Polish Theatre and Film Career
Pola Negri's best known personal relationships were those with Charlie Chaplin (left) and Rudolph Valentino (right).After Negri returned from her stay at the sanatorium, she successfully auditioned for the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. Alongside her formal schooling at the Academy, she also took private classes outside with renowned Polish stage actress and professor Honorata Leszczynska. She made her theatrical debut before her graduation at The Small Theatre in Warsaw on October 2, 1912. Her performance received much acclaim, and she continued to perform there while finishing her studies at the Academy. She graduated in 1914. Her graduating performance was as Hedwig in Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, which resulted in offers to join a number of the prominent theatres in Warsaw. By the end of World War I, Negri had established herself as a popular stage actress. She made an appearance in the Grand Theatre (in Sumurun), as well as in the Small Theatre (Aleksander Fredro's Śluby panieńskie) and at the Summer Theatre in the Saxon Garden, the latter being a popular summer variété theatre.
Negri debuted in film in 1914 in Slave to her Senses (Niewolnica zmysłów). She also appeared in a variety of films made by the Warsaw film industry, including Bestia (Beast, released in the US as The Polish Dancer), Room No. 13 (Pokój Nr. 13), His Last Gesture (Jego Ostatni Czyn), Students (Studenci), and The Wife (Żona). Negri gained much popularity during her short screen career in Warsaw, acting alongside many of the most renowned Polish film artists of the time, including Józef Węgrzyn, Władysław Grabowski, Józef Galewski, and Kazimierz Junosza-Stępowski.
Read more about this topic: Pola Negri
Famous quotes containing the words polish, theatre, film and/or career:
“You will have to polish up the stars
with Bab-o and find a new God
as the earth empties out
into the gnarled hands of the old redeemer.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.”
—Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)
“[Film noir] experiences periodic rebirth and rediscovery. Whenever we have any moment of deep societal rift or disruption in America, one of the ways we can express it is through the ideas and behavior in film noir.”
—John Briley (b. 1925)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)