Valentino

Rudolph Valentino often visited this home while it was being built for him on the eastern shore of Lake Sherwood starting in 1920. Unfortunately, the silent-screen star, who died in 1926, didn't live long enough to see the retreat completed in 1931. Today, the hillside house, originally a one-story with a loft, has a three-level addition. It took actress Dana Sparks ("Passions," "L.A.

The Crystal cruise ship Serenity was inaugurated nearly two years ago. We were part of the first journey. The itinerary [this time] was Barcelona, Spain; Cannes, France; Livorno, Porto Cervo, then Sorrento, Italy; and Capri, Greece and Corfu. We went to Dubrovnik, the old Yugoslavia [now Croatia], and finished in Venice. On a cruise you do anything you want. I love to watch movies, and they have a tremendous library. Also playing ping-pong with my kids. We can finally have a few meals together.

A 16-year-old who confessed to randomly killing a California Highway Patrol officer in order to impress a street gang he wanted to join pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Monday. Valentino Mitchell Arenas admitted he'd been searching for a police officer -- any officer -- to kill on April 21 when he happened upon Thomas Steiner as the five-year CHP veteran was leaving a Pomona courthouse.

Italian cooking isn't all about pasta. I know this intellectually. I know this from eating all over Italy. But when I go out to an Italian restaurant, it's hard, so hard, not to order pasta -- so I don't even try. At Valentino last week, I went straight to the handmade garganelle, made by rolling squares of fresh pasta dough over a ridged wooden board to form a tube. Thicker at the center, they have a wonderful variation of texture.

The Silent Movie Theatre celebrates Labor Day weekend with three Rudolph Valentino pictures, including the rarely seen "Monsieur Beaucaire." The other two, "The Sheik" and "The Son of the Sheik," are familiar.

This much almost everyone knows about Rudolph Valentino: He died at a tragically early age (31), and his sudden, shocking passing set off the first (and still perhaps the most lunatic) orgy of mass mourning in the history of premature celebrity deaths. Some 30,000 near-rioutous citizens turned up outside the funeral home when his body was placed on view.

Seventy-five years later, at least one mystery remains: the identity of the original Lady in Black, who arrived each year on Aug. 23 at 12:10 p.m.--her face obscured by a veil--to silently lay roses at Rudolph Valentino's crypt.

Walter Craig, who acted under the stage name Anthony Dexter and rocketed to fame when he was selected from 75,000 applicants as a Rudolph Valentino look-alike for the 1951 biopic "Valentino," has died. He was 88. Craig died March 27 in Greeley, Colo., where he had lived in retirement, said Joe Walker, a former student who is now a Los Angeles criminal analyst.