Barbara Kwiatkowska, who took the stage name Barbara Lass, is one of the Polish film stars who died far too early. Although initially she was supposed to be a dancer – she was active in “Skolimów” and attended the Warsaw ballet school, thanks to her exceptional beauty she eventually became an actress.
Strikingly beautiful
According to rumors, the start of her career was due to the “Beautiful Girls on Screen” campaign organized by the bi-weekly “Film”, but she did not even send an application. She was discovered when she was dancing in the short “Episode” by Bronisław Brok. It was then that she got involved in the cult film “Ewa wants to sleep” from 1957 despite her lack of experience. Two years later, she was already conquering the West. She was warmly welcomed by Italian, French and German cinema – she appeared in, among others, opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Thousand Window. All thanks to love. The role of not only the translator, but also her life partner was played by Roman Polañski.
The director perfectly remembers the moment when he met Kwiatkowska for the first time. It was the spring of 1957, the period of work on Tadeusz Chmielewski’s film, the Grand Hotel in Łódź, hall She was heading towards the reception.
A girl came and took the key. She was strikingly beautiful, with huge eyes and full, sensual lips. Her fantastic figure was perfectly emphasized by a straight-cut dress with vertical stripes. Dark brown, almost brunette, with an almond-shaped face, gorgeous long eyelashes, a snub nose, and a lithe, firm body.
– Polanski recalled the beauty, who was not even eighteen at the time. Janusz Morgenstern introduced them. What happened, however, can hardly be called love at first sight. “She was shy, introverted and initially didn’t consider me a serious candidate for her affections,” he admitted. Initially, Kwiatkowska’s family did not want to accept her chosen one.
We didn’t like him, he ran around the village, climbed into every hole, he was shorter than Basia, and she was third in Miss World. Mommy told Basia not to bring him back.
her brother told her.
Ewa wanted to sleep, Basia fell asleep
They both cheated on each other, but they were still morbidly jealous of each other. After all, Polanski wanted her all to himself. She accepted the proposal, they got married in 1959 and they celebrated this fact so loudly that the wedding was interrupted by the police. Polański wanted to nurture the career of his first wife – he got her the role of the nymphomaniac Jola in Andrzej Munk’s “Bad Happiness”. However, the artists were suffocating in Poland and this common desire to conquer the West divided them. Polanski was interested in movies, she – romances with foreign actors.
She divorced the Polish director after only three years in 1962, and her new chosen one was Karlheinz Böhm, who instead of a star made her a housewife. She gave up acting. However, she could not return to Poland due to her cooperation with Radio Free Europe. She was brought back to the country after her death. Her ashes were buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery, where the eloquent words of Jacek Kaczmarski, referring to the beginning of her interrupted career, were placed:
Eve wants to sleep. Basia loved, she lived – and now she sleeps.
– carved in granite.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
