing the tags, and I trust this is OK. Valetude (talk) 11:43, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Natacha Rambova/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Articles relies on only one source. Additional sources should be found for balance. Pinkadelica Say it... 09:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 09:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 00:52, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Image sizes

Is there some good reason for forcing a fixed image size in pixels? If not, WP:IMGSIZE says to use a scaling factor instead. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:40, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

@Kendall-K1: are you referring to the upright function? I had sized them just so they didn't jut out too much/so they aren't too obtrusive on the text, but I realize this will present differently from computer monitor to computer monitor (or tablet monitor to tablet monitor). I can add the upright function to the thumbnails. --Drown Soda (talk) 23:36, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Natacha Rambova/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: A. Parrot (talk · contribs) 05:06, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	I found and fixed a few minor oddities in the punctuation and word choice, and there are probably more I haven't caught. But few of them affected the comprehensibility of the article, and it's very readable overall.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	See my comments below the table.
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Earwig's tool shows no signs of copyright violation.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	See my comments below the table.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pass

The article does a good job of summarizing the disparate aspects of Rambova's life. I'd say it's close to GA standard, and with a little work it could become an FA, though not in time to be TFA on Rambova's next birthday, as you hoped on the Ancient Egypt talk page; FAC is too backlogged. However, based on my spot-checking of many of the sources I can access, there are some problems with the sourcing that also affect how complete the article is. While a GA isn't required to be as comprehensive as an FA, I noticed a few places where a reader could feel that something significant is missing.

A couple of the citations I checked don't entirely support the text. The copyright listing for Mythological Papyri (citation 105) doesn't describe the subject matter of Rambova's chapter. (This one is an easy fix; just cite that sentence to the book itself.) David Wallace (citation 106) doesn't dismiss the alleged relationship with Nazimova, just the notion that Rambova was lesbian. This kind of slight misrepresentation of a source can happen in article writing—it happened to me in my first GA—but I advise rechecking the citations to make sure they say what you think they say.

A larger problem is the way the article approaches Rambova's contentious personal life. The article treats the subject neutrally but sometimes fails to explain where the contentious claims about her originated, which could leave a reader wondering. Rambova "purportedly belittled and cheated on" Valentino, but who purported that she did so? I looked at the source, Rambova and Pickford 2009, and that book treats it as fact and has a footnote for it. I couldn't follow the footnote because of the limitations of the Google Books preview, but if you're still able to access the book, I suggest you look at what it says. Similarly, the section on Rambova's sexuality focuses a bit too much on authors' opinions, and the reasons why and when people started to suspect she wasn't heterosexual feel a bit buried. A good approach would be to list the pieces of evidence first: her closeness with Nazimova, her claim that the marriage to Valentino wasn't consummated, the evidence that it actually was consummated, de Acosta's autobiography, and possibly suspicions of friends of Nazimova (which are mentioned in Abrams 2008). Then you could lay out the opinions of recent authors.

One other thing I'd like to see, if Rambova gave any details beyond what's already quoted in the article, is what she thought was so profound about the Book of Caverns. Unlike the other texts she mentions as the book's equal, Egyptian underworld books aren't very common sources of inspiration for modern esotericists. But obviously you couldn't say anything more if Rambova never specified her reasons, and even if she did, I don't consider it necessary for GA status.

I'm putting the article on hold, but I think these problems can be addressed without much difficulty. Thank you for improving this article. A. Parrot (talk) 08:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

@A. Parrot: Thank you for taking the time to review as well as for the input. I have done a bit of work paring down the section on the claims about Rambova's sexuality; I was hesitant to include them in the article given the delicacy of the subject and contention regarding it (there is already discussion of this on this talk page from years back), but it's a claim that is so widely-circulated that I felt it irresponsible to at least not mention it in the article. I've tried to restructure that section based on your feedback, so now it more or less begins with one of the earliest mentions of it (which goes back to at least 1975) and the works through what the grounds of the claim is, and then contains a final paragraph with recent commentary from scholars/biographers. I didn't realize how wonky it was before, and I've tried to relegate some of the scholarly discussion to footnotes—that way, they're there, but not cluttering the body of the article.
I also excised the claim regarding Rambova "belittling" Valentino during their divorce; I unfortunately do not have access to a physical copy of that book and cannot trace the source of that. Pickford mentions that this is part of the "story" (i.e. common story or mythology) surrounding Valentino and Rambova's relationship, so whether or not it was reality is impossible to say, and since it is a rather small detail, I don't see it as being necessary to include. Believe it or not, when I first started working on the article, a great deal of it had been copied verbatim from Pickford's post-script in Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon, so that was a whole mess in and of itself to clean up (I wondered for a period whether or not Pickford herself may have written the early versions of the article.
As far as Rambova's interest in the Book of Caverns goes, I have not been able to uncover any information as to what her specific reasoning was; that information may lie in one of the manuscripts she left after her death, but it's difficult to know. Her quote regarding is rather ambiguous, though it does seem to imply that there was something about it that she found significant, or that struck her. I know next-to-nothing about Egyptology, but I also find this curious. If I've missed something else or need to give additional attention to other parts of the article, just let me know. --Drown Soda (talk) 06:33, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@Drown Soda: Thank you for your quick response. The one hangup that I see is the citation to Wallace that I mentioned in my initial response (now citation 105), which still doesn't support the claim it's attached to. A. Parrot (talk) 18:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@A. Parrot: Oops, you're absolutely right—I somehow missed that in the first go-around. Thank you!--Drown Soda (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it meets the criteria now. A. Parrot (talk) 20:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Colonel Michael Shaughnessy

I have to get the book written by Michael Morris. If he would of done actual research into Winifred's (Natacha) early life, he would of realized he even got the basics wrong. I guess gossip and hearsay was easier to publish.

Winifred filed for divorce in December 1906 (i believe that was the correct month, i dont have the file in front of me) and the divorce was granted and finalized on January 7, 1907. 10 days later, she married her 3rd husband, who was a friend to the Shaughnessy’s (according to sworn statements by both Mr and Mrs Dewolfe taken from the civil war pension file of Michael Shaughnessy, where Winifred filed a petition for support of her and Michael's minor child. I guess it was easiest for Winifred to marry a friend of her husband/ex husband, as it didnt require her to go out and meet someone new).

Morris says in his book that Michael would steal Winifred's belongings and gamble them away. Michael was a well known millionaire. After the death of his first wife who was his business partner in mining, someone who he considered his equal, and his rock, his life definitely took a down hill turn, and he lost a majority of his wealth due to bad investments. Towards the end of his life, while he was no longer a millionaire, he also was not desitute, and in Winifred's petition for divorce she states that he was more then capable of financially supporting her and their daughter. Claiming he stole her possessions is absurd and the author is trying to paint Michael as the Villan of the first part of Natacha's story.

The author also forgets to mention how Michael got to Utah in the first place and says nothing about his life before Utah.

After fighting in the civil war, he was first appointed by president Johnson to the IRS in Carrollton Alabama. He was then appointed by President Grant in 1870 to United States marshal of the southern division of Mississippi. During his time as marshal, he oversaw the Kkk trials and was involved with bringing members of that organization to justice. He was heavily involved in politics after the civil war, and was a life long member of the republican party. He was a fierce supporter of equal rights. After his term as marshal ended, President Grant appointed him next to the IRS.

In 1878, he was forced to leave Mississippi for the safety of his family and his own safety. He wasnt liked in reconstruction era Mississippi bc he was a radical republican, advocated for the rights of black people, and investigated and arrested members of the KKK, some of which the Vicksburg Herald called, good and honest men.

It was his involvement in the Chisolm massacre and the fact he brought national attention to Mississippi by writing the new york Herald about the situation in Kemper County (chisolm massacre) that apparently crossed the line. A newspaper article said he recieved constant threats against his life while living in Mississippi, but after the Chisolm massacre, Michael new him and his family absolutely could not stay.

That is when he was appointed U.S. marshal of Utah by President Rutherford B. Hayes. He served one term, and ended up staying in Utah the rest of his life. He was well known in Salt Lake City, and was liked and respected while marshal of the state (terrority at the time) and also as a businessman. He remained a prominent figure in business and state politics (he was also well known in political and business circles in NY and DC) until he died in 1910. He led an extremely extraordinary life in a very difficult time in American history, and I'm proud of the contributions he made to make the United States a better place for all.

To sum it up, Michael Morris makes my relative look like some bum, that both Winifred's had to escape. While I will admit, the man was human and had his faults, Winifred Kimball was no victim. Michael's wealth wasn't what it was when she first married him, so she had to move on to the next. The third one wasn't providing her with the wealth and social status she desired, so she had to divorce that husband too. Luckily the fourth husband was rich enough, so she could stay married to that one. I think Winifred was an opportunist, whose priorities were wealth and status.

And that is the truth about Col.Michael Shaughnessy, father to Natacha Rambova. Not the version Morris made up. Trishaj12 (talk) 23:58, 16 December 2023 (UTC)