Pola Negri, a Polish actress, was born in Lipno, Poland, and relocated to Warsaw as a child. Growing up in poverty with her mother, Negri began her performing career at a young age, auditioning and being accepted into the Imperial Ballet. Unfortunately, an illness forced her to abandon her dancing career, and she instead enrolled in the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. By the age of 17, Negri had already become a star on the Warsaw stage, but the outbreak of World War I drastically altered the theater scene. Without the theater, Negri turned to film, leveraging her stage success in "Sumurun" to secure a spot in Berlin alongside German director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri collaboration proved incredibly successful, with Negri starring in a string of films showcasing her unique persona as earthy, exotic, and strong women. One of her most notable films, "Passion" (1919),was optioned and retitled for American release, where it became a huge success. This led to Negri and Lubitsch being offered contracts to work in Hollywood. While her initial films in the United States showed promise, they were ultimately overshadowed by her high-profile romances with celebrities such as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Negri's subsequent films, including "Forbidden Paradise" (1924) and "Hotel Imperial" (1927),were more successful, but her career in Hollywood eventually came to an end due to a combination of factors: the perception that her mourning for Rudolph Valentino was insincere, the constraints imposed by the Hays Office codes, and her thick Polish accent, which would not translate well to the emerging sound pictures.
After leaving Hollywood, Negri returned to Europe and continued to make films for UFA, a company under Nazi management. In 1941, she returned to the United States penniless and went on to star in the 1943 film "Hi Diddle Diddle." Negri became an American citizen in 1951 and appeared in her final film, "The Moon-Spinners," in 1964. Pola Negri passed away in San Antonio, Texas, in 1987, due to complications from pneumonia.
