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Pola Negri
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Pola Negri

Pola Negri (December 31, 1894 - August 2, 1987) was a silent film star. Born as Apolonia Chalupiec in Janowo, Poland. Pola was her childhood nickname, shortened from Apolonia. Negri she later took as her stage name after Italian poetess Adah Negri.

Negri made her stage debut in 1913 in Gerhardt Hauptmann's Hannele in Warsaw and appeared the following year in her first film, Niewolnica Zmyslow. After World War I she appeared in a series of German films directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Two of these films subsequently became major hits in the United States. In 1922 Negri signed a contract with Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount). Her arrival in New York was greated with great fanfare, and she quickly rose to stardom in such films as Forbidden Paradise (1924) and Hotel Imperial (1927). Known for her fiery temperament and her exotic looks, she became the prototypical vamp of 1920s Hollywood.

With the advent of talky films in the late 1920s Negri's Hollywood career faltered, and in the early 1930s she returned to Europe. She made one film in France, Fanatisme (1934), before signing a contract with German film studio UFA in 1935. She made several well-regarded films in those years, including Mazurka (1935), Moskou-Shanghai (1937), and Madame Bovary (1937). She fled Germany after the outbreak of World War II and settled in the United States in 1940. Subsequently she attempted to make a comeback in Hollywood, but made only two films thereafter Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and The Moonspinners (1964).

Pola Negri died of a brain tumor in San Antonio, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2004.

Pola Negri Facts

Birth NameBarbara Apollonia Mathias-Chalupiec
OccupationActress
BirthdayDecember 31, 1894
SignCapricorn
BirthplaceJanowa, Poland
Date of deathAugust 1, 1987 (age 92)
Height5' (1m52)  How tall is Pola Negri compared to you?

Selected Filmography

Not available.