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Pola Negri
Pola Negri (/ˈpoʊlə ˈnɛɡri/; born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec [apɔˈlɔɲa xaˈwupʲɛt͡s]; 3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress and singer. She achieved worldwide fame during the silent and golden eras of Hollywood and European film for her tragedienne and femme fatale roles. She was also acknowledged as a sex symbol of her time.
Raised in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Negri's childhood was marked by several personal hardships: After her father was sent to Siberia, she was raised by her single mother in poverty, and suffered tuberculosis as a teenager. Negri recovered, and went on to study ballet and acting in Warsaw, Poland, becoming a well-known stage actress there. In 1917, she relocated to Germany, where she began appearing in silent films for the Berlin-based UFA studio. Her film performances for UFA came to the attention of Hollywood executives at Paramount Pictures, who offered her a film contract.
Negri signed with Paramount in 1922, making her the first European actress to be contracted in Hollywood. She spent much of the 1920s working in the United States appearing in numerous films for Paramount, establishing herself as one of the most popular actresses in American silent film. In the 1930s, during the emergence of sound film, Negri returned to Europe, where she appeared in multiple films for Pathé Films and UFA, and also began a career as a recording artist. She made only two films after 1940, her last screen credit being in Walt Disney's The Moon-Spinners (1964).
Negri spent her later life largely outside the public sphere. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951, and spent the remainder of her life living in San Antonio, Texas. In 1987, aged 90, she died of pneumonia secondary to a brain tumor for which she refused treatment.
Negri was born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on 3 January 1897 in Lipno, Congress Poland, Russian Empire (present-day Lipno, Poland), the only surviving child (of three) of a Polish mother, Eleonora Kiełczewska (died 24 August 1954). According to Negri, her mother came from impoverished Polish nobility, with her family having lost their fortune over support of Napoléon Bonaparte. Negri's father, Juraj Chalupec (Polish transcription Jerzy Chałupec or Chałupiec, died 1920), was an itinerant Romani-Slovak tinsmith from Nesluša. After her father was arrested by the Russian authorities for revolutionary activities and sent to Siberia, she and her mother moved to Warsaw, where they lived in poverty, with her mother supporting them by working as a cook.
Chałupiec was raised Catholic by her mother, who was a lifelong practicing Catholic. In her youth, Chałupiec was accepted into Warsaw's Imperial Ballet Academy. Her first dance performance was in the danse des petits cygnes in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake; she worked her way up to a solo role in the Saint-Léon ballet Coppélia. However, a bout with tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing; she was sent to a sanatorium in Zakopane to recover. During her three-month convalescence, she adopted the pseudonym Pola Negri, after the Italian novelist and poet Ada Negri; "Pola" was short for her own name, Apolonia (sometimes spelled Apollonia).
Pola Negri is very temperamental, but she has her temper under tight control. She, like other high-strung actresses as Norma Talmadge and Anna Q. Nilsson, resorts to tears if anything goes wrong. These three women I rate as the best on the screen today. It is a joy to direct them: they are so sensitive to impressions. But if any of them is asked to portray a character in a way that she thinks is alien to the part, she will not be able to go on".—Director Herbert Brenon (1880-1958) in Motion Picture Magazine, February 1926.
After Negri returned from the sanatorium, she successfully auditioned at the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. Alongside her formal schooling at the academy, she took private classes outside with renowned Polish stage actress and professor Honorata Leszczyńska. She made her theatrical debut before her graduation at The Small Theatre in Warsaw on 2 October 1912.
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Pola Negri
Pola Negri (/ˈpoʊlə ˈnɛɡri/; born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec [apɔˈlɔɲa xaˈwupʲɛt͡s]; 3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress and singer. She achieved worldwide fame during the silent and golden eras of Hollywood and European film for her tragedienne and femme fatale roles. She was also acknowledged as a sex symbol of her time.
Raised in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Negri's childhood was marked by several personal hardships: After her father was sent to Siberia, she was raised by her single mother in poverty, and suffered tuberculosis as a teenager. Negri recovered, and went on to study ballet and acting in Warsaw, Poland, becoming a well-known stage actress there. In 1917, she relocated to Germany, where she began appearing in silent films for the Berlin-based UFA studio. Her film performances for UFA came to the attention of Hollywood executives at Paramount Pictures, who offered her a film contract.
Negri signed with Paramount in 1922, making her the first European actress to be contracted in Hollywood. She spent much of the 1920s working in the United States appearing in numerous films for Paramount, establishing herself as one of the most popular actresses in American silent film. In the 1930s, during the emergence of sound film, Negri returned to Europe, where she appeared in multiple films for Pathé Films and UFA, and also began a career as a recording artist. She made only two films after 1940, her last screen credit being in Walt Disney's The Moon-Spinners (1964).
Negri spent her later life largely outside the public sphere. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951, and spent the remainder of her life living in San Antonio, Texas. In 1987, aged 90, she died of pneumonia secondary to a brain tumor for which she refused treatment.
Negri was born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on 3 January 1897 in Lipno, Congress Poland, Russian Empire (present-day Lipno, Poland), the only surviving child (of three) of a Polish mother, Eleonora Kiełczewska (died 24 August 1954). According to Negri, her mother came from impoverished Polish nobility, with her family having lost their fortune over support of Napoléon Bonaparte. Negri's father, Juraj Chalupec (Polish transcription Jerzy Chałupec or Chałupiec, died 1920), was an itinerant Romani-Slovak tinsmith from Nesluša. After her father was arrested by the Russian authorities for revolutionary activities and sent to Siberia, she and her mother moved to Warsaw, where they lived in poverty, with her mother supporting them by working as a cook.
Chałupiec was raised Catholic by her mother, who was a lifelong practicing Catholic. In her youth, Chałupiec was accepted into Warsaw's Imperial Ballet Academy. Her first dance performance was in the danse des petits cygnes in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake; she worked her way up to a solo role in the Saint-Léon ballet Coppélia. However, a bout with tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing; she was sent to a sanatorium in Zakopane to recover. During her three-month convalescence, she adopted the pseudonym Pola Negri, after the Italian novelist and poet Ada Negri; "Pola" was short for her own name, Apolonia (sometimes spelled Apollonia).
Pola Negri is very temperamental, but she has her temper under tight control. She, like other high-strung actresses as Norma Talmadge and Anna Q. Nilsson, resorts to tears if anything goes wrong. These three women I rate as the best on the screen today. It is a joy to direct them: they are so sensitive to impressions. But if any of them is asked to portray a character in a way that she thinks is alien to the part, she will not be able to go on".—Director Herbert Brenon (1880-1958) in Motion Picture Magazine, February 1926.
After Negri returned from the sanatorium, she successfully auditioned at the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. Alongside her formal schooling at the academy, she took private classes outside with renowned Polish stage actress and professor Honorata Leszczyńska. She made her theatrical debut before her graduation at The Small Theatre in Warsaw on 2 October 1912.