What can you say about an actress who was independently famous in three countries? Well, Pola Negri first became a household name in her native Poland as a stage actress, then in Germany as a movie star, and then became the first foreign actress to be hired in Hollywood — before Dietrich, Banky and all the other, perhaps more famous names.
Today, she seems to have been largely forgotten, but in her time she was not only famous, but infamous — not the least because she was the lover of (among many) Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.
She also popularized the fashion of painted toenails, which no one had ever done before (except maybe prostitutes, which may have been why she was regarded as scandalous).
She also became fabulously wealthy — in 1922, her personal fortune was estimated (in today’s dollars) at just under $100 million. Her house in Hollywood looked like the White House.
I don’t think the photos of the time did her justice, largely because of the clothing fashions of the 1920s were terrible. And her acting style would today be called “histrionic” or “over-dramatic”, but that was the style back then in the silent movie era — and in any event, she was very definitely a product of her Polish upbringing, being passionate and over-the-top.
So what did she look like?
Here she is, snogging Chaplin:
…and giving ol’ Rudi Valentino the glad eye:
And here’s what she looked like in the 1940s, when clothing styles were better and the makeup less stagey:
Exquisite.
Her last film role appears to have been as Madam Habib in the Hayley Mills film, “The Moonspinners”, also starring Peter McEnery, Irene Pappas, and the ubiquitous Eli Wallach.