POLA NEGRI (c.1920s) - Personality Postcard #01

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Original Price: $25.00

Price: $15.00

You Save: $10.00 (40 %)

Item Number: PC-NEGRI-01

Production Co.: Paramount Pictures (U.S.)

Distributor: Paramount Pictures (U.S.)

Quantity:

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Vintage original 3.5 x 5.5 in. (8.9 x 14 cm.) postcard, printed in France, unused, very fine condition.

This beautiful Silent Era postcard features, one of the most collectible of the Silent Era actresses in today's market. The image features a close shot of Miss Negri smiling as she wears an elegant outfit including a fur coat, pearls around her neck and wrist, a very large diamond ring and a gold turban. This vintage original postcard was printed in France (as indicated on the verso in English/French) and is unused and in very fine condition. There is a small amount of writing in pencil on the left side of the verso (various numbers).

Pola Negri was born in Poland and moved to Warsaw as a young child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness which ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an actress. By 17, she was a star on the stage in Warsaw, but World War I would soon change the theater scene. Without the theater, Pola turned to films. With her new career in pictures and her stage success in Sumurun, she went to Berlin and was teamed with German Director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was very successful and the roles that Pola played were earthy, exotic, strong women. One of her films, Madame DuBarry (1919), was optioned and retitled as Passion (1919) for distribution in the U.S. The film was such a success that by 1922, Pola and Lubitsch were both given contracts to work in Hollywood. While her first few films showed some success, they were overshadowed by her reported romances with such stars as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Forbidden Paradise (1924), made with Director Lubitsch, and Hotel Imperial (1927) were two of her more successful films. But three things conspired to end her career in Hollywood. The display that she put on at the funeral of Valentino in 1926, changed the public mood towards her. The Hays Office codes which would not allow filming the very traits that made her a sex-siren European star. And finally, her thick accent would not play in the sound pictures that were coming into vogue. Pola Negri returned to Europe and eventually made films for UFA, which was under Nazi management. In 1941, Pola returned to American penniless. She made the movie Hi Diddle Diddle in 1943 and became an American citizen in 1951. Her next and last movie was The Moon-Spinners (1964).