POLA

In this biographical novel, POLA NEGRI, though raised in poverty, became the first European star of silent films, later conquering Hollywood, where she had affairs with Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.  In the 1930s, resuming her career in talkies, she returned to Europe, where she was known to be Adolph Hitler’s favorite movie star and reputed to be his mistress.  Her many friends and associates included Sara Bernhardt, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, the aristocracy of Europe, and, well-documented by the press, such Hollywood and international film luminaries as Ernst Lubitsch, Emil Jannings, Marion Davies, Norma and Constance Talmadge,  and her not-so-good-friend, Gloria Swanson.

     Her incredible theatrical career began at age eight as a ballerina, sponsored by the Russian tsarist regime.  She became a star.  After a serious illness prevented her from dancing she turned to acting and became a stage star at age fourteen.  She continued to be a star in the new medium of film, progressing from the silent era, through the early talkies, into modern-day films, the last of which was, by her choice, Disney’s 1964 movie, The Moonspinners.

     The backdrop to this fabulous life was the Russian Revolution, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II and the years before it, her escape from Europe during the dark times of the Third Reich, and the rebuilding of her life and career in America. Through several marriages, one of which made her a princess, the only constant thing in her life was the lasting, loving, loyal relationship with her mother.