Love sick women tear Rudolph Valentino’s toilet apart.

This picture was taken from one side of the Villa Valentino. Tom Lyle Williams on the veranda with his sisters Mabel and Eva and their husbands Chet and Ches in 1937.

Another angle of the Villa Valentino before Tom Lyle landscaped it with tall trees to protect his privacy.

Even 10 years Rudolph Valentino’s death in 1926 women were mad to have any kind of personal memento belonging to the Latin Lover. When the Villa was being remodeled and vulnerable to the public, Tom Lyle hired a full time guard as lines of cars passed with Kodak’s flashing and crying women throwing roses. At one point throngs of love sick women crawled up the side of the hill hoping to find anything touched by their their idol. Even the toilets were crushed with sledge hammers as screaming women fought over the broken pieces, as if finding buried treasure. Traffic cops at the bottom of the hill had to direct traffic so residents could come and go. Once the Villa Valentino was finished Tom Lyle put a heavy rustic wooden gate and fortress like walls around it, as well as the 100 trees to protect his privacy. Privacy was of utmost importance to him as he worked from the Villa, or Maybelline West as he sometimes referred it. When family in Chicago asked him why he put’s up with the Hollywood madness he replied, “If I have to worry, I want to worry in Paradise.”


Read more about Tom Lyle, The Villa and why Tom Lyle sought privacy at all cost in The Maybelline Story. You can now purchase an autographed copy from Tom Lyle’s great niece author Sharrie Williams, just click on maybelline story.com.