After Valentino signed a contract with United Artists, he banned Rambova from the set. The Valentinos' marriage was ending around this time. The film was not well received, and Cobra became the last film in which Naldi and Valentino starred together. Upon returning to California, the duo made Cobra. In 1924, the Valentinos and Naldi traveled to France in order to do research for the film The Hooded Falcon. Naldi featured in the August 1924 issue of Photoplay, where she is described as “Sloe-eyed, and darkly beautiful”. When Valentino returned and fixed his contract woes, she joined him for his final Famous Players–Lasky film, the now lost A Sainted Devil (1924). While Valentino went on his one-man strike, which prevented him from appearing on film, Naldi took on several Famous Players–Lasky roles with growing importance, including The Ten Commandments (1923), directed by Cecil B. In Vargas's original “ pin-up” painting, Naldi is depicted topless, although copies of the portrait that were published and widely distributed in the 1920s, such as in the art and entertainment magazine Shadowland, were “modified” by the addition of clothing to cover her partially visible left breast. "Nita Naldi with a statue of a faun", by Alberto Vargas, 1923.ĭuring this time, Naldi posed for famous Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas, who painted her embracing a bust of a satyr. Naldi and Valentino were never romantic, and she would be one of the few to befriend his wife Natacha Rambova, though that friendship would sour when the Valentinos divorced. The film was a major success, giving Naldi the image of a vamp, which would follow her for the rest of her life. Naldi was signed by Famous Players–Lasky for the role, and it became her first pairing with screen idol Rudolph Valentino. Naldi was selected by Spanish author Vicente Blasco Ibáñez for the role of Doña Sol in the film version of his novel, Blood and Sand (1922). Naldi and Valentino in Blood and Sand, 1922 Her noted performance in that film subsequently afforded Naldi more career opportunities. Barrymore himself reportedly recommended her for the role after he “spotted” her dancing at the Winter Garden. Following those two films, she had small roles in several independent films before being cast as the exotic character Gina in Paramount Pictures's 1920 release Dr. Naldi was then offered a role in A Divorce of Convenience with Owen Moore.
She soon quit the film, however, after realizing that Dooley had romantic intentions with another woman. Naldi was asked to perform in a short film with Johnny Dooley, a Scottish comedian who, despite his last name, was unrelated to her. Brady in 1920 offered her a role in his play Opportunity. Working under her new name, Naldi continued acting on Broadway and after her well-received performance in The Bonehead, producer William A. It was at this time when Nonna Dooley changed her name to "Nita Naldi," which she adapted from the name of a childhood friend, Florence Rinaldi. Her appearance in that Broadway production led to more stage jobs, and soon Naldi found herself in the Ziegfeld Follies of 19. She soon entered vaudeville with her brother Frank, and by 1918 she was performing as a chorus girl at the Winter Garden Theatre in The Passing Show of 1918. To support them and herself she took several jobs, including work as an artist's model and a cloak model.
Her mother's death in 1915 required Nonna to care for her two younger siblings. The Academy was located directly across Linwood Avenue from Willat/Fox film studio. Later, in 1910, young Nonna herself attended the Catholic school, the same year her father “'left the family'”. Known in her youth as Nonna, she was named in honor of her great aunt, Mary Nonna Dunphy, a nun who in 1879 had founded Academy of the Holy Angels in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Four of her siblings died in infancy, with only her younger brother, Daniel Aloysius, surviving to adulthood. Nita Naldi was born in a tenement in New York City to working class Irish parents, Julia ( née Cronin) and Patrick Dooley, in 1894.
She was often cast in theatrical and screen productions as a vamp, a persona first popularized by actress Theda Bara. Nita Naldi (born Mary Nonna Dooley Novem– February 17, 1961) was an American stage performer and silent film actress.
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