INFORMATION PORTAL OF THE MARSHAL'S OFFICE OF THE KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE Region IN TORUŃ

“Pola Negri possessed immense talent and charisma. She was an outstanding actress, dancer, and singer, adored by audiences around the world. She had an extraordinary ability to sense the specificity of the new medium that cinema was becoming,” says Prof. Krzysztof Trojanowski, Romance philologist and film scholar, lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

How did Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec become Pola Negri?

Krzysztof Trojanowski: She adopted her artistic pseudonym, Pola Negri, while still a student at the ballet school of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. She dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina. Unfortunately, she fell ill with tuberculosis – a common disease at the time, often linked to malnutrition and poor living conditions. An admirer of Pola and a friend of her mother, Kazimierz Hulewicz, the highly influential vice-president of the Warsaw Government Theatres, sent the future star for a three-month treatment to a sanatorium in Zakopane. There, in the sanatorium library, Pola came across a volume of poems by the Italian writer Ada Negri, translated by Maria Konopnicka. She was so enchanted that she began to identify with the poet and adopted her surname – short, memorable, and easy for foreigners to pronounce.

I’ve heard another version…

Some claimed the pseudonym came from the black colour of her hair, but that’s not true. Pola was naturally a dark blonde or brunette; she began dyeing her hair for the role of an Arab dancer in the 1913 production of Sumurun, two years after choosing her stage name.

Her stay in Zakopane also shaped her future.

Yes. In Zakopane she learned that her fragile health ruled out any further ballet career. Having already made an impression on stage, she decided to become an actress. Since Kazimierz Hulewicz did not support this idea, she applied for admission to a three-year drama school as Pola Negri – and was accepted. Talented, ambitious, and extremely hardworking, she completed the two-year curriculum in just one year. She did not finish the school, however, because after an end-of-year student showcase she was offered a contract at a professional theatre – and shortly afterwards, in film as well.

What made her so successful on stage?

As a theatre actress, Pola Negri quickly gained popularity and critical acclaim. Critics wrote that she possessed a “thoroughly theatrical temperament” and an unusual beauty, and that her acting was full of “nobility and expressive strength.” Her physical attributes – a slender, supple figure, expressive face, and large vivid eyes – were undoubtedly assets. But what truly set her apart was the natural fusion of dramatic talent and exceptional dance ability, polished by intensive training with the best teachers. In this respect, she had no rival in Poland. She was also curious, open to the world, and eager for artistic challenges. She performed both on the stage of the Grand Theatre and in lighter entertainment venues, dancing fashionable apache dances, Eastern routines, or the newly imported tango. However, her true element was cinema…

How did Negri win the hearts of film audiences?

Pola possessed tremendous talent and charisma. She was an excellent actress, dancer, and singer, adored internationally. She had an extraordinary instinct for the new medium of film. She acted with her whole body, using facial expression with striking effectiveness. Her energy and temperament burst through the screen – sometimes excessively so. Her palette of acting techniques was not very broad, yet neither audiences nor critics minded; the effect on screen was dazzling.

What roles was she cast in most often?

Pola was always convincing – whether playing a simple village girl, an aristocrat, a courtesan, or an empress. She excelled in roles of resourceful foreign women, sometimes surprisingly so, including characters who were half-Chinese or from South America. Even the most formulaic roles came alive in her hands.

She wasn’t just an actress – she wrote as well.

Pola Negri was interested in film theory and published a book in French in 1925 that explored the specifics of film acting. It was an absolutely pioneering endeavour. It’s worth adding that Pola spoke several foreign languages fluently.

Her collaboration with the legendary Ernst Lubitsch was a turning point in her career.

After her early success in Polish films, the German film industry took notice. The renowned director Ernst Lubitsch, with whom she worked both in Germany and later in Hollywood, not only managed to rein in her excessive expressiveness but also highlighted her magnetic charm. He considered Pola an exceptional actress – one with immense artistic sensitivity and charisma unmatched by any other actress of the time.

From Berlin she set off to conquer Hollywood, signing with Paramount.

Pola Negri was the first European film star invited to Hollywood. In 1922 she arrived in New York, where she was greeted with Dąbrowski’s Mazurka. She did not yet speak English, but in silent cinema that was no obstacle.

What captivated Hollywood?

She brought freshness and exotic flair to American screens. She fascinated audiences and set fashion trends – popularizing turbans, high boots, bobbed hair in the flapper style, open-toe sandals, and even painted toenails, something no previous actress had done. Her greatest screen rival was Gloria Swanson. The press eagerly amplified rumours of conflict, though both actresses denied them – despite occasional mischief. Pola loved dogs, Gloria loved cats. Their pets often roamed studio lots, sometimes invading the other’s film set… “The Polish Queen of Hollywood,” as Pola was called, worked intensely and had little time for a social life.

Yet the press wrote extensively about her famous romances…

Much was written about her relationship with Charlie Chaplin and her engagement to Rudolph Valentino, whom she claimed was the love of her life. Tragically, Valentino died suddenly, and the media treated Pola as the unofficial widow of the greatest screen lover.

How did she cope with the arrival of sound films?

Pola reigned in silent cinema. It’s unclear how spectacular her transition to sound might have been, though given her talent, she likely would have adapted effectively. By the late 1920s her fame began to fade. In 1928 she appeared in four films and then, lacking interesting roles, retreated to her estate in France. New times were coming – and soon, other European stars conquered sound Hollywood: Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

Did sound cinema truly hinder her career?

Pola Negri appeared in the partially sound British film Street of Forgotten Men and performed in a London theatre revue, revealing an exceptional singing voice. She recorded an album accompanied by a Romani choir. Soon Hollywood came calling again. In 1932 she starred in her first full sound film, A Woman Commands. Although the film was not a major success, her low, slightly husky voice impressed critics, and her song “Paradise” became a hit. Her foreign accent was not a problem – she once again played a foreigner, a cabaret artist loved by the king of Serbia. But the film did not spark a comeback, and Hollywood producers fell silent. Pola then toured the United States as a singer, receiving ovations in major cities. Unexpectedly, offers emerged from France and Germany.

How many sound films did she appear in?

In total, Pola Negri made ten sound films. Aside from the 1935 German drama Mazurka, in which she played a Polish singer, they enjoyed only moderate success. Her final screen appearance was in 1964 in the American-British Disney family film The Moon-Spinners, in a small role as an eccentric jewellery collector walking a cheetah on a leash. Half a century after her film debut in Slave of the Senses, she ended her acting career, remaining a legend of Polish and world cinema.

How was she perceived in her homeland?

Poles were proud of their international star. Newspapers wrote about her often, and pre-war cinemas screened her latest films. Pola Negri remained connected to her homeland throughout her life – she read the Polish press, met with compatriots, and supported the Polish community in America. She spoke perfect Polish, without a foreign accent. She became an American citizen only in the 1950s, influenced by a wealthy friend who left her a significant fortune.

Professor Trojanowski adds:
“Pola may still surprise us as an actress. Three of her sound films never premiered in Poland: the French Fanatisme (1934), the German The Decisive Night (1938), and the American comedy Hi Diddle Diddle (1943), in which she played an opera singer – and even spoke one line in Polish!”

But she never returned to Poland.

It is unfortunate that Pola never visited her homeland, despite receiving both official and private invitations. There was a real chance she would attend the grand reopening of the reconstructed Grand Theatre in Warsaw in 1965 – after all, it was on that very stage that she made her debut as a dancer in Swan Lake more than fifty years earlier. Ultimately she sent only a congratulatory telegram. Yet she made a symbolic gesture: she donated a film costume from The Moon-Spinners to the Theatre Museum in Warsaw.

Tell us about her life in her hometown of Lipno.

Pola’s parents – Eleonora née Kiełczewska and Jerzy (originally Juraj) Chalupec – lived in Lipno on Stodólna Street. Her father, a Slovak with some Romani heritage, ran a successful sheet-metal workshop. He was also involved in underground activity. When he was arrested by the Tsarist authorities and imprisoned in Warsaw, Pola and her mother moved there to be closer to him. Pola wrote in her memoirs that they sold their house and workshop for a fair price – no one in Lipno would dare swindle the family of a freedom fighter.

You also have roots in Lipno. How did your interest in Pola begin?

Yes, I’m from Lipno. After the war my grandmother and father lived on Stodólna Street in a house owned by Zofia Jabłońska, a childhood friend of Pola’s who remembered her well. The Chałupiec house at number 14 was a wooden, plastered structure with a characteristic veranda facing south. Sadly, it was demolished in the early 1980s when an apartment block was built there.

We learned about Lipno’s famous daughter at school; my grandmother also told me stories. The only trace of her presence for many years was a restaurant named Pola. The Lipno library owned just one copy of her memoirs – and the waiting list was long.

But for many years Pola remained forgotten.

In the late 1980s, a biography of the actress by Wiesława Czapińska rekindled interest; she traced Pola’s footsteps in Lipno. Earlier, in the 1960s, journalist Krzysztof Kąkolewski had visited the town, speaking with residents and local officials, and even with a man claiming to have known Pola – Mieczysław Warczachowski, who ran a pre-war dance school in Lipno.

Fortunately, the legend of Pola Negri has revived…

Everything changed thanks to Wiesława Czapińska’s initiative and her ability to inspire local enthusiasts. In 2005 the Pola Negri Memorial Room opened, and two years later the first “Pola and Others” Film Review was launched. In 2024, thanks to support from the regional self-government, a fountain with a statue of Pola Negri – depicted in a pose from the 1923 American film The Spanish Dancer – was unveiled in the town centre at Dekert Square.

The Pola Negri Film Award of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region Marshal, established in 2022, is named in her honour. It is awarded to filmmakers – from emerging talents to established artists – whose work significantly contributes to Polish cinema. The statuette, designed by Zbigniew Mikielewicz, takes the form of a stylized film reel featuring the image of this global icon.

Department of Promotion