POLA NEGRI. Vintage 3.5 x 5.5 semi-glossy sepia tone 1920s chest-up glamour portrait, boldly signed in blue fountain pen. Very fine condition. The faint vertical white line in the center of the image in the accompanying scan is purely a scanner glitch, not present on the actual photograph. The tempestuous and self-dramatizing Polish-born silent screen diva came to Hollywood following a series of highly successful German films directed by Ernst Lubitsch. A mesmerizing screen presence, she played vamps and strong-willed heroines throughout the 1920s, but her popularity began to fade partially as a result of her histrionic shenanigans during her cross-country train trip to attend the funeral of her putative lover, Rudolph Valentino, as she obligingly fainted for photographers at each stop. Later, in a particularly bad career move, she would turn down the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950), offended by the idea of portraying a has-been.
$90 |
