65 Years After Death of Valentino, Fans Are Still Swooning : Hollywood: Crowd gathers at tomb on anniversary of the screen legend’s passing. One woman claims her mother was the mysterious Lady in Black and says she carries on the tradition.

People now getting Social Security checks were newborns when he died, but Rudolph Valentino still can draw a Hollywood crowd, as he proved Friday at services marking the 65th anniversary of his passing.

About 150 showed up at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, and while many women wore black--including a stylish crowd of 20-somethings who drove up in a dusty black Cadillac and stepped out in flapper dresses, only one elderly fan claimed the right to be called the Lady in Black.

“My mother, she was 13 when he met her, and he thought she was 15 or 18 and he wanted so much to marry her, but (her parents) wouldn’t let him,” said Estrellita Del Regil, who claims her late mother was the original mysterious black-veiled woman who regularly placed flowers at Valentino’s crypt after he died in 1926.

Before Friday’s service, Del Regil put roses in a vase affixed to the tomb, stuck a photograph of the star into his nameplate and carefully kissed it, leaving dark red lipstick marks.

Under a black mantilla with “Always A Lady” embroidered in hot pink on the back, Del Regil alternately smiled and wept as she described her devotion to the man who made women swoon.

“My heart tell me to come here every day to be with him,” she gushed. “I sing to him, four or five songs, because I don’t want him to feel lonely.”

Friday was more sedate than earlier memorials. Once, several ladies argued bitterly over who was the real Lady in Black, and another ended with women throwing at one another the roses they had brought to adorn the crypt.

This year, not a soul there had ever met Valentino, not even Del Regil. Few had seen any of his 22 films when they were first released. But many professed unabashed love for the Italian immigrant dishwasher who became the biggest heartthrob of his time before dying suddenly of peritonitis.

“There will never be another like him,” said Michael Back, who claims he has amassed the world’s largest Valentino memorabilia collection. “Not in 1,000 years and not in 10,000 years.”

His wife, Virginia, whose rhinestone-framed picture of Valentino lay pendant-fashion against her red blouse, said the steamy Lothario has mesmerized her for 45 years. “He is the ultimate Latin lover. There is something that’s indescribable about him that just draws you in.”

Singer Ken Remo filled the marble mausoleum with “The Sheik of Araby “ and “The Kashmiri Song,” songs inspired by a Valentino film. Patrick Valentino, who lays claim to being the star’s first cousin twice removed, accompanied him on a piano rolled in for the event.

Afterward, fans found it hard to put their devotion into words.

“In the silent movies, he couldn’t use words to make us feel. He had to do everything with his actions, with his hands, his eyes,” said Cathy Jenman, 35, attending her seventh memorial. “He was just gorgeous, and we come here to show our respect.”

Others just came for the show.

“He wasn’t really all that much as an actor. He got all his fame by dying,” observed Bob Shephard, 69, who nonetheless came for the third time. “If he had lived, I don’t think he ever would have made it in talkies. He had a very thick accent.”