Date of Birth

3 January 1897, Lipno, Poland, Russian Empire [now Lipno, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland]

Date of Death

1 August 1987, San Antonio, Texas, USA (pneumonia)

Birth Name

Barbara Apolonia Chalupiec

Pola Negri was born in Poland and moved to Warsaw as a young child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness which ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an actress. By 17, she was a star on the stage in Warsaw, but World War I would soon change the theater scene. Without the theater, Pola turned to films. With her new career in pictures and her stage success in 'Sumurun', she went to Berlin and was teamed with German Director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was very successful and the roles that Pola played were earthy, exotic, strong women. One of her films, 'Madame DuBarry (1919)' was optioned and retitled as 'Passion (1919)' for exhibition in America. The film was such a success that by 1922, Pola and Lubitsch were both given contracts to work in Hollywood. While her first few films showed some success, they were overshadowed by her reported romances with such stars as Chaplin and Valentino. 'Forbidden Paradise (1924)', made with Director Lubitsch, and 'Hotel Imperial (1927)' were two of her more successful films. But three things conspired to end her career in Hollywood. The display that she put on at the funeral of Valentino in 1926, changed the public mood towards her. The Hays Office codes which would not allow filming the very traits that made her a sex-siren European star. And finally, her thick accent would not play in the sound pictures that were coming into vogue. Pola Negri returned to Europe and eventually made films for UFA, which was under Nazi management. In 1941, Pola returned to American penniless. She made the movie 'Hi Diddle Diddle' in 1943 and became an American citizen in 1951. Her next and last movie was 'The Moon-Spinners (1964)'.

Barbara Apollina Chalupiec (aka Pola Negri) was born in Janowa, Poland on New Year's Eve in 1894. Pola was born into a comfortable lifestyle until her father was arrested by the Russians and sent to a Siberian prison camp. Moving to Warsaw in 1902, she was to spend her formative years in dire poverty. As a teenager, Pola auditioned for the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet. She was accepted. As a ballerina she showed great promise until she contracted tuberculosis and was forced to cut short her dance career. Devastated that her dreams would no longer be fulfilled and wanting to escape poverty, Pola auditioned for the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became a stage actress. By the time she was 17, Pola was a stage star in Poland. That was to change her life again with the advent of World War I. Once again Pola and her mother were plunged into poverty again, so she turned to film to make a go of it. Her first role was in the film, DIE BESTIE in 1915. By the time the war ended she had starred in the Polish production of SLAVE OF SIN in 1918. Her film career was becoming established. Her next film, later that year, was the highly acclaimed MADAME DU BERRY in 1919. It became an absolute sensation in Europe. The film was later released in the US under the name of PASSION. The film was so well received that she was given a contract to make films in Hollywood. Her USA career was off and running. In 1923 she landed the role of Maritana in THE SPANISH DANCER. The film was popular with filmgoers and they equally liked the productions of BELLA DONNA and THE CHEAT that same year. Her vamp roles were highly popular and she was a direct rival of Theda Bara. But her popularity was to be short lived. Pola made a spectacle of herself when she threw herself on the late Rudolph Valentino's coffin. The fans felt she was acting in public and began to turn away from her. The Hays Office, which regulated film content, would not allow her to portray the vamp roles that had made her famous elsewhere. Then the "talkie" revolution started. With her heavy accent, her dialogue did not come across well. Pola decided to return to Europe to continue her flagging career. However, she felt the Nazi regime would not allow her creativity so she returned to the US in 1941. She made _Hi Diddle Diddle (1943)_ in 1943 and became a US citizen in 1951. Her final film was as Madame Habib in 1964's The Moon-Spinners (1964). Retiring to San Antonio, Texas she died on August 1, 1987 at the age of 93.

She was engaged to Charles Chaplin before she met and seduced Rudolph Valentino, and well before Chaplin met and married Paulette Goddard. Negri was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress. This gave birth to rumors of an affair with Hitler. She left Germany in 1938 after Nazi officials had labeled her as having part Jewish ancestry. Among Valentino's last words were, "Pola - if she does not come in time, tell her I think of her." She cried and passed out at his funeral.

Around the time of her death, she was suffering from a brain tumor (unclear if malignant or otherwise) for which she refused treatment.

Sister-in-law of actress Mae Murray and socialite Barbara Hutton.

On her deathbed in 1987, the 92-year-old Negri was being attended by a handsome young doctor who looked at her chart, and failed to respond immediately to seeing her name. In her best Norma Desmond mode, she reportedly pulled herself up into a "movie star" pose and asked, "You don't know who I am?!?!?".

After Rudolph Valentino's death, she claimed to have been engaged to him, although many of his friends insisted they had never even met. Undaunted by disbelievers, she ordered a blanket of flowers to be placed across Rudy's coffin, reading "P-O-L-A" in letters large enough to be read in news photos of his bier, printed in newspapers from coast to coast. No novice when it came to publicity, she then set out to prove her love for Valentino by taking a cross-country train trip to attend his funeral. At each major city, she obligingly came out to the train's rear platform and dramatically "fainted with grief." If any photographers complained that they had missed the moment, she would become so overcome with grief that she conveniently fainted a second time . . .

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986- 1990, pages 652-654. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

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