Pola Negri was born Barbara Appolonia Chalupek in

Janowa, Poland on December 31st, 1894. She was born into

the middle class, but her father, a furrier, was arrested by the

Russians and sent to a Siberian prison camp, where he died.

She and her mother became penniless. Pola initially wanted

to become a ballerina, but her poverty and a bout with ill

health changed her focus from dancing to acting.

Pola Negri (1894-1987)

"I don't care whether they love me or not. I don't care whether I am

beautiful or not. I want a chance to act." - Pola Negri

She attended the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic

Arts on money her mother had saved, and soon she made a

favorable impression among her fellow thespians. She

began her professional career as a stage actress playing an

important role in "Sodom's End", written by Herman

Sudermann. Her next engagement was at the former

Imperial Theater in Warsaw. Max Reinhardt, one of the

greatest European stage technicians, engaged her to play

the leading role in "Sumurun", a pantomime play. In this

show she discovered her talent for depicting emotion

without the need for spoken dialogue. It was later made

into a film with Pola in the lead role. She continued

playing in theater, until shortly before the German

occupation in 1916, when the industry was essentially shut

down.

Pola then migrated to Germany to do films, completing her

best work with fellow actor-turned-director Ernst Lubitsch.

Hollywood beckoned and she left for America in

1922, where she became an exotic attraction to Americans

on the movie screen in various flamboyant roles for

Paramount, and off screen as well via the fan magazines of

the day, which played up her free spirit, publicizing her

personal romantic relationships with stars such as Charles

Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.

Films of note for Pola during these years were "Madame DuBarry"

(1919), "The Spanish Dancer" (1923), "Forbidden Paradise" (1924),

"A Woman of the World" (1925), and "Hotel Imperial" (1927). Due

to her heavy accent, which did not lend itself well to the

microphone, and the advent of the Hays Code, which would limit

the kinds of roles she could play, plus the public spectacle she

made over the death of Valentino, which soured the public to her

personality, Pola's American film career ended rather abruptly. She

returned to Europe to make films, including the compelling "The

Woman He Scorned" (1929), which featured Pola singing in one

scene with the synchronized musical soundtrack. After the Nazis

began to occupy Europe and severely control the film industry in

Germany, Pola returned to America, penniless once more. She

appeared in two more American films, 1943's "Hi Diddle Diddle"

with Adolphe Menjou, and Disney's 1964's "The Moonspinners", with

Hayley Mills. Pola was married and divorced twice, once to a

Count and the second time to a Prince. She lived a colorful life,

loved poetry and horses, traveled the world in her later years, and

always enjoying speaking about her work in the silent era to

interviewers. Pola Negri died from pneumonia, secondary to a

brain tumor for which she refused treatment, on August 1st, 1987

in San Antonio, Texas.

THE END*

*Pola Negri singing during presentation