“When I first came to California an interviewer asked me what is the dangerous age of a man and a woman. They ask such funny questions, so naive! I told him I did not know the dangerous age of man. I have not been one. The dangerous age of a woman is from one to a hundred.” — Pola Negri
Source: Herbert Howe (1923)
Photographer: Charles Sheldon
“On the sets, I found her very patient unless she was asked to wait. That always annoys her.” — Herbert Brenon, talking about directing Pola Negri in The Spanish Dancer (1923).
“Say it with hands.” — Pola Negri in 1923
Photo: Bella Donna (1923)
“Of course, every actor or actress uses his hands in his work. But I don’t believe most of them make quite as full use of them as I like to do.” — Pola Negri
Source: 1923
“Pola Negri is really beautiful. She is Polish and really true to the type. Beautiful jet black hair, white, even teeth, and wonderful coloring. I really think it such a pity that such coloring does not register on the screen.” — Charles Chaplin
“I thought I had been engaged as an actress. But no, I found that I had been bought as a personality for exploitation, to be remade by the American pattern. I wondered that your public could be so stupid as to expect always the same old hokum, actresses who say and do the regulation things.” – Pola Negri
Source: Myrtle Gebhart (1924)
Photographer: Charles Gates Sheldon
“I can’t go on this way – trying to make dramas to the music of an adding machine. I’ve got to be myself. I can’t make this kind of expression because they would like it in Keokuk, Iowa. I can’t do my hair this way to please the exhibitor of Mobile, Mississippi. I’ve got to be myself.” – Pola Negri
Source: Harry Carr (1924)
Photographer: Charles Gates Sheldon
Woman of the World (1925)
“I invented red toenails, I invented turbans, I invented boots. I wore boots in Poland, it was so cold. So I wore them in Hollywood.” — Pola Negri
“Oh, no, I shall not play such thing — no, no, I shall not! I have never played this vampire, because I do not think there is ever such a woman in this world, and I do not play any woman except those that have character and are real to me.” — Pola Negri
Source: Alice L. Tildseley (1926)
“I have already learned that the fewer appearances you make, the more they will talk about you. All you have to do is to say you want to be alone – and the whole world thinks you are exotic and glamorous. It never occurs to them that you are simply tired.” — Pola Negri
Source: Her book Memoirs of a Star (1970)
Photo: Eugene Robert Ritchee
Good and Naughty (1926)
“No, no, I tell you – as I am now writing in my ‘Memoirs’ – in love I have been always un’appy – I have been the one who was hurt, who was humiliated, who was left grieving – never, never the man!” — Pola Negri
Source: Alice L. Tildseley (1926)
“An actress cannot be regarded as an ordinary human being. Often after an emotional scene, her nerves are overwrought and she is tired and nervous. However, there is only one excuse that I can see forever holding up production. If a scene does not appeal to me and I do not feel I can give my best work, I stop to discuss it with my director. If that is temperament – then I am temperamental.” — Pola Negri in 1927
The following is Pola Negri’s beauty advice (as told to Diana Dare), in 1928.
“There is nothing in the art of keeping beautiful that should interfere in any way with your daily tasks.
“First of all, let me spoil the theory that sleeping late in the morning is ‘beauty sleep.’
“Sleeping late will give you headaches and make your eyes puffy.
“Don’t sleep with a pillow.
“There’s no surer way of bringing double chins. And it will destroy the pretty lines of your back and shoulders.
“Don’t drink water with your meals. It has a tendency to create flesh.
“Drink an hour before and an hour after meals. Maintain this schedule with scrupulous regularity.
“Above all, don’t experiment with massage. There is no surer way to bring wrinkles than unskilled massage.
“Go to an expert for this sort of thing, someone who knows just how the skin should be handled. However, massage isn’t such an important feature of beautification as some people think, and the housewife or businesswoman can do well without the treatments of an expensive masseur.
“Don’t use water on your face; it will make it coarse.
“Once a week I steam my face thoroughly with hot cloths. This cares for all the blackheads and pore impurities and, in connection with the cream, will operate to keep your face clear, fresh, and attractive.”
“I consider my work great, as I am a great artist.” — Pola Negri
Artist: Tadeusz Styka. Year: 1922. Oil. While researching the painting, I came across a photo of Negri taken by Eugene Robert Richee possibly inside her Beverly Hills home at 621 North Beverly Boulevard in 1925.
Year: 1930. Artist: Josef Sigall (1891 – 1953). 23 1/4″ Tall X 19 3/4″ Wide. Oil.
“I am fated to be unhappy in love. I know it. Each time that I meet someone whom I truly love, something happens. It isn’t that men do not love me. I could have any man in the world right at my feet. But I don’t want them. I have no interest in them, now. Perhaps if I could have had children, I would have been happy like other women. But even that was denied me. I shall not love again, for it brings me only pain and loneliness in the end.” – Pola Negri
Source: Mary Sharon (1931)
Photographer: Russell Ball (1931)
