Natalia Varney

Natalia Varney (b. 1911, d. 1951) was a New Amsterdam socialite and heiress who became a prominent executive at Metropolitan Moving Pictures via her friendship (some said love affair) with motion picture star Alia Valentina. She was Valentina's personal assistant from 1930 until 1940 after the two met at a Broadway theatre party.

When Valentina died, Varney became deeply depressed. She had a portrait of Valentina made and kept it in her bedroom. It was about this time rumors of heavy drinking began. Yet it was also one of her most successful periods, during which she guided such films as Gereint V (based on the Shaxepere play) and Destroy the Ludendorff! (one of the most popular movies made during and based upon the Second Great War) through production. The latter starred Varney and Valentina's good friend Howard Draft.

In 1951, Varney was discovered in her apartment, dead from a combination of alchohol and sedatives. Whether this was an act of suicide or an accident was never definitely determined. For that matter, some have speculated that she was murdered for her supposed knowledge of the murder of Jayne Barlowe.

The motion picture Varney was produced in 1987 which proposed that Varney herelf was Barlowe's murderer. The next year, another (and much cheaper) film version of her story was released with extremely fictionalized details, titled Soul Seller.