POLA NEGRI
Name: Pola Negri
Birth name: Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec
Born: 31 December 1894 Lipno, Poland
Died: 1 August 1987 San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Pola Negri (Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec) (31 December 1894 - August 1, 1987) was
a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films
between 1910s and 1930s.
Born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on New Year's Eve, 1894 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.
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.
Negri caused a media sensation after the death in 1926 of Valentino by
announcing that they had 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 had not 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 had 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 did not 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.
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 the Reich's Führer. 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 could not 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 had famously turned down: Norma Desmond.
She died on August 1, 1987, at the age of 92. Her death was caused by pneumonia,
however she was also suffering from a brain tumor (for which she had 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 had 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 could not reply.)
Name: Pola Negri
Birth name: Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec
Born: 31 December 1894 Lipno, Poland
Died: 1 August 1987 San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Pola Negri (Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec) (31 December 1894 - August 1, 1987) was
a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films
between 1910s and 1930s.
Born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on New Year's Eve, 1894 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.
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.
Negri caused a media sensation after the death in 1926 of Valentino by
announcing that they had 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 had not 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 had 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 did not 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.
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 the Reich's Führer. 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 could not 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 had famously turned down: Norma Desmond.
She died on August 1, 1987, at the age of 92. Her death was caused by pneumonia,
however she was also suffering from a brain tumor (for which she had 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 had 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 could not reply.)