Pola Negri—The Hollywood Years

I happen to be the authors brother and although I have never really had much of an interest in Hollywood or the Silent Film era, I bought this book and decided to read it anyway. I must say that my brother writes extremely well and this is evidenced in his book. His research is impeccable and the patience he takes to get what he wants amazes me. I know this book took him a couple of years to complete and he was continually seeking out people who may have had contact or information on Pola Negri. As a result, he acquired wonderful photos that have never been seen before. He does a lovely display of the photos at the appropriate time throughout the book. I must say that I was totally impressed and developed an interest in the Hollywood Silent Film era. If you want a comprehensive look at Pola Negri, BUY this book. Highly recommended!

Reading a biography about any star can be hit or miss. There are many authors out there that are their subjects biggest fan and because of this, they seem rather blindsided to any possibly character flaw the subject could have. They act as their greatest defenders making up reasons and excuses for any negative traits one would have. Enter Tony Vilecco -- author, fan, silent star aficionado, and a Pola Negri specialist who can love a creature divine such as Pola, all the while recognizing her faults, her insecurities, her demanding character traits and making no excuses for them but will occasionally (and understandably) discuss cultural differences as to why she went all out on every feeling and emotion. <----now that was a run on sentence.Sure she was European.... and different. She was also a woman that learned (and earned) how to get what she wanted by being head strong and demanding and powerful. Those qualities may work just fine in one country where she proved herself but doesn't necessarily translate well in a new land where she is "a new commodity" for lack of a better word.Pola triumphed in many things (she married a Count and a Prince -- pretty triumphant in my book) but failed at winning the true love of her own true love, Valentino. Everything that came hard for her left just as easily. Her career, her men, the quality of films. It's hard to imagine someone like Pola as a domesticated housewife raising children and cooking and sewing for her kids. Although I strangley think this was something that could have made her happy. She was every bit of a star as Gloria Swanson perhaps just not as wise nor prepared for a future that was changing so fast.This is an awesome book to get an unbiased look into the character of this mostly forgotten yet legendary figure. When this woman did something she did it BIG! Some would say (and many have) that she was a bitch. I bet she was. Who's to say that personality didn't develop out of necessity working in the boys club? Could she have gotten and accomplished all that she had --had she not been one? Let's face it.... some people don't listen to nice.

very charming, involved and personal biography by an admirer.

Very fast delivery of a great book love it

There are a handful of books out there on the life and career of legendary silent film vamp Pola Negri, ranging from the good (her own somewhat fictional autobiography MEMOIRS OF A STAR), to the bad (no titles I will mention), to the indifferent (again, I will refrain). What we have with Tony Villecco’s POLA NEGRI – THE HOLLYWOOD YEARS is just that without apology….an evaluation of her Hollywood based films which the author has diligently researched and produced in a volume which is most appealing, complete with rare photographs and superb narrative.Make no mistake, this is not a comprehensive nor complete biography of the film actress. Disappointingly there is little about her early pre-Hollywood career, and virtually nothing about her Nazi-era films and her life within the Third Reich, prior to her returning to America in 1941. For many Negri fans, myself included, these two eras of the actress’s life and career are the most interesting.Pola Negri was brought to Hollywood in 1922 by Adolf Zukor and Jesse Lasky at Famous Players-Paramount after her stunning success in European films. Many say she was brought over to challenge the cinema supremacy of the difficult, temperamental Gloria Swanson, whom she truly had a personal and professional rivalry with.Born Apolonia Chalupec in 1897 (or so), she entered films in her native Poland in 1914. Moving to Germany she changed her name and starred in several major internationally acclaimed films, especially for director Ernst Lubitsch, such as THE EYES OF MUMMY MA and CARMEN (1918), MADAME DUBARRY (1919), and SUMURAN (1920). Landing in Hollywood she made nearly two dozen films, none of which turned the world on its ear, though such pictures as her first, BELLA DONNA (1923), THE SPANISH DANCER (1924), A WOMAN OF THE WORLD (1925), HOTEL IMPERIAL (1927), and her best American silent BARBED WIRE (1928)…all of which are extent…proved she had a remarkable, intense talent.Pola Negri however is best remembered in Hollywood lore as once being the amour of Charlie Chaplin, and the last love of Rudolph Valentino, whom she always claimed she was engaged to when he met his untimely death in August 1926. At his funeral at Campbell’s Funerals Home in New York city she collapsed and fainted for the cameras, and repeated the performance, perhaps her best, at his burial later in Hollywood. The photographers, fans, and gossips had a field day. Within a year she married the penniless Prince Serge Mdivani.When sound came in, because of her accent and limited appeal, Negri was dead in Hollywood. After a couple of really bad film talkies, which author Villecco details in his book, Negri returned to Germany, where her second film there, MAZURKA (1935), was a brilliant success. She starred in seven European pictures, between 1934 and 1938, during this turbulent period in European history. Her alleged affair with Adolf Hitler notwithstanding, some of her greatest celluloid performances were these very seven pictures, which are still extent and rarely screened. Sadly, they are not covered in Villecco’s otherwise comprehensive narrative, as are Negri’s Hollywood films.After a couple of failed film comebacks (1941’s comedy for RKO, HI DIDDLE DIDDLE with Adolphe Menjou, in which she was surprisingly good), and Disney’s 1964 caper THE MOONSPINNERS with Hayley Mills, Negri’s last years were spent in retirement in Texas, where she lived with a “benefactress” until her death in 1987.Nonetheless, POLA NEGRI – THE HOLLYWOOD YEARS is what it is, and that is a very fine accounting of Negri’s Hollywood career. Author Tony Villecco should be applauded for properly chronicling her work during Hollywood’s Golden Silent Era.