The Real Pola

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 27, 23 April 1927, Page 23 (Supplement)

The Real Pola

THE NEGRI LEGEND DISPELLED BY ONE WHO KNOWS HER

I ! Here is a new picture of ! Pola Nepri by an American - termed "the \epri legend.'* i Hugh Walpole might icell j i have written of Pola. she ! | sags, when he said: "It is not ’ j life that matters, but the | i courage that one brings to | LT _J

The Xegri Legend. It had its birth one night, before the star had even reached America. One can point exactly to the hour. One of the first foreign films to reach Los Angeles was the German-made production, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” It has been received enthusiastically by the critics of Xew York. The film was shipped West, and one night was to be given its local premiere in a Los Angeles motion picture theatre. The local actors, directors and producers were to have an opportunity to view this extraordinary offering from the German studios. DISGRACEFUL RIOT That night the most disgraceful riot occurred outside and even in the theatre. A mob of brawling men, extras all of them, and believe me you can find the lowest types of humanity in the extra crowds, vagrants, thieves, the scroff of the underworld, stormed the theatre where “Caligari” was to be shown. Themselves knowing allegiance to no country, violating every’ law of common

decency, they sent out the shout: “We don’t want any foreign movie pictures here, or any foreign movie actors. Tear down the theatre! Burn the film!” The police were called to disperse the mob. Many of these men were vicious and lawless creatures, who not infrequently could elude the police on proof that they' had "‘worked” even one day in a local studio mob. SOB-SISTERS CRY Yet the sob-sisters on the newspapers took up their cry*. The Danger of a Foreign Invasion? What might it not lead to? Foreign films. Foreign actors. The Xegri Legend was born that night in Los Angeles. Pola Xegri was coming to Los Angeles to work for Famous Play'ers Lasky’. A foreigner. Re-enforced by the discontent of the public over the Xegri films, greater and greater grew the Xegri Legend, spawned that night in 1921 by a miserable mob. Other foreign actors and directors came to this country’, were welcomed, are permitted to work in peace. But Xegri was the first. And for all of them she has borne the brunt. W'hen she arrived, she could speak no English. Confused and troubled, she could not answer questions put by the Press. To this day, as part of the legend, lives the story, therefore, that Pola Xegri is “upstage.” Xowadays, the mere fact that a foreign player, arriving here, speaks little or no English is sufficient for a score or more of delightfully entertaining stories. It’s considered quaintly endearing now. It was harshly unforgivable in the Xegri. But the legend went too far—it reached a terrible, a shocking climax last summer when her bitter, tearing grief was ballyhoed as “an effort to get publicity for herself.” HALF MYSTIC MAGNETISM I have known Pola Xegri for three years. One is impressed first, not so much by her beauty, great though it is, as by the extraordinary, the halfmystic magnetism of the woman. It surrounds her like an aura. Probably Bernhardt and Duse, Booth and Mansfield, had this same strange power. It has been said of Mansfield that dialogue between minor characters in his play's was entirely’ wasted on an audience; that though he stood far downstage, every eye was upon him. Certain actors on the screen have, in more or less measure, this magnetism. Pola Xegri is the only one I’ve ever met who has it off-screen. I cannot say it is a fortunate gift. The lives of Bernhardt and Duse were most tragic. Pola’s, surely, has not been happy. She said to me the other day, “I am grateful for every little moment of happiness that has come to me in my life. These moments have been rare, but why should I assume that I have the right to happiness? Why should any of us? Is it not more wise, perhaps, to believe that we are put here to learn courage?”