Pollak was born in Manchester to an Austrian father and Russian mother and spent part of her childhood in the Netherlands.
After finishing her education in Manchester, she began working as a stage actress and as a singer in musical comedy, pantomime, and revues.
After the war, she auditioned for the newly re-opened Sadlers Wells Opera.
[1] Pollak made her debut as an opera singer in 1945 singing Dorabella in the Sadlers Wells production of Così fan tutte and remained as a leading member of the company until 1962 while also appearing with the English Opera Group as well as at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House.
She returned to Sadlers Wells as a guest artist in 1966 when she gave what critic Elizabeth Forbes called "a hallucinatory performance" as the old Countess in The Queen of Spades and again in 1968 as Calliope in the Sadler's Wells production of Orpheus in the Underworld (her final performance of the opera stage).