There was a celebrity culture of sorts even in the early years of showbiz, and at least one death that caused the entire country to convulse. Weekly Variety was there to document the phenom.

On Aug. 23, 1926, a short time after surgery for a perforated gastric ulcer, Italian-born heartthrob Rudolph Valentino was felled at the age of 31 by septicemia.

On page one of the Aug. 25 issue, Variety reported, incongruously, a piece about the star's new contract. The paper said that "before leaving the West Coast Valentino had signed with producer Joseph Schenck to make three pics with United Artists during the next year for $7,500 a week. Before that contract the star received $100,000 per pic and a 50-50 split on profits after costs were covered."

But on page 5 of that same issue, Variety published a short squib that the Hearst-owned Washington Times had put out an "extra" -- possibly the first ever such extra edition for the death of an actor.

Women on F Street in D.C. read the news and broke down in tears -- "and that is something," the paper added, "that has never before happened, even upon the death of a president."

Such was the fever surrounding Valentino's demise that rumors immediately surfaced that he had actually died from, among other things, aluminium poisoning, had been made ill from illegal medicine to treat a receding hairline or had been shot by a jealous husband.

Variety said in its official obituary in the same issue that "telephone calls to the number of 2,000 an hour (a lot in those days) flooded Polyclinic hospital Sunday night when word was out that Valentino was dying." His fan mail was already running at 10,000 letters a week, mostly from women.

What made him so irresistible?

Apparently androgynous appeal, tangolike moves, slumberous eyes, those dark Italian looks -- and a few decent movies.

Variety opined that it was "Four Horsemen of the Apolcalypse" in 1921 that sent Valentino to "the pinnacle of stardom," and it was producer Schenck's UA that brought him back to "a semblance of his old popularity" in "The Eagle" and "Son of the Sheik." (Hollywood careers could be roller-coaster-like even in the silent days.)

An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York to pay their respects at Valentino's funeral.

The event was a drama itself: The funeral home apparently hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist honor guard (which they claimed to have been sent by Mussolini, but which turned out to be a publicity stunt); windows were smashed as fans tried to get close to the hearse or into the funeral parlor; and the royalty of Hollywood turned out.

The funeral mass was celebrated at St. Malachy's on West 49th Street in the theater district. Pallbearers, Variety reported the following week, included showbiz biggies Marcus Loew, Adolph Zukor, Schenck and Douglas Fairbanks.

But most moving was the description of actress Pola Negri (reportedly his last lover), who nearly collapsed in hysterics while hovering over the coffin. "She had received," Variety reported, "a personal message from Valentino, reduced to writing by one of the attending physicians and delivered to her, from accounts by Norma Talmadge."

The message was: "Tell Pola if she does not arrive in time I'm thinking of her."

Variety also noted that "every member of the motion picture industry in Southern California" stopped work for two minutes at 11 that Monday morning.

After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, and his remains were interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Just as with Elvis Presley 50 years later, there was talk that Valentino was not dead at all but had faked his demise to escape the pressures of stardom.