Pola Negri - Film Star

1926 publicity portrait, photographed by Eugenie Richee

Pola Negri, born Apolonia Chałupiec (1897 - 1987), was a Polish actress with a long and varied career. She worked in theater, vaudeville, and film both silent and sound. She also was a singer, recording artist, author, and a ballerina. She achieved worldwide fame as a tragedienne and femme fatale first in silent films, but she successfully made the transition to sound and had a career that spanned the years from 1914 to 1943 with a final movie in 1964.

Negri was the only surviving child of Eleonora Kiełczewska and Jerzy Chalupiec. After her father was arrested by Russian authorities for revolutionary activities, she lived in extreme poverty with her mother in Warsaw. Her life began to change when she was accepted into the Imperial Ballet Academy of Warsaw. She worked her way up to solo roles before tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing. That was when she adopted the pseudonym Pola Negri and began her acting career.

Negri made her acting debut in 1912 while she was still a student at the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. She received much critical acclaim and continued performing with a number of offers to join theaters. Her film debut was in 1914 in the silent film "Slave to her Senses."

Success in Poland led Negri to move to Berlin where she performed on stage and in film. Two films, "Carmen" and "Madame DuBarry" were huge successes and released in the United States under different names in 1918 and 1921. "Madame DuBarry" was an international success and helped to bring down the United States embargo on German films. The producer of these films Ernst Lubitsch. The success of his films, as well as others, threatened Hollywood's dominance in the international film market. The response was to acquire German talent, including Lubitsch and Negri.

In 1922, Negri signed a contract with Paramount Pictures making her the first continental star to be brought to Hollywood, paving the way for stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, Hedy Lamarr, and Sophia Loren.  She became one of the most popular actresses of the era. 

Photo: Negri and second husband Prince Serge Mdivani on their wedding day, 14 May 1927.

After a brief retirement in 1928 and film work in Britain and Germany, Negri returned to Hollywood to make her first talking film (A Woman Commands, 1932.) Her rendition of the song "Paradise" prompted a successful vaudeville tour to promote it.

Negri moved to the US permanently in the early 1940s. She eventually moved to San Antonio, Texas where she lived quietly until her death in 1987 at the age of 90. She was the 11th star to place her hand and foot prints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Among other honors, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a star in Poland's Walk of Fame in Łódź.