Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, January , â€"
June , ) was an American film costume designer and set designer, and
occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the s. In her later
life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically
Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the
s.Rambova was born into a prominent family in Salt Lake City who were
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She 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
, 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 to . 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 , Rambova operated
her own clothing store in Manhattan before moving to Europe and
marrying the aristocrat à lvaro de Urzáiz in . 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 (â€") by Alexandre Piankoff, also contributing a
chapter on symbology in the third volume. She died in in California
of a heart attack while working on a manuscript examining patterns
within the texts in the Pyramid of Unas.
June , ) was an American film costume designer and set designer, and
occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the s. In her later
life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically
Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the
s.Rambova was born into a prominent family in Salt Lake City who were
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She 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
, 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 to . 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 , Rambova operated
her own clothing store in Manhattan before moving to Europe and
marrying the aristocrat à lvaro de Urzáiz in . 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 (â€") by Alexandre Piankoff, also contributing a
chapter on symbology in the third volume. She died in in California
of a heart attack while working on a manuscript examining patterns
within the texts in the Pyramid of Unas.
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