Pola Negri - Memoirs of a Star

Pola Negri by Tade Styka

To my mother and Margaret West,
the greatest friends I have ever had.

Special thanks to Alfred Allan Lewis for his help in preparing this book,

to my secretary, Marie Russi, in appreciation for her work in typing the manuscript,

and to Lawrence Ashmead for his tireless effort in making this book a fait accompli.

There comes a time when a star must pack up her memories and leave the public arena for a private lifea life filled with nostalgia and with pride in her achievement; yes, and even her failures.

There have been so many outrageous accounts of very personal events, both triumphant and tragic, that I had often sadly wondered: Where am I in all of this?

If I am to make any final statement, it must be entirely true. What follows is my life. It is being told for the first time as I actually lived it.

With that departure from the spotlight, I also shed my public image and once again become completely the private individual I always was beneath the extraordinary faade of glamour and exoticism.

Alone

From childhoods hour I have not been

As other wereI have not seen

As other sawI could not bring

My passions from a common spring

EDGAR ALLEN POE

I was a young swan gliding along the rich green darkness of a place I could not quite make out. It might have been the pond in the Ogrod Saskia very big park in the middle of Warsawor the floor of the forest near the town of Lipno, or the velvet darkness of the great stage of the Imperial Theater in Warsaw. From ahigh, shafts of light illuminating my path were like rays of the sun through the tall pines, or were they the piercing beams of the follow spotlights? I did not care. It did not matter. I danced on, foot extended, then brought back, propelling myself around, never moving off my mark. One fouett, two fouetts, three fouettsthe Swan, the Swanthirty fouetts, thirty-one fouetts, thirty-two fou Pola, Pola, its time to get up. Pola! Weve got to hurry. Its already almost six.

A hand reached into the darkness and shook me gently, lifting me through light years into the drab, gray world of early morning. I blinked and looked up into the handsome face of my mother. The shadows that striped it came from the pale light of a dull day that would bring no brilliant dawn. In the center of her gentle blue eyes, there were small flames, reflections of the only light burning in the room, the small votive candle before the Madonna of Czstochowa.

I got up and washed in the cold water already carried up by my mother from the pump in the courtyard. We were in too much of a rush to heat it. Later at the theater, I would let the hot water run in the dressing room and wash myself voluptuously under it. The theater! This should have been the happiest day in my life. I saw my mother try to smooth away a wrinkle in her shabby frock and I remembered why it was not. I dont think I ever saw her really cry. She smoothed out a frock insteador she smiled. In Lipno, where I was born, Mama was famous for her smile, and justly so, for it came like something warm spreading over her whole face, creeping into the tiny crevices round her eyes, furrowing her brow, wrinkling her nose, converting her calm blond beauty into a mask of mirth.

The dress I was to wear hung from a peg on the wall. There were no armoires or closets, and all of our clothes hung from the wall. It made our little attic room look as if we were in a constant state of preparation for a journey that would never be made.

Things would change, I thought, now that I was earning money in the balletthings would change. To a nine-year-old, the monthly salary of a five-ruble gold piece (worth about ten American dollars) was enough to change the world. I would have reassured my mother with this happy thought, but the silent sadness in her expression silenced me. It was not the lack of money that caused this days unhappiness.

The dirty light of the overcast October morning curled in through our one window, extinguishing all sense of illumination from Our Ladys votive. She was the Patroness of Poland, responsible for as many miracles as Lourdes. It was not long after we arrived in Warsaw that my mother and I first made one of the annual pilgrimages to Czstochowa seeking a miracle from the Blessed Virgin. It would take no less than that to save us from the Tsars justice.

We climbed the steep stone steps leading from our quarter to the more fashionable sections of Warsaw. That part of the city spread itself with Baroque splendor across the natural terrace that lay just beyond and high above the embankments of the Vistula. As we walked, our backs were warmed by the heat of the sun rising above Praga, on the other side of the river. It would be a glorious day for the start of the procession.

People from all over Warsaw were swarming through Zamkowy Square. It was a maddening throng in which one could move neither forward nor back. From the top of the tall column rising in the center of the square, King Sigismund was blessing us all with the cross carried in his right hand. The bell in the bubbled campanile of St. Annes was sounding majestically. To no avail, we tried to get to the church. This solid mass of worshipers seemed to climb the Corinthian columns of the portal and settle in the cornice above. It was important to be blessed by the Archbishop before starting.

I was six and could see little more than shirt fronts and hips but, even from them, there emanated a joyousness of spirit. Suddenly an arm reached down, and I was swung up onto the shoulders of a very tall man. Everybody laughed. Even my mother smiled without ever lessening the intensity of drive towards the church door. My new perch delighted me. From it, I could see everything: the church, and King Sigismund and the castles and the houses of the square, painted cream and beige and yellow, topped by sloping pink tiled roofs.

The doors of the church swung open, and the ancient Archbishop emerged. Veneration for him was something that rippled through the crowd, diluting its high spirits. Hats were immediately doffed and I, like one of them, swept back down on my feet. The creaking and groaning of the mass collectively kneeling in the streets preceded an intense silence in which one could hear the priests shaking, old voice blessing us and bidding us Gods speed on our holy journey.

With that, the pilgrimage was officially begun. We arose not less happy than before but experiencing a different happiness, a tranquil serenity that remained within us rather than surging forth in raucous laughter.

The trembling hand of the Archbishop lifted a golden shepherds crook with scarlet ribbons billowing from it. The crowd quietly parted before him, as he crossed the square to lead the procession down the Krakowskie Przedmiecie. Falling in behind him were lace-frocked priests swinging jeweled censers, choir boys holding aloft brightly hued banners proclaiming the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin, strong young men carrying brilliantly dressed effigies of the Madonna like huge dolls with which I longed to play. All this I saw, as I was once more swung up to the shoulders of my anonymous cavalier. My mother glanced at me and smiled tentatively. Her natural reserve with strangers was only slightly abated by the religious nature of our journey. Far ahead, the choir sang hymns that were picked up by others and wafted back to us in a series of relaying echoes, before floating beyond along the parade which, when I glanced back, snaked endlessly behind us.