Polish actress Pola Negri was BOTD in 1897. Born Barbara Chałupiec in Lipno, Poland (at the time part of the Russian Empire), she grew up in poverty and suffered tuberculosis as a teenager. She moved to Poland to study acting and dance, becoming a well-known stage performer. In 1917, she relocated to Berlin to work with theatre director Max Reinhardt, and made a series of successful films with director Ernst Lubitsch. In 1922, she became the first European actress to be offered a Hollywood studio contract. She became one of the most popular and highest-paid stars of 1920s silent cinema, typically playing glamorous femmes fatales. Her exotic persona fell out of favour by the end of the decade, and she attracted negative publicity after making a scene at the funeral of her lover Rudolph Valentino. After making a successful transition to sound films, she returned to Germany, scoring a box office hit with the 1935 film Mazurka. Its success led to her signing a new contract with UFA, where she made five further films, earning the admiration of Adolf Hitler. At the outbreak of World War Two, Negri returned to the United States, eventually reviving her Hollywood career with a role in the 1943 comedy Hi Diddle Diddle. After undertaking a vaudeville tour in 1945, she announced her retirement, famously turning down the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Her final screen appearance was the 1964 Disney film The Moon-Spinners. Married and divorced twice, Negri had well-publicised affairs with Valentino and Charlie Chaplin. She lived for 30 years with her friend Margaret West, sharing homes in Los Angeles and Texas until West’s death in 1963. Biographers have speculated that Negri was bisexual and that she and West were lovers, though this remains unclear. After publishing a memoir in 1970, she lived quietly in San Antonio, dying in 1987, aged 90.