Pola Negri Biography

Pola Negri

After tuberculosis cut short a promising ballet career, Pola Negri began acting, emigrating from her native Poland to Germany to star in films. Her collaboration with German director Ernst Lubitsch proved successful, culminating in Madam DuBarry (1919), which attracted the attention of Hollywood executives. With her passionate characters and her exotic good looks, Negri became one of the biggest silent film stars in the United States. She earned as much as $10,000 per week and was linked romantically with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Rudolf Valentino. By the late 1920s, Negri's popularity waned and she returned to a revived career in Germany. She again came to the U.S. in 1941, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1951. Her final two films were Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and The Moon Spinners (1964), after which she lived in virtual seclusion in San Antonio, Texas.