Born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec on January 3rd, 1897 in Lipno, Poland, as an only child in a poor family, her mother had to make a living alone after Chałupiec`s father was arrested by the Russians and sent to Siberia. Her father was a poor Slovak immigrant.[1]

In 1902, both moved to Warsaw, where they lived in extreme poverty. She trained as a dancer at the Ballet School in Warsaw and performed there until tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing.

During her movie career, she was also touted as an accomplished organist, and at least one extant photograph shows her apparently performing on a two manual pipe organ, but this may have been merely publicity, as her family`s extreme poverty would seem to argue against her studying with any well-known organist.

She turned to acting, and by the end of World War I had established herself as a popular stage actress in Warsaw, appearing in several films. She made an appearance in the Grand Theatre (in Sumurun), as well as in Small Theatre (Aleksander Fredro`s Śluby panieńskie) and at the Summer Theatre in the Saxon Garden, a popular summer variéte theatre. She debuted in film in 1914 in Slave of the Senses (Niewolnica zmysłów).

During that time, she adopted the pseudonym "Pola Negri," after the Italian poetess, Ada Negri. She also appeared in a variety of films made by the Warsaw film industry, including The Wife (Żona), The Beast (Bestia), Students (Studenci), Street Ruffian`s Lover (Kochanka apasza) and the Mysteries of Warsaw series. During her short screen career in Warsaw, she gained much popularity, acting with many of the most renowned Polish film artists of the time, including Józef Węgrzyn, Władysław Grabowski, Józef Galewski and Kazimierz Junosza-Stępowski.