Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 13, 1955), born
Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American
silent film actress. Bara was one of the most popular screen actresses of her era, and was one of cinema's earliest
sex symbols. Her
femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for
vampire). The term "
vamp" soon became a popular
slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, along with Broadway turned film actress
Valeska Suratt, and the French film actress
Musidora, popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and was soon imitated by rival actresses such as
Louise Glaum,
Nita Naldi and
Pola Negri.
Birth
Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in 1885 in the Avondale section of
Cincinnati,
Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936),
[New York Times] a prosperous
Jewish tailor born in
Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise de Coppett (1861–1957), was born in
Switzerland and was also Jewish. Bernard and Pauline married in 1882.
Theda's brother and sister were Marque (1888–1954)
["Marque Bara", Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), April 26, 1954, p. 2.] and Esther (1897–1965),
who also became a film actress under the name
Lori Bara and married Francis W. Getty of London in 1920.
The origin of Bara's stage name is somewhat murky;
The Guiness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director
Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Barranger. At the time, many thought the name was taken from an
anagram of "Arab Death".
In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to "Bara".
Education
She attended
Walnut Hills High School from 1899 to 1903 and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the
University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theater productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908. She made her Broadway debut in
The Devil (1908).
Career
Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926. Complete prints of only six of these films still exist. Most of Bara's films were produced by
William Fox, beginning with
A Fool There Was (1915) and ending with
The Lure of Ambition (1919). The phenomenal success of
A Fool There Was gave William Fox the money to found
Fox Film Corporation, while the ensuing films helped to make Fox a successful studio.
At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week for her film performances. She was one of the most famous movie stars, ranking behind only
Charlie Chaplin and
Mary Pickford in popularity.
[oncotton.co.uk/starr/documents/THEDAprogramme&PDF.pdf] Bara's best-known and most popular roles were as "vamp" characters, although she attempted to avoid being typecast by playing more wholesome heroines in films such as
Under Two Flags and
Her Double Life. She also appeared as Juliet in a version of
Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet. Although Bara took her craft seriously, she was too successful as an exotic "wanton woman" to develop a more versatile career.
Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox studio in
Fort Lee, New Jersey. Bara lived with her mother and siblings in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles to film the epic
Cleopatra (1917). This film became one of Bara's biggest hits. No known prints of
Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.
Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was promoted heavily by Fox, and was the studio's biggest star. When the studio lessened their support, her career suffered. Bara, tired of being typecast as a vamp, allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final film for Fox was
The Lure of Ambition (1919). She left Fox and did not make another film until
The Unchastened Woman (1925) for
Chadwick Pictures Corporation. Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy
Madame Mystery (1926), made for
Hal Roach, in which she parodied her vamp image.
Theda Bara is most famous for having a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor/actress with a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Out of her 40 films, 3 remain completely intact.
Cleopatra (almost completely lost, 40 seconds remain),
Du Barry,
Carmen,
Salome, and
Camille are among the lost. Fortunately,
A Fool There Was is preserved in a complete print.
Madame Mystery is preserved in a 9.5 mm print which runs 21 minutes, which may be an abridged version for home viewing.
[Silent Era : The silent film website]
She is also one of the most famous completely silent stars.
Charlie Chaplin and
Mary Pickford, although mostly silent, were filmed in sound, and none of their sound films have been lost. Bara was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise.
Sex symbol
Bara is often cited as the first
sex symbol[Classic Images - Vol. 250 - April 1996 Issue] of that era, and in a number of her films appeared in risqué transparent costumes that left little to the imagination.
[Theda Bara Photo Gallery - Bombshells.Com] Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the
Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.
Bara was photographed in several sittings in skimpy
Oriental-themed costumes. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious and elusive, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the
Sahara Desert under the shadow of the
Sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (In fact, Bara had never even been to Egypt or France.) They called her the "Serpent of the
Nile" and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews. Some film historians point to the excessive handling of Bara, with its over-the-top misrepresentations about the star, as the birth of two new Hollywood phenomena: the studio publicity department and the press agent, which would later evolve into the
public relations person.
At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was notorious enough to be referred to in popular songs of the day. The lyrics of "Red-Hot Hannah" said: "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn / Make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." The song, "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca", contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara / Theda's bare but Becky's bare-er", The song "If I had a man like
Valentino" contains the chorus lyric, "Theda Bara sure would die / She would never roll another eye".
Marriage and retirement
Bara married British-born American film director
Charles Brabin (1883–1957) in 1921. Her film career soon began to slow down, finally ending with the comedy
Madame Mystery made for
Hal Roach in 1926. The following year, Bara made a successful but much maligned appearance on
Broadway in
The Blue Flame.
Though she subsequently expressed interest in returning to the stage or screen, her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career. She did make at least three interview appearances on radio from Hollywood: on the June 8, 1936 broadcast of
Lux Radio Theater; as a guest on
NBC's
For Men Only on March 7, 1939; and on
CBS, November 8, 1939.
Bara spent the remainder of her life as a hostess in Hollywood and New York, in comfort and relative wealth. Producer
Buddy DeSylva and
Columbia Pictures expressed interest in 1949 in making a movie biography of her life, to star
Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.
[Thomas F. Brady, "De Sylva Working on Movie of Bara", New York Times, January 21, 1949, p. 25. Hedda Hopper (column), The Washington Post, August 21, 1949, p. L1. Hedda Hopper (column), The Washington Post, October 23, 1949, p. L1. Thomas F. Brady, "Betty Hutton Set for 2 Metro Films", New York Times, December 2, 1949, p. 36.]
Death
Bara died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California, and was interred as Theda Bara Brabin in the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale, California. Her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthdate as "July 22, 1892."
Legacy
Theda Bara has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a
United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist
Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996, two biographies appeared, Ron Genini's
Theda Bara: A Biography (McFarland) and
Eve Golden's
Vamp (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of
Culver City premiered a film biography,
Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes. A film by British video artist
Georgina Starr titled
Theda based around Bara's lost films premiered in London in November 2006.
[Georgina Starr]
The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in
Fort Lee, New Jersey, as "Theda Bara Way" in May 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.
Theda Bara's image has been the symbol of the
Chicago International Film Festival. A stark, black and white close up of her eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film serves as the logo for the nonprofit festival.
Of silent stars Theda Bara is usually cited as an example of someone with a high percentage of lost films. Only 4 of her features exist including
The Stain (
1914),
A Fool There Was (
1915),
East Lynne (
1916),
The Unchastened Woman (
1925), and 2 short comedies for Hal Roach. In addition to these, a few of her films remain in fragments including
Cleopatra (just a few seconds of footage), a clip thought to be from
The Soul of Buddha, and a few other unidentified clips featured in a French documentary,
Theda Bara et William Fox (2001). Most of the clips can be seen in the documentary
The Woman with the Hungry Eyes (2006).
Filmography
Note: Extant films are indicated by a
‡
