[1] The son of a nobleman, Polonsky took drama courses in the Moscow theatre school, graduating in 1907.

His first role was that of Prince Andrey Bolkonsky in the 1915 film Natasha Rostova.

He played several hero-lover roles including Boris in The Brothers Boris and Gleb; Boris in Irina Kirsanova; Evgeny in The Song of Tumultuous Love; Andrey Bargov in After Death; Vladislav Zaritsky in Shadows of Sin (all 1915); Prince Baratynsky in A Life for a Life (1916); Lanin in By The Fireplace (1917) and Prince Mirsky in Evening Sacrifice.

His first wife was the Maly Theatre actress Vera Nikolaevna Pashennaya (1887–1962), who became a National Artist of the USSR, a State Laureate and Lenin Prize winner.

[2] In the summer of 1918, the film director Pyotr Chardynin and the Moscow cinema entrepreneur Dmitry Kharitonov requested the State Commissar for Education, Lunacharsky, to aid a group of cinema workers to travel to Odessa to film.