The Ultimate Vamp - Pola Negri
The other great Vamp of the silent era was undoubtedly Pola Negri who seemed to embrace the persona both on and off screen. She was one of the first women to achieve global fame in the film industry and paved the way for future generations of international actors whose talent and charisma transcended language and cultural barriers.
Despite standing only 1.52m tall Negri cut a larger than life figure off-screen. She was known for taking her pet cheetah for walks, wearing fur boots, a turban and showing off her red painted toenails. She had numerous affairs which all seemed to make it into the press in vivid detail and was sure to be seen on the arm of famous men that included Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.
In true Vamp style her romances were often tempestuous. Her relationship with Chaplin was covered from start to finish by the press, climaxing with their engagement in 1922 before she broke it off when Charlie reportedly said he couldn’t afford to marry her.
Despite these opulent displays, Negri had humble beginnings. Born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec, she grew up in poverty in Poland after her Slovakian father was exiled to Siberia for his political activities. Her early years were marked by a passion for the arts and as a teenager she auditioned for and was accepted into the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet. Despite her promise her career ended suddenly when she contracted tuberculosis. While recovering in the spa town of Zakopane, she became inspired by the work of Italian poet Ada Negri and changed her name to Pola Negri.
When she had recovered Negri joined the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and this led to her breakout performance in the pantomime Sumurun at Warsaw’s Grand Theatre. German theatre and film director Max Reinhardt saw her performance and invited her to Berlin to reprise her role in his revival, in 1916.
World War I put the brakes on theatre productions so Negri moved into Polish films debuting in Slave to Her Senses (Niewolnica zmysłów) before accepting a number of Vamp roles. In 1917 the ‘Polish Asta Nielsen’ headed back to Berlin where she teamed up with Ernst Lubitsch.
Lubitsch’s breakthrough film The Eyes of Mummy Ma premiered in 1918 also launching Negri’s career. Her successful working relationship with Lubitsch continued with Carmen (1918) and Madame Dubarry (1919) and her short-lived marriage to Polish Count Eugeniusz Dambski the same year didn’t do her image any harm. After appearing in Sumurun (1920) and with her growing international popularity she began receiving lucrative offers from international studios.
After making over 20 films in Berlin both she and Lubitsch were hired by Jesse L. Lasky with Negri signing with Famous Players-Lasky, (later to become Paramount Pictures) for $3,000 a week. As one of the first European stars to make it to Hollywood her exotic looks, dramatic flair, and charisma excited both audiences and the critics.
In 1923 she landed roles in The Spanish Dancer, Bella Donna, and The Cheat, all of which featured Negri in Vamp roles. These were popular with audiences and positioned her as Theda Bara’s greatest rival.
Her success continued in 1924 with Forbidden Paradise (the last time she worked with Lubitsch) in what was one of her most successful films. She followed up with Flower of Night (1925), and A Woman of the World (1925) which further established her ‘Vamp’ persona. At the height of her career Negri was earning $10,000 a week and living in a mansion reportedly modeled after the White House.
While the public had grown used to Negri and her frequent public spectacles, they weren’t prepared for her histrionics at Rudolph Valentino’s funeral in 1926. She had several crying and fainting fits over his coffin, loudly proclaimed they had been engaged and that he was the love of her life. This was despite the two only meeting a few months earlier at Marion Davies’ costume party where they had danced the tango.
In 1927 she enjoyed her last big success with Hotel Imperial but was also witnessing a decline in her popularity and her career appearing to wind down. Three factors conspired to end her Hollywood career:
Perceptions that her mourning for Rudolph Valentino was insincere
The production codes wouldn’t allow her to show the traits that made her a sex-siren
Her thick Polish accent would not play well in talking pictures
Negri returned to Europe to marry Prince Mdivani in Paris, a man who would later be exposed as a fake royal who cheated her out of her money. Pola made her last silent film in England, The Way of Lost Souls (1929), and returned to Hollywood for her first sound film, A Woman Commands (1932). Although it didn’t make money, the song she sang, “Paradise”, was popular enough to support a national singing tour on which she recouped some of the money she lost in the stock market crash.
With Hollywood offers few and far between Negri returned to a Berlin, a city she barely recognised since the Nazis rise to power. Despite their control of the film industry Negri managed to appear in respectable films such as Mazurka (1935), Der Weg nach Shanghai (1936) and Madame Bovary (1937).
Reportedly Mazurka was one of Adolf Hitler’s favourite films and he idolised her despite her clearly not being Aryan though propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels officially confirmed that she could not possibly be Jewish. She turned down an offer from Joseph Goebbels to appear in an anti-Polish film and successfully sued a French magazine for floating the rumor that she had an affair with Hitler.
Negri returned to the States in 1942, this time as a refugee, and found work the following year in Hi Diddle Diddle. In 1950 she was offered, but turned down, a role she seems to have been destined to play…. Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. But perhaps it was a little too close to home.
Much like the Vamps she played, Negri led a life of surprises that was endlessly fascinating.