Pola Negri
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Pola Negri [1] (c. 1894 – 1987) was a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910's and 1930's.
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Personal life
Born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on New Year's Eve, circa 1894 Template:Ref in either Janowa or Lipno, Poland.
She was born an only child into a poor family and her mother had to make a living alone after Chałupiec's father was arrested by the Russians and resettled to Siberia.
In 1902 both moved to Warsaw, where they lived in extreme poverty. She trained as a dancer at the Ballet School in Warsaw. There she performed ballet until forced by tuberculosis to change her profession.
She turned to acting, and by the end of World War I had established herself as a popular stage actress in Warsaw, the capital, and had appeared 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 the Slave of Senses (Niewolnica zmysłów).
During that time she adopted the pseudonym of Pola Negri, after an Italian poet Ada Negri. She also appeared in a variety of films made by the Warsaw film industry, including the Wife (Żona), Students (Studenci), Warsaw's Streetwise Lover (Kochanka apasza) and in 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 Jewish 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 US. Negri's exotic style of glamour proved popular with audiences during the 1920s. Her association and affairs with such actors as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino ensured she remained in the public eye.
One of the most popular actresses of that era of Hollywood, 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 had planned to marry, and following the train that carried his body from New York to Los Angeles, posing for photographers at every stop. At his funeral she fainted several times, and had arranged for a large floral arrangement which spelled 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. They dismissed her actions as a publicity stunt.
Actress Tallulah Bankhead, in particular, badmouthed Negri, although others such as Mary Pickford (incredibly supportive and generous to so many troubled actresses of the time) and Valentino's brother, Alberto, defended her. However without Valentino, Negri's career began to decline.
Her style of vamp was beginning 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. Especially the ban on Scenes of Passion and Excessive and lustful kissing proved disastrous to her career in the US.
Later career
Having divorced Eugeniusz Dąbski in 1921, Negri then married 1927 Serge Mdivani, who claimed to be a Georgian prince and whose brother was married to Mae Murray.
In 1929 Negri lost most of her fortune in the Wall Street Crash, the couple divorced and she returned to more liberal Europe.
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 favourite films, the fact that gave birth to a rumour of Negri's affair with the fuehrer of the Reich.
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 moved back to the US. She briefly appeared in the 1943 film Hi Diddle Diddle, though her career was essentially over.
After actresses Mae West and Mary Pickford were ruled unsuitable, although some sources state that both ladies declined the role, director Billy Wilder approached Negri to appear 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 immortal 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 teenaged actress Hayley Mills.
In 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, with her companion, a Texan heiress and composer, Margaret West, but is mostly remembered only by film buffs and researchers.
She maintained her flamboyant persona to the end of her life and was often compared to the character role she had turned down, Norma Desmond.
Later life
She died August 1, 1987 around the age of 92. Her death was caused by pneumonia, however she was suffering from a brain tumor for which she had refused treatment.
At her wake at the Porter Loring Funeral Home in San Antonio, her thin body was placed on view. She wore 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. She had no children. She left most of her estate to St. Mary's University, including several rare prints of her films.
A generous portion was also 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.
Notes
- Template:Note According to her gravestone, though other sources list 1899 or 1897.
References
Trivia
- Pola Negri has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard.
- There were rumors (most certainly false) that she had had an affair with Adolf Hitler
- There were also 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.
- She allegedly kept Valentino's picture on her bedside table until the end of her life and always insisted he had been the great love of her life.
External links
- {{{2|{{{name|Pola Negri}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- http://www.polanegri.com
- Virtual History - Tobacco cardsde:Pola Negri
es:Pola Negri fr:Pola Negri lb:Pola Negri ja:ポーラ・ネグリ pl:Pola Negri sk:Pola Negri sv:Pola Negri