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Pola Negri, née Apollonia Chalupec,* is reported to have been born in 1) Bromberg; 2) Yanowa; 3) Lipno. She was almost certainly born in Poland. Less certain is her birth year—which is variously given anywhere from 1897 to 1899. According to Pola it is 1903. Her father, George Chalupec, is reported to have been a gypsy, a Polish fabric merchant, a wealthy Hungarian farmer who died in 1905, was shipped to Siberia for taking part in the Russian Revolution of 1905, was abandoned by his Polish wife and daughter, killed by Cossacks.
Slave of the Senses. Pola's first starring role was in Love and Passion (or Slave of the Senses'), which she wrote, directed, and produced herself with a secondhand movie camera in her own Warsaw apartment. Pola claims that the picture so interested Max Reinhardt that he brought her to Germany in 1917. She achieved stardom overnight in Carmen and Passion (with Emil Jannings).
When Passion, the story of Madame Du Barry, broke box-office records in Manhattan in 1922, Pola crossed the Atlantic, was met at the boat by Adolph Zukor with a police escort, bands, flowers, photographers. Zukor ordered a dinner for 300, liquor for $5,200. In Hollywood, Pola's fame as a vamp grew with Forbidden Paradise, in which she played with Adolphe Menjou. In six years Pola played in 21 pictures, rose to $300,000 for a single picture.
Hitler Wept. Pola has married only twice.** She wraps her romances in mystery by carefully concealing her fiancés' names, carefully dropping hints as to their nationalities, professions, wealth, renown. Rich and renowned men to whom Pola has been rumored engaged: Chicago Millionaire Harold F. McCormick, British Millionaire Lieut. Commander Glen Kid-ston, Cinema idols Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin. Most renowned man with whom Pola's name has been linked is Adolf Hitler (TIME, April 26, 1937). This most sensational of rumors about Pola hit the headlines over half of Europe, is said to have made the Führer weep. Goebbels thought she was Jewish. Hitler had Pola's ancestry investigated, proved her "Polish and therefore Aryan." Pola claims she has never even seen Hitler.
Pola claims the advent of talkies had nothing to do with her leaving Hollywood in 1928. In Europe, she played in one British film, Street of Abandoned Children, in one French film, Fanaticisme, but was soon back again in the U.S., starring in RKO's million-dollar A Woman Commands (TIME, Feb. 8, 1932). During its shooting, Pola collapsed from what she calls a "chronical appendicitis," nearly died. The early '303 were lean years for her. She had been reduced to making a personal appearance tour, playing four shows a day; was twice prevented from leaving the U.S. to visit her mother on the French Riviera, because she owed the U.S. Government $80,000; was banned from acting in Germany.
Last week in a single room at a French-Hollywood apartment house, Pola was studying astrology. Said she: "I just couldn't get along without it. I would not know how to make deceesions."
CURRENT & CHOICE
Lift Your Heads (British Ministry of Information, OWI; TIME, July 12).
Spitfire (Leslie Howard, David Niven; TIME, June 28).
Coney Island (Betty Grable, George Montgomery, Cesar Romero; TIME, June 21).