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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 exhibition in America. 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 Chaplin and 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)`.

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