Natacha Rambova

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Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy; January 19, 1897 – June 5, 1966) was an American film costume designer, set designer, and occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the 1920s. In her later life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the 1950s.

Rambova was born into a prominent family in Salt Lake City who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was raised in San Francisco and educated in England before beginning her career as a dancer, performing under Russian ballet choreographer Theodore Kosloff in New York City. She relocated to Los Angeles at age 19, where she became an established costume designer for Hollywood film productions. It was there she became acquainted with actor Rudolph Valentino, with whom she had a two-year marriage from 1923 to 1925. Rambova's association with Valentino afforded her a widespread celebrity typically afforded to actors.<ref name=picturing>Template:Cite web</ref> 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 career flops.

After divorcing Valentino in 1925, Rambova operated her own clothing store in Manhattan before moving to Europe and marrying the aristocrat Álvaro de Urzáiz in 1932. It was during this time that she visited Egypt and developed a fascination with the country that remained for the rest of her life. Rambova spent her later years studying Egyptology and earned two Mellon Grants to travel there and study Egyptian symbols and belief systems. She served as the editor of the first three volumes of Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations (1954–7) by Alexandre Piankoff, also contributing a chapter on symbology in the third volume. She died in 1966 in California of a heart attack while working on a manuscript examining patterns within the texts in the Pyramid of Unas.

Rambova has been noted by fashion and art historians for her unique costume designs that drew on and synthesized a variety of influences, as well as her dedication to historical accuracy in crafting them. Academics have also cited her interpretive contributions to the field of Egyptology as significant. In popular culture, Rambova has been depicted in several films and television series, figuring significantly in the Valentino biopics The Legend of Valentino (1975), in which she was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux, and Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) by Michelle Phillips. She was also featured in a fictionalized narrative in the network series American Horror Story: Hotel (2015), portrayed by Alexandra Daddario.

Early life

Rambova was born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy on January 19, 1897, in Salt Lake City, Utah.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her father, Michael Shaughnessy, was an Irish Catholic from New York City who fought for the Union during the American Civil War and then worked in the mining industry. Her mother, Winifred Shaughnessy (née Kimball),Template:Sfn was the granddaughter of Heber C. Kimball, a member of the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,Template:Efn and was raised in a prominent Salt Lake City family.<ref name=lesko/> At her father's wishes, Rambova was baptized a Catholic at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City in June 1897,Template:Sfn though she later was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the urging of her mother at age eight.Template:Sfn

Rambova's parents had a tumultuous relationship: her father was an alcoholic, and often sold her mother's possessions to pay off gambling debts.Template:Sfn This led Winifred (senior) to divorce Shaughnessy in 1900 and relocate with Rambova to San Francisco.Template:Sfn There, she remarried to Edgar de Wolfe in 1907.Template:Sfn During her childhood, Rambova spent summer vacations at the Villa Trianon in Le Chesnay, France with Edgar's sister, the French designer Elsie de Wolfe.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The marriage between Winifred (senior) and Edgar de Wolfe was short-lived, and she again remarried, this time to millionaire perfume mogul Richard Hudnut.Template:Sfn Rambova was adopted by her new stepfather, making her legal name Winifred Hudnut.Template:Sfn Rambova was given the nickname "Wink" by her aunt Teresa to distinguish her from her mother because of their shared name.Template:Sfn She also sometimes went by Winifred de Wolfe, after her former step-aunt Elsie, with whom she maintained a relationship after her mother's divorce from Edgar.Template:Sfn

A rebellious teenager, Rambova was sent by her mother to Leatherhead Court, a boarding school in Surrey, England.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In her schooling, she became fascinated by Greek mythology,<ref name=lesko>Template:Cite web</ref> and also proved especially gifted at ballet.Template:Sfn After seeing Anna Pavlova in a production of Swan Lake in Paris with her former step-aunt Elsie, Rambova decided she wanted to pursue a career as a ballerina.Template:Sfn Her family had encouraged her to study ballet purely as a social grace, and were appalled when she chose it as her career. Her aunt Teresa, however, was supportive, and took Rambova to New York City, where she studied under the Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Theodore Kosloff in his Imperial Russian Ballet Company.Template:Sfn While dancing under Kosloff, she adopted the Russian-inspired stage name Natacha Rambova.Template:Sfn Standing at Template:Convert, Rambova was too tall to be a classical ballerina, but was given leading parts by the then-32-year-old Kosloff, who soon became her lover.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rambova's mother was outraged upon discovering the affair as Rambova was 17 years old at the time, and she tried to have Kosloff deported on statutory rape charges.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rambova retaliated against her mother by fleeing abroad, and her mother ultimately agreed to her continuing to perform with the company.Template:Sfn

Career

Design in film

Around 1917, Kosloff was hired by Cecil B. DeMille as a performer and costume designer for DeMille's Hollywood films, after which he and Rambova relocated from New York to Los Angeles.Template:Sfn Rambova carried out much of the creative work as well as the historical research for Kosloff, and he then stole her sketches and claimed credit for these as his own.Template:Sfn When Kosloff started work for fellow-Russian film producer Alla Nazimova at Metro Pictures Corporation (later MGM) in 1919, he sent Rambova to present some designs. Nazimova requested some alterations, and was impressed when Rambova was able to make these changes immediately in her own hand. Nazimova offered Rambova a position on her production staff as an art director and costume designer, proposing a wage of up to USD $5,000 per picture (Template:Inflation).Template:Sfn Rambova immediately began working for Nazimova on the comedy film Billions (1920), for which she supplied the costumes and served as art director.Template:Sfn She also designed the costumes for two Cecil DeMille films in 1920: Why Change Your Wife? and Something to Think About.Template:Sfn The following year, she served as the art director on the DeMille production Forbidden Fruit (1921), in which she designed (with Mitchell Leisen) an elaborate costume for a Cinderella-inspired fantasy sequence.Template:Sfn

While working on her second project for Nazimova—Aphrodite, which never was filmedTemplate:Sfn—Rambova revealed to Kosloff that she planned on leaving him. During the ensuing argument, he attempted to kill her,Template:Sfn shooting at her with a shotgun.Template:Sfn The gun fired into Rambova's leg, and the bullet lodged above her knee.Template:Sfn Rambova fled the Hollywood apartment she shared with Kosloff to the set of Aphrodite, where a cameraman helped her remove the birdshot from her leg.Template:Sfn Despite the nature of the incident, she continued to live with Kosloff for some time.Template:Sfn

Stylistically, Rambova favored designers such as Paul Poiret,Template:Sfn Léon Bakst,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and Aubrey Beardsley.Template:Sfn She specialized in "exotic" and "foreign" effects in both costume and stage design. For costumes she favored bright colors, baubles, bangles, shimmering draped fabrics, sparkles, and feathers.Template:Sfn She also strived for historical accuracy in her costume and set designs. As noted in The Moving Picture WorldTemplate:'s review of 1917's The Woman God Forgot (Rambova's first film project): "To the student of history the accuracy of the exteriors, interiors, costumes, and accessories ... [the film] will make strong appeal."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Relationship with Rudolph Valentino

In 1921, Rambova was introduced to actor Rudolph Valentino on the set of Nazimova's Uncharted Seas (1921).Template:Sfn She and Valentino subsequently worked together on Camille (1921),Template:Sfn a film that was a financial failure and resulted in Metro Pictures terminating their contract with Nazimova.Template:Sfn While making the film, however, Rambova and Valentino became romantically involved. Although Valentino was still married to American film actress Jean Acker, he and Rambova moved in together within a year, having formed a relationship based more on friendship and shared interests than on emotional or professional rapport. They then had to pretend to separate until Valentino's divorce was finalized, and married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico, an event described by Rambova as "wonderful ... even though it did cause many worries and heartaches later."Template:Sfn However, the law required a year to pass before remarriage, and Valentino was jailed for bigamy, having to be bailed out by friends.Template:Sfn They legally remarried on March 14, 1923, in Crown Point, Indiana.Template:Sfn

Both Rambova and Valentino were spiritualists, and they frequently visited psychics and took part in séances and automatic writing.Template:Sfn Valentino wrote a book of poetry, entitled Daydreams, with many poems about Rambova.Template:Sfn When it came to domestic life, Valentino and Rambova turned out to hold very different views. Valentino cherished Old World ideals of a woman being a housewife and mother, while Rambova was intent on maintaining a career and had no intention of being a housewife.Template:Sfn Valentino was known as an excellent cook, while actress Patsy Ruth Miller suspected Rambova didn't know "how to make burnt fudge," although the truth was she did occasionally bake and was an excellent seamstress.Template:Sfn Valentino wanted children, but Rambova did not.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Quotebox

While her association with Valentino lent Rambova a celebrity typically afforded to actors, their professional collaborations showed-up their differences more than their similarities, and she did not contribute to any of his successful films in spite of serving as his manager.Template:Sfn In The Young Rajah (1922)Template:Sfn she designed authentic Indian costumes that tended to compromise his Latin lover image, and the film was a major flop.Template:Sfn She also supported his one-man strike against Famous Players–Lasky, which left him temporarily banned from movie work.Template:Sfn In the interval, they performed a promotional dance-tour for Mineralava Beauty Products, to keep his name in the spotlight, though when they reached her hometown of Salt Lake City, and she was billed as "The Little Pigtailed Shaughnessy Girl", Rambova was deeply insulted.Template:Sfn In 1923, Rambova helped design the costumes for friend Alla Nazimova in Salomé, inspired by the work of Aubrey Beardsley.Template:Sfn Beginning in February 1924, she accompanied Valentino on a trip abroad that was profiled in twenty-six installments published in Movie Weekly over the course of six months.Template:Sfn

Rambova's later work with Valentino was characterised by elaborate and costly preparations for films that either flopped or never manifested. These included Monsieur Beaucaire, The Sainted Devil, and The Hooded Falcon (a film that Rambova co-wrote, but was never realized).Template:Sfn By this time, critics and the press were beginning to blame Rambova's excessive control for these failures.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn United Artists went so far as to offer Valentino an exclusive contract with the stipulation that Rambova had no negotiating power, and was disallowed from even visiting the sets of his films.Template:Sfn After this, Rambova was offered $30,000 to create a film of her choosing, which resulted in the production of What Price Beauty?, a drama which she co-produced and co-wrote.Template:Sfn In 1925, Rambova and Valentino separated, and an acrimonious divorce ensued.Template:Sfn

After the divorce proceedings began, Rambova moved on to other ventures: On March 2, 1926, she patented a doll she had designed with a "combined coverlet",<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite patent</ref> and also produced and starred in her own picture, Do Clothes Make the Woman? with Clive Brook (now lost).Template:Sfn However, the distributor took the opportunity to bill her as 'Mrs. Valentino' and changed the title to When Love Grows Cold; Rambova was horrified by the title change.Template:Sfn The film did garner press due to it being Rambova's first screen credit, however. An Oregon newspaper teased before a screening: "Natacha Rambova (Mrs. Rudolph Valentino) ... So much has been written of this remarkable lady who won and lost the heart of the great Valentino that everyone wants to see her. Tonight is your opportunity to do so."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The film, however, was not well received by critics; a review in Picture Play deemed the film "the poorest picture of the month, or of almost any month, for that matter," adding: "The interiors are bad, the costumes atrocious. Miss Rambova is not well dressed, nor does she film well, in the slightest degree."<ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Open access</ref> After its release, Rambova never worked in film, on or offscreen, again.Template:Sfn Three months later, Valentino died unexpectedly of peritonitis, leaving Rambova inconsolable,Template:Sfn and she purportedly locked herself in her bedroom for three days.Template:Sfn Though she did not attend his funeral, she sent a telegram to Valentino's business manager George Ullman, requesting he be buried in her family crypt at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (a request Ullman denied).Template:Sfn

Writing and fashion design

After Valentino's death, Rambova relocated to New York City. There, she immersed herself in several endeavors, appearing in vaudeville at the Palace Theatre<ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Open access</ref> and writing a semi-fictional play entitled All that Glitters, which detailed her relationship with Valentino, and concluded in a fictionalized happy reconciliation.Template:Sfn She also published the 1926 memoir, Rudy: An Intimate Portrait by His Wife Natacha Rambova, which contains memories of her life with him. The following year, a second memoir was published entitled Rudolph Valentino Recollections (a variation of Rudy: An Intimate Portrait), in which she prefaces an addended final chapter by asking that only those "ready to accept the truth" read on; what follows is a detailed letter supposedly communicated by Valentino's spirit from an astral plane, which Rambova claimed to have received during an automatic writing session.Template:Sfn While residing in New York, she frequently arranged séances with medium George Wehner, and claimed to have made contact with Valentino's spirit on several occasions.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rambova also appeared in supporting parts in two original 1927 Broadway productions: Set a Thief, a drama written by Edward E. Paramore, Jr., and Creoles, a comedy written by Kenneth Perkins and Samuel Shipman.<ref name=playbill>Template:Cite web</ref>

In June 1928, she opened an elite couture shop on Fifth Avenue and West 55th street in Manhattan,Template:Sfn which sold Russian-inspired clothing that Rambova herself designed.Template:Sfn Her clientele included Broadway and Hollywood actresses such as Beulah Bondi and Mae Murray.Template:Sfn On opening the shop, she commented: "I'm in business, not exactly because I need the money, but because it enables me to give vent to an artistic urge."Template:Sfn In addition to clothing, the shop also carried jewelry, although it is unknown if it was designed by Rambova or imported.Template:Sfn By late 1931, Rambova had grown uneasy about the economic situation of the United States during the Great Depression, and feared the country would experience a drastic revolution.Template:Sfn This led her to close her shop and formally retire from commercial fashion design, leaving the United States to live in Juan-les-Pins, France in 1932.Template:Sfn On a yacht cruise to the Balearic Islands, she met her second husband Álvaro de Urzáiz, a British-educated Spanish aristocrat, whom she married in 1932.Template:Sfn They lived together on the island of Mallorca and restored abandoned Spanish villas for tourists, a venture financed by Rambova's inheritance from her stepfather.Template:Sfn

It was during her marriage to Urzáiz that Rambova first toured Egypt in January 1936, visiting the ancient monuments in Memphis, Luxor, and Thebes.Template:Sfn While there, she met archeologist Howard Carter, and became fascinated by the country and its history, which had a profound effect on her.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn "I felt as if I had at last returned home," she said. "The first few days I was there I couldn't stop the tears streaming from my eyes. It was not sadness, but some emotional impact from the past – a returning to a place once loved after too long a time."Template:Sfn Upon returning to Spain, Urzáiz became a naval commander for the pro-fascist nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War. Rambova fled the country to a familial château in Nice, where she suffered a heart attack at age forty.Template:Sfn Soon after, she and Urzáiz separated. Template:Sfn Rambova remained in France until the Nazi invasion in June 1940, upon which she returned to New York.Template:Sfn

Egyptology and scholarly work

Rambova's interest in the metaphysical evolved significantly during the 1940s, and she became an avid supporter of the Bollingen Foundation, through which she believed she could see a past life in Egypt.Template:Sfn Rambova was also a follower of Helena Blavatsky and George Gurdjieff,Template:Sfn and she conducted classes in her Manhattan apartment about myths, symbolism, and comparative religion.Template:Sfn She also began publishing articles on healing, astrology, yoga, post-war rehabilitation, and numerous other topics,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn some of which appeared in American Astrology and Harper's Bazaar.<ref name=lesko/> In 1945, the Old Dominion (a predecessor to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) awarded Rambova a grant-in-aid of USD $500 for "making a collection of essential cosmological symbols for a proposed archive of comparative universal symbolism."Template:Sfn Rambova intended to use her research to generate a book, which she wanted Ananda Coomaraswamy to write, with the principal themes derived from astrology, theosophy, and Atlantis.Template:Sfn In an undated letter to Mary Mellon, she wrote:

Template:Quote

Rambova's intellectual investment in Egypt also led her to undertake work deciphering ancient scarabs and tomb inscriptions, which she began researching in 1946.<ref name=lesko/> Initially, she believed she would find evidence of a connection between ancient Egyptian belief systems and those of ancient American cultures.<ref name=lesko/> While researching at the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo, she met the institute's director, Alexandre Piankoff, with whom she established a rapport based on their shared interest in Egyptology.Template:Sfn Piankoff introduced her to his French translation of the Book of Caverns, a royal funerary text, which he was working on at the time. "To my amazement, I found that it contains all the most important esoteric material," Rambova wrote. "I can only compare it to the Coptic Pistis Sophia, the Tibetan Voice of the Silence, and the Hindu Sutras of Patanjali. It is what I have been looking for for years."Template:Sfn

Her interest in the Book of Caverns led her to abandon her studies of scarabs, and she began translating Piankoff's French translation into English, an endeavor she felt "was the main purpose and point" of her studies in Egypt.Template:Sfn She secured a second two-year grant of US$50,000 through the Mellon and Bollingen Foundations (a considerably large grant for the time) to help Piankoff photograph and publish his work on the Book of Caverns.<ref name=lesko/> In the winter of 1949–50, she joined Piankoff and Elizabeth Thomas in Luxor to undertake further studies.<ref name=lesko/> In the spring of 1950, the group was given permission to photograph and study inscriptions on golden shrines that had once enclosed the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, after which they toured the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara.<ref name=lesko/>

After completing the expedition in Egypt, Rambova returned to the United States, where, in 1954, she donated her extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts (accumulated over years of research) to the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She settled in New Milford, Connecticut, where she spent the following several years working as an editor on the first three volumes of Piankoff's series Egyptian Texts and Religious Representations,Template:Sfn<ref name=yaleschol/> which was based on the research he had done with Rambova and Thomas.<ref name=lesko/> The first volume was The Tomb of Ramesses VI published in 1954, followed by The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon in 1955. During this time, she kept regular correspondence with fellow Egyptologists William C. Hayes and Richard Parker.<ref name=lesko/>

For the third volume of Piankoff's series, Mythological Papyri (published in 1957), Rambova contributed her own chapter in which she discussed semiotics in Egyptian papyri.<ref name=papyri>Template:Cite book</ref> Rambova continued to write and research intensely into her sixties, often working twelve hours per day.<ref name=lesko/> In the years prior to her death, she was working on a manuscript examining texts from the Pyramid of Unas for a translation by Piankoff.Template:Sfn This manuscript, which exceeds a thousand pages, was donated to the Brooklyn Museum after her death.<ref name=lesko/> Two additional manuscripts were also left behind, which are part of Yale University's Yale in Egypt collection: The Cosmic Circuit: Religious Origins of the Zodiac and The Mystery Pattern in Ancient Symbolism: A Philosophic Interpretation.<ref name=yaleschol>Template:Cite web</ref>

Later life and death

In the early 1950s Rambova developed scleroderma, which significantly affected her throat, impeding her ability to swallow and speak.Template:Sfn

In 1957, Rambova moved to New Milford, Connecticut, and devoted her time to researching a comparative study of ancient religious symbolism, which she continued virtually unabated until her death.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She grew delusional, believing that she was being poisoned, and quit eating, resulting in malnourishment.Template:Sfn On September 29, 1965, she was discovered going "berserk" in a hotel elevator in Manhattan.Template:Sfn Rambova was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she was diagnosed with paranoid psychosis brought on by malnutrition.<ref name=wfpp>Template:Cite web</ref>

With her health in rapid decline, Rambova's cousin, Ann Wollen, relocated her from her home in Connecticut to California, in order to help take care of her.Template:Sfn There, Rambova was admitted to Methodist Hospital in Arcadia.Template:Sfn On January 19, 1966 (her 69th birthday), she was relocated to a nursing home at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena.Template:Sfn She died there six months later of a heart attack on June 5, 1966, at the age of 69.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn At her wishes, Rambova was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in a forest in northern Arizona.Template:Sfn

Claims regarding personal life

Claims that Rambova was bisexual or homosexual date back to at least 1975 when they appeared in Kenneth Anger's notoriously libelous Hollywood Babylon, in which it is written that Rambova claimed to have never consummated her marriage with Rudolph Valentino.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This has led some historians to refer to the couple's union as a "lavender marriage."<ref name=norton/> The claim, however, is at odds with the grounds of Valentino's 1922 arrest after the couple's wedding: he was arrested and jailed for consummating the marriage in Palm Springs, California, despite still being legally married to Jean Acker.Template:Sfn Discussion of Rambova's sexuality continued to appear in academic and biographical texts throughout the 1980s and beyond.Template:Efn

The basis of the claim is an alleged relationship Rambova had with Alla Nazimova,Template:Efn her friend and peer while Rambova was beginning her career in film design.Template:Efn Template:Sfn Similar inferences have been made about others in Nazimova's social circle, including Marlene Dietrich, Eva Le Gallienne, and Greta Garbo.Template:Sfn

Whether Rambova was bisexual or homosexual is unclear; some have disputed such claims, including journalist David Wallace, who dismisses it as rumor in his 2002 book Lost Hollywood.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Biographer Morris also disputes the claim, writing in his epilogue of Madam Valentino that "the convenient ... allegation that Rambova was a lesbian collapses when one scrutinizes the facts."<ref>Quoted in Template:Cite book</ref> Additionally, a close friend of writer Mercedes de Acosta (also an alleged lover of Nazimova) told Morris that she believed Rambova and Nazimova's relationship was nothing other than platonic.Template:Sfn Rambova's friend Dorothy Norman also stated that Rambova had been "displeased" by De Acosta's controversial 1960 autobiography, which implied she was bisexual or homosexual, as it had "cast her in an improper light."Template:Sfn In his 1996 book The Silent Feminists, Anthony Slide stated that "all who [knew] Rambova deny that she was a gay woman."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Cultural significance

Design and fashion

Rambova was one of the few women in Hollywood during the 1920s to serve as a head art designer in film productions.Template:Sfn At the time, her costume and set designs were considered "highly stylized," and divided opinion among critics.Template:Sfn A 1925 Picture Play magazine profile on What Price Beauty? noted the "bizarre" effects present, adding: "Miss Rambova insists the picture will be popular in its appeal, and not, as one might think, "arty.""<ref name=schallert>Template:Cite journal Template:Open access</ref> Rambova's sets incorporated shimmering shades of silver and white against sharp "moderne" lines, and blended elements of Bauhaus and Asian-inspired geometries.<ref name=stutesman/>

Commenting on her career in film, design historian Robert La Vine proclaimed Rambova one of the "most inventive designers ... ever," also noting her as one of few who crafted both sets and costumes.<ref name=stutesman/> Film historian Robert Klepper wrote of her designs in Camille (1921): "In evaluating the film today, one has to give art director Natacha Rambova her due credit for her vision as an artist. The deco sets are beautiful, and the ultra modern design was far ahead of its time. Although Rambova may have influenced her future husband Valentino to make some bad business decisions, her talent as an artist cannot be denied."Template:Sfn Historian Pat Kirkham also praised her contributions to film, writing that she created "some of the most visually unified films in Hollywood history."Template:Sfn Costume historian Deborah Landis named Rambova's white rubberized tunic (worn by Alla Nazimova) and the Art Deco-inspired imagery of Salome (1922) among the "most memorable in motion picture history."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Though her work in both set and costume design has been deemed influential by film and fashion historians alike,Template:Efn Rambova herself claimed to "loathe fashion," adding: Template:Quote

Thus, Rambova's approach to fashion design in her post-film career was conscious of the individual, a practice which fashion historian Heather Vaughan suggests was carried over from her past designing movie costumes for "individual character types."Template:Sfn Vaughan adds: "While not necessarily an innovator of fashion, her Hollywood cachet and ability to synthesize fashion and traditional cultures allowed her to create designs and a personal style that continues to fascinate."Template:Sfn

Rambova's clothing designs drew on various influences, described by fashion critics as blending and re-working elements of Renaissance, 18th-century, Oriental, Grecian, Russian, and Victorian fashion.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Common preferences in her work included the dolman sleeve, long skirts with high waists, premium velvets, and intricate embroidery,Template:Sfn as well as incorporation of geometric shapes and use of "vivid colors ... that are violent and definite. Scarlets, vermilions, strong blues, [and] blazoning purples."Template:Sfn She was cited as influential by several designers with whom she worked, including Norman Norell, Adrian, and Irene Sharaff.Template:Sfn Rambova typically dressed in the style of her designs, and thus her personal style was also influential: She often wore her hair in coiled "ballerina style" braids,Template:Sfn sometimes covered in a headscarf or turban, with dangling earrings and calf-length velvet or brocade skirts.Template:Sfn Actress Myrna Loy once proclaimed Rambova the "most beautiful woman she'd ever seen."Template:Sfn In 2003, Rambova was posthumously inducted into the Costume Designers' Guild Hall of Fame.Template:Sfn

Scholarly influence

Rambova's scholarly work has been regarded as significant by contemporary academics in the fields of Egyptology and history: archaeologist Barbara Lesko notes that her contribution to Piankoff's Mythological Papyri "demonstrates her organizational skills and her commitment to searching out truths and does not reek of unfounded theories or other eccentricity."<ref name=lesko/> Rambova's research, specifically her metaphysical interpretations of texts, has been deemed useful by Egyptologists Rudolph Anthes, Edward Wente, and Erik Hornung.<ref name=lesko/> In the 1950s, Rambova donated her extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts to the University of Utah, displayed in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts's Natacha Rambova Collection of Egyptian Antiquities.<ref name=lesko/>Template:Sfn Both Rambova and her mother were credited as "vital" to the establishment of the museum through their donations of paintings, furniture, and artifacts.<ref name=dailyu>Template:Cite web</ref>

Depictions in art and film

Rambova has been depicted across several mediums, including visual art, film, and television: She was the subject of a 1925 painting by Serbian artist Paja Jovanović (donated by her mother to the UMFA in 1949).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1975, she was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux in Melville Shavelson's television film The Legend of Valentino (1975),Template:Sfn and again by Michelle Phillips in Ken Russell's feature film Valentino (1977).Template:Sfn Ksenia Jarova later portrayed her in the American silent film Silent Life (2016), and she also figured in a fictionalized narrative in the network series American Horror Story: Hotel (2015), played by Alexandra Daddario.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Template:Abbr
1917	The Woman God Forgot §	Template:N/A	Costume designer	Template:Sfn
1920	Why Change Your Wife? §	Template:N/A	Costume designer	Template:Sfn
1920	Something to Think About §	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer	Template:Sfn
1920	Billions	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer	Template:Sfn
1921	Forbidden Fruit §	Template:N/A	Costume designer	Template:Sfn
1921	Camille §	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer Uncredited	Template:Sfn
1921	Aphrodite	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer (never made)	Template:Sfn
1922	Beyond the Rocks §	Template:N/A	Valentino's costumes	Template:Sfn
1922	The Young Rajah	Template:N/A	Costume designer Uncredited	Template:Sfn
1922	A Doll's House	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer	Template:Sfn
1923	Salomé §	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer, writer Credited as Peter M. Winters	Template:Sfn
1924	The Hooded Falcon	Template:N/A	Costume designer, set decorator, writer (never made)	Template:Sfn
1924	Monsieur Beaucaire §	Template:N/A	Costume designer, writer	Template:Sfn
1924	A Sainted Devil	Template:N/A	Art director, costume designer, writer	Template:Sfn
1925	What Price Beauty?	Template:N/A	Producer, writer	Template:Sfn
1926	When Love Grows Cold	Margaret Benson	Template:Abbr title: Do Clothes Make the Woman?; only acting credit	Template:Sfn

§ Indicates surviving films

Stage credits

Year	Title	Role	Run date(s)	Venue	Template:Abbr of performances	Notes	Template:Abbr
1927	Set a Thief	Anne Dowling	February 21 – May 1	Empire Theatre	80	Broadway	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
1927	Creoles	Golondrina	September 22 – October 16	Klaw Theatre	28	Broadway	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Bibliography

Authored works

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Rambova, Natacha (February 1942 – June 1943). "Astrological Psycho-Chemistry". American Astrology.<ref name=lesko/>
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Edited works

Notes

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References

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Works cited

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External links

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Natacha Rambova at the Women Film Pioneers Project, Columbia University
Scan of article on Rambova in Dress (Vol. 33), 2006, Costume Society of America
Natacha Rambova papers at the Library of Congress
Catalog of artifacts donated by Rambova to the University of Utah (from the Utah Museum of Fine Art's Ancient Egyptian Art collection)
The Natacha Rambova Archive at Yale University (Yale in Egypt collection)

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Natacha Rambova

Contents

Early life