Valentine

Valentine was born on Valentine's Day in Virginia and raised in the suburbs of Washington until 9 when his family moved 50 miles west to a farm near the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River. In 1972, he skipped eleventh grade, then graduated from the University of Virginia in 3 years. In 1978 simultaneously ran the precinct operations of both the Frank Wolf US Congressional and the John Warner US Senatorial campaigns in VA's 10th district adjacent to DC. In 1979 he roughnecked and modeled in Texas, then modeled for 2 years in New York for Zoli and Elite where he witnessed the world's first super models making honest men of rock stars at parties and clubs like Studio 54 in what Warhol called "the center of the center". He began writing Jazz Standard and Broadway style songs, but when many in the fashion world began dying of the then mysterious AIDS virus, Valentine went abroad, modeling to fund his study of governments in Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Macau, Hong Kong, "Red" China, Tokyo, Paris, Germany and London. In 1985 the workaholic moved to Las Vegas where he modeled and studied music at UNLV for 2 years finally writing the music for the 50 songs he had created abroad. He moved to West Hollywood in 1987 where he studied screenwriting, producing and taxation at UCLA. Valentine never studied acting or went out for any roles because he didn't want any of the roles Hollywood was offering. Instead he wrote 3 musicals and 50 dramatic feature screenplays; made some money consulting and ghost writing but couldn't sell a script. In 1989 he gathered up John Cassavetes's old crew and daughter Zoe and co-wrote, produced, financed ($15,000) and starred in The Discontented, a black and white feature shot on super 16mm which John Daly at Hemdale wanted but his director and his co-producer declined only to regret it forever. In 1991 he wrote, produced, directed, financed ($25,000) and starred in Nailed, shot on video tape in one weekend. He clandestinely edited it on a linear machine at a TV commercial production company which his employee friend snuck him into, having to lock him in all night for two weeks. He found no takers and received only minor interest from a little direct-to-DVD producer named Cassian Elwes who offered him $100,000 to make one of his scripts into a movie, but Valentine declined since Elwes wanted it on super 16 film at that budget, wanted immediate ownership of Valentine's script, and wanted it too sexual for Valentine's tastes. In his spare time he litigated and won 5 court cases representing himself in Superior court in Beverly Hills and giving him a good taste of America's so called justice system. In 1992 he moved to South Beach to find a TV commercial production company willing to make a movie on the side. But was paid by a Fininvest exec to move back to LA to make movies. Valentine did him the favor of renegotiating Fininvest's cable deals with Playboy and Warner Brothers, got stiffed his fee, and never heard from the exec again! Valentine could not return to South Beach for lack of funds, and instead sublet rooms in a huge inexpensive rental on the cliffs of Redondo Beach and studied government and political philosophy for seven long 90-hour-week years, writing the odd screenplay to break things up. In 2000 he finally moved to South Beach where he rented an apartment next door to the offices shared by Independent Film Project and a local Audio Visual non profit, and became as active as possible in non existent local film scene. From 2002 to 2004 he wrote, produced, directed, financed ($125k) and starred in the G-rated Romantic Schemer (2015) shot in super 16mm color film. The movie has the distinction of having only two actors in the entire picture, each playing multiple roles. Diane Sorrentino, his only co-star had never acted before in her life but carries the picture with tour de force performances. With no interest from Hollywood or Elwes who by then had become a force in indie film distribution, Valentine delved heavily into the study of taxation and took PhD classes at UM. From 2005 to 2007 he wrote, produced, directed, financed ($250K) and starred in "4/11", a political movie centered around terrorism, again with his co-stars and 90% of the cast never having acted before in their lives. Elwes and the rest of Hollywood had no interest in this movie either and Valentine left it in post hell opting instead to return to his political philosophy work and formulate his amendments and constitution. From 2011 Valentine went to Nashville to record the title songs for "4/11' and Romantic Schemer (2015) and Nailed and ended up recording a 40-song Country Jazz library. He finished editing and post on "4/11' in 2014 and has readied both "4/11' and Romantic Schemer (2015) for internet distribution using his songs and music videos, both political and commercial, to both fund and promote his amendments, movies and songs and hopes that his duet "hide n' seek" will attract a famous female singer and put his songs and his vision of government on the map.