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Natacha Rambova Quotes

Natacha Rambova was an American film costume designer and 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.

Born into a prominent Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Rambova 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. 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 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 , in which she was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux, and Ken Russell's Valentino by Michelle Phillips. She was also featured in a fictionalized narrative in the network series American Horror Story: Hotel , portrayed by Alexandra Daddario. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. January 1897 – 5. June 1966
Natacha Rambova photo
Natacha Rambova: 13 quotes0 likes

Famous Natacha Rambova Quotes

“Actors are often inspired while playing by the very spirit who impressed the part upon the writer. When the actor is really mediumistic, as all great actors are whether they know it or not, the spirit may actually play the part through him.”

Natacha Rambova

On the metaphysics of acting, p. 209
Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon (2009)

“Fame is like a giant X-Ray. Once you are exposed beneath it, the very beatings of your heart are shown to a gaping world.”

Natacha Rambova

On celebrity, p. 117
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“I'll confess it is rather fun being courted by your own husband.”

Natacha Rambova

On marriage, p. 118
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“I felt as if I had at last returned home. 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.”

Natacha Rambova

On visiting Egypt, p. 207
Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova (1991)

“Rudy gets horribly excited when I say this, but I do declare that if they keep him from working two years more, then I will work and support us both. There are many things that I can do. I can dance. I can go back to my designing, but I don't care what it is if it only brings in enough money for him to be able to go on fighting for decent treatment and good material.”

Natacha Rambova

On working and supporting herself and Valentino, p. 118
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“A sensitive personality is like a great organ. Press the keys of discord and harshness comes forth. Play the keys of beauty and melody delight are given.”

Natacha Rambova

On personality, p. 118
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

Natacha Rambova Quotes about love

“All women love the man who appeals to their maternity. Rudy does that instinctively and it is devastating in its effects on feminine resistance.”

Natacha Rambova

On Valentino, p. 58
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“It wasn't love at first sight. I think it was good comradeship more than anything else.”

Natacha Rambova

On her relationship with Valentino, p. 58
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“I shall always love the Mexican people for what the happiness they gave us that day. There was nothing that was too much for them to do.”

Natacha Rambova

On her wedding day in Mexico, p. 61
Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon (2009)

Natacha Rambova Quotes

“He knew what I was when I married him. I have been working since I was seventeen. Homes and babies are all very nice, but you can't have them and a career as well. I intended, and intend, to have a career and Valentino knew it. If he wants a housewife, he'll have to look again.”

Natacha Rambova

On her marriage to Valentino, p. 172
Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova (1991)

“Whether to call myself Winifred Hudnut or Natacha Rambova or Mrs. Rodolph Valentino, I don't know. Natacha Rambova seems to belong most to me, the individual I think I am, but of course, I wasn't born that way. When I went into the Russian Ballet, though, I had to have a Russian name. That was just after my course at art school in Paris and I was seventeen, and I have been using that name ever since. I speak Russian and all that is Russian appeals to me and moreover that is what Rudy calls me.”

Natacha Rambova

On her name, p. 58
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

“With butlers and super-butlers, maids and the rest, what work is there for a housewife? I won't be a parasite. I won't sit home and twiddle my fingers, waiting for a husband who goes on the lot at 5:00 a. m. and gets home at midnight and receives mail from girls in Oshkosh and Kalamazoo.”

Natacha Rambova

On her domestic life with Valentino, p. 171
Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova (1991)

“The figure in fur advanced and shook hands. At least his handshake was firm. Might I add, a little too firm for comfort.”

Natacha Rambova

On her first meeting Valentino, p. 28
Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon (2009)

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