Everything about Pola Negri totally explained
Pola Negri (
Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec) (
3 January,
1897 -
August 1,
1987) was a
Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a
femme fatale in
silent films between 1910s and 1930s.
Personal life
Born
Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on January 3rd, 1897 in
Lipno, Poland, as an only child in a poor family, her mother had to make a living alone after Chałupiec's father was arrested by the Russians and sent to
Siberia. Her father was a poor
Slovak immigrant.
In
1902, both moved to
Warsaw, where they lived in extreme poverty. She trained as a dancer at the Ballet School in Warsaw and performed there until
tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing.
During her movie career, she was also touted as an accomplished organist, and at least one extant photograph shows her apparently performing on a two manual
pipe organ, but this may have been merely publicity, as her family's extreme poverty would seem to argue against her studying with any well-known organist.
She turned to acting, and by the end of
World War I had established herself as a popular stage actress in Warsaw, the capital, appearing in several films. She made an appearance in the Grand Theatre (in
Sumurun and
Dumb from Portici), as well as in Small Theatre (
Aleksander Fredro's
Śluby panieńskie) and at the Summer Theatre in the
Saxon Garden, a popular summer variéte theatre. She debuted in film in
1914 in
Slave of the Senses (
Niewolnica zmysłów).
During that time, she adopted the pseudonym "
Pola Negri," after the Italian poetess,
Ada Negri. She also appeared in a variety of films made by the Warsaw film industry, including
The Wife (
Żona),
The Beast (
Bestia),
Students (
Studenci),
Street Ruffian's Lover (
Kochanka apasza) and the
Mysteries of Warsaw series. During her short screen career in Warsaw, she gained much popularity, acting with many of the most renowned Polish film artists of the time, including
Józef Węgrzyn,
Władysław Grabowski,
Józef Galewski and
Kazimierz Junosza-Stępowski.
Early career
In
1917, her popularity provided her with an opportunity to move to
Berlin, Germany, where she appeared in several films for film directors of the
UFA agency, including
Max Reinhardt and
Ernst Lubitsch. Their films were successful throughout the world, and in 1922 both were offered contracts with
Hollywood studios and the following year Negri settled in the U.S. Her exotic style of glamour proved popular with audiences during the 1920s and her affairs with such notable actors as
Charles Chaplin and
Rudolph Valentino ensured that she remained in the public eye.
One of the most popular Hollywood actresses of the era, and certainly the richest woman of the movie industry at the time, Negri lived in a palace in Los Angeles, modelled after the
White House. However, her popularity quickly began to fade.
After Valentino
Negri caused a media sensation after the death in
1926 of Valentino by announcing that they'd planned to marry, and following the train that carried his body from
New York City to
Los Angeles, posing for photographers at every stop. At his funeral she "fainted" several times, and arranged for a large floral arrangement, which spelled out her name, to be placed on Valentino's coffin. Despite the wide publicity she attracted, many of Valentino's friends stated that Valentino and Negri hadn't intended to marry, and dismissed her actions as a publicity stunt. Negri allegedly kept Valentino's picture on her bedside table until the end of her life, always insisting he'd been the great love of her life. Actress
Tallulah Bankhead, in particular, badmouthed Negri, although others such as
Mary Pickford (supportive and generous to so many troubled actresses of the time) and Valentino's brother, Alberto, defended her.
Negri's "vamp" style began to go out of vogue, and the advent of talking pictures revealed an accented voice that the public didn't warm to. As Negri put it: "They went from Pola to Polaroid." Also, the
Hays Code introduced in
1930 prevented Negri from using her staging techniques, for which she was so popular in Europe. The ban on "scenes of passion" and "excessive and lustful kissing" proved especially disastrous to her career in the U.S.
Later career
Having divorced
Eugeniusz Dąbski in
1921, Negri married
Serge Mdivani in
1927 (he claimed to be a
Georgian
prince and his brother was married to actress
Mae Murray). In
1929, Negri lost most of her fortune in the
Wall Street Crash. The couple divorced, and she returned to
Europe.
In
1928, Negri made her last film for
Paramount Pictures entitled
The Woman from Moscow, opposite actor
Norman Kerry. The film was only Negri's second
talkie (the first being
Loves of an Actress, also released in
1928) and Paramount declined to renew her contract after audiences allegedly had difficulty discerning her dialog because of her heavy Polish accent. Negri subsequently left
Hollywood later that year for
Great Britain to make the
1929 drama The Way of Lost Souls (also known as
The Woman He Scorned).
She made only a few films after
1930, and worked mainly in England and Germany, where she acted in several films for the
Joseph Goebbels-controlled UFA.
The
1935 Willi Forst picture
Mazurka gained much popularity in Germany and became one of
Adolf Hitler's favorite films, a fact that gave birth to a rumor about
1937 about Negri having had an affair with Hitler. There was no truth to the rumor. Pola sued a French magazine,
Pour Vous, that had circulated the libelous rumor and won her case.
Mazurka was remade (almost shot-for-shot) in the U.S. as a
Kay Francis picture,
Confession. Negri had expressed a desire to return to the States to do the remake but had been turned down; in her
autobiography, she recounted that with Francis in the lead the picture was a flop. Years later director Forst was interviewed stating that although Negri still looked attractive her lifestyle had aged her and she couldn't be photographed in a tight close-up. He also said she came out of the women's room with "Snow" (
cocaine) on her upper lip.
She fled
Germany in
1938, after a few
Nazi officials labeled her as having "part
Jewish" ancestry. She moved to
France, and then in
1941 she sailed to
New York from
Portugal and was temporarily detained at
Ellis Island. After her release, she eventually returned to Hollywood. She briefly appeared in the
1943 film
Hi Diddle Diddle, though her career was essentially over.
After actresses
Mae West and
Mary Pickford declined the role, director
Billy Wilder approached Negri to appear as Norma Desmond in the film,
Sunset Boulevard (1950).
Wilder recalled that Negri "threw a tantrum at the mere suggestion of playing a has-been", and the role was given to the more amenable and realistic
Gloria Swanson, who became immortalized on
celluloid as Norma Desmond.
In
1951, Negri became a
naturalized citizen of the United States. Her final film appearance was in the
1964 Walt Disney film
The Moon-Spinners, with
Hayley Mills.
The same year she received an honorary award from the German film industry for her career work. Negri lived her remaining years in
San Antonio, Texas, with her companion, Texan heiress and composer, Margaret West. Negri maintained her flamboyant persona to the end of her life and was often compared to the character role she'd famously turned down:
Norma Desmond.
Death and legacy
She died on
August 1,
1987, at the age of 90. Her death was caused by
pneumonia, however she was also suffering from a
brain tumor (for which she'd refused treatment). At her wake at the Porter Loring Funeral Home in San Antonio, her body was placed on view wearing a yellow golden chiffon dress with a golden turban to match. Her small obituary in the local newspaper read, "she had an international career as a screen and stage actress".
She was interred in
Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles next to her mother, Eleonora. Since she'd no children, she left most of her estate to
St. Mary's University in Texas, including several rare prints of her films. In addition, a generous portion of her estate was given to the Polish nuns of the
Seraphic Order; a large black and white portrait hangs in the small chapel next to Poland's patron, Our Lady of
Częstochowa, in
San Antonio, Texas.
Pola Negri has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard. She was the 11th star in Hollywood history to place her hand and foot prints in front of
Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
There were rumors that Negri had a short affair with the young comedian
Milton Berle. Decades later, Berle claimed that these rumors were true on
The Howard Stern Show and
Larry King Live. (Berle made many such statements about various women, always after said women were dead and couldn't reply.)
Further Information
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