Theda Bara

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theda_Bara

Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman, July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress.

Bara was one of the most popular actresses of the silent era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname The Vamp (short for vampire). Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most are now lost due to a fire that destroyed the majority of her films in 1937. After her marriage to Charles Brabin in 1921, she made two more feature films and retired from acting in 1926 having never appeared in a sound film. She died of stomach cancer on April 7, 1955 at the age of 69.

Early life[edit] She was born Theodosia Burr Goodman in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936),[2] a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise Françoise (née de Coppett; 1861–1957), was born in Switzerland.[3] Bernard and Pauline married in 1882. She had two siblings: Marque (1888–1954)[4] and Esther (1897–1965),[2] who also became a film actress as Lori Bara and married Francis W. Getty of London in 1920.

Bara attended Walnut Hills High School graduating in 1903. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked mainly in theater productions, but did explore other projects. After moving to New York City in 1908, she made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).

Theda Bara in A Fool There Was (Publicity Still, 1915) Career[edit]

Theda Bara defends herself in a scene still for the 1918 silent drama "The She-Devil." Most of Bara's early films were shot around the East Coast, primarily at the Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[5] Bara lived with her family 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), which 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.

Bara in the title role as Cleopatra (1917) Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was Fox studio's biggest star but, tired of being typecast as a vamp, she allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final Fox film was The Lure of Ambition (1919). Her career suffered without Fox studio's support, and she 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 and directed by Stan Laurel, in which she parodied her vamp image.

At the height of her fame, Bara earned $4,000 per week. She was one of the most popular movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.[6] Bara's best-known roles were as the "vamp", although she attempted to avoid typecasting by playing 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.

Image and name[edit] The origin of Bara's stage name is disputed; The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Barranger, and that "Theda" was a childhood nickname. In promoting the 1917 film Cleopatra, Fox Studio publicists noted that the name was an anagram of Arab death, and her press agents claimed inaccurately that she was "the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara."[7][8] In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to Bara.[9]

Bara in one of her famous risqué costumes, this one in Cleopatra (1917). Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[10] of the movies.[11] She was well known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.

It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious, 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 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 this as the birth of two Hollywood phenomena: the studio publicity department and the press agent, which would later evolve into the public relations person.

Marriage and retirement[edit] Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin in 1921. They honeymooned in Nova Scotia at The Pines Hotel in Digby, Nova Scotia and later purchased a 400 hectares (990 acres) property down the coast from Digby at Harbourville overlooking the Bay of Fundy, eventually building a summer home they called Baranook.[12] They had no children. Bara resided in a villa-style home which served as the "honors villa" at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Demolition of the home began in July, 2011 [13]

In 1936, she appeared on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theatre in a broadcast version of The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy. In 1949, producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in making a movie of Bara's life, starring Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.[14]

Death[edit] On April 7, 1955, Bara died of stomach cancer in Los Angeles, California. She was interred as Theda Bara Brabin in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Legacy[edit] ThedaBaraBird.jpg

For her contribution to the film industry, Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bara is one of the most famous completely silent stars – she never appeared in a sound film, lost or otherwise. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Bara made more than forty films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist: The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and two 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). As to vamping, critics stated that her portrayal of calculating, coldhearted women was morally instructive to men. Bara responded by saying, "I will continue doing vampires as long as people sin." [15]

In 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

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.

Filmography[edit]

The Rose of Blood (1917)

A Woman There Was (1919)

The Siren's Song (1919) Year Film Role Notes 1914 The Stain Gang moll Credited as Theodosia Goodman 1915 Siren of Hell Lost film 1915 A Fool There Was The Vamp 1915 The Kreutzer Sonata Celia Friedlander Lost film 1915 The Clemenceau Case Iza Lost film 1915 The Devil's Daughter La Gioconda Lost film 1915 Lady Audley's Secret Helen Talboys Lost film 1915 The Two Orphans Henriette Lost film 1915 Sin Rosa Lost film 1915 Carmen Carmen Lost film 1915 The Galley Slave Francesca Brabaut Lost film 1915 Destruction Fernade Lost film 1916 The Serpent Vania Lazar Lost film 1916 Gold and the Woman Theresa Decordova Lost film 1916 The Eternal Sapho Laura Bruffins Lost film 1916 East Lynne Lady Isabel Carlisle 1916 Under Two Flags Cigarette Lost film 1916 Her Double Life Mary Doone Lost film 1916 Romeo and Juliet Juliet Lost film 1916 The Vixen Elsie Drummond Lost film 1917 The Darling of Paris Esmeralda Lost film 1917 The Tiger Woman Princess Petrovitch Lost film 1917 Her Greatest Love Hazel Lost film 1917 Heart and Soul Jess Lost film 1917 Camille Marguerite Gauthier[16] Lost film 1917 Cleopatra Cleopatra Approximately 20 seconds exist 1917 The Rose of Blood Lisza Tapenka Lost film 1917 Madame Du Barry Jeanne Vaubernier Lost film 1918 The Forbidden Path Mary Lynde Lost film 1918 The Soul of Buddha Priestess Story Lost film 1918 Under the Yoke Maria Valverda Lost film 1918 Salomé Salome Lost film 1918 When a Woman Sins Lilian Marchard / Poppea Lost film 1918 The She Devil Lorette Lost film 1919 The Light Blanchette Dumond, aka Madame Lefresne Lost film 1919 When Men Desire Marie Lohr Approximately 17 seconds exist 1919 The Siren's Song Marie Bernais Lost film 1919 A Woman There Was Princess Zara Lost film 1919 Kathleen Mavourneen Kathleen Cavanagh Lost film 1919 La Belle Russe Fleurett Sackton/La Belle Russe Lost film 1919 The Lure of Ambition Olga Dolan Lost film 1925 The Unchastened Woman Caroline Knollys 1926 Madame Mystery Madame Mysterieux 1926 45 Minutes from Hollywood Herself Short film In popular culture[edit] Theda Bara was one of three actresses (Pola Negri and Mae Murray were the others) whose eyes were combined to form the Chicago International Film Festival's logo, a stark, black and white close up of the composite eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film.[17]

The International Times' logo was a black-and-white image of Theda Bara. The founders' intention had been to use an image of actress Clara Bow, 1920s "It girl", but a picture of Theda Bara was used by accident and, once deployed, not changed.[18]

Music[edit] At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was celebrated in popular songs of the day.

The lyrics of "Red-Hot Hannah" state: 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 chorus lyric of "If I had a man like Valentino" contains couplet: Theda Bara sure would die She would never roll another eye.

The second chorus of "Louisville Lou", with lyrics by Jack Yellen and music by Milton Ager, states: They call the lady Louisville Lou Oh, what that vampin' baby can do! She got the meanest pair o' eyes, Theda Bara eyes, that the world ever knew.

Italian singer Lord Vampyr, famous for being the former vocalist of the gothic metal band Theatres des Vampires, has a song dedicated to and named after Bara in his 2013 solo album Gothika Vampyrika Heretika. Books and films[edit] In June 1996, two biographies of Bara were released: 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.

Bara has also been the subject of several works of fiction, including "In Theda Bara's Tent" by Diana Altman, "The Director's Cut: A Theda Bara Mystery" by Christopher DiGrazia and the play "Theda Bara and the Frontier Rabbi" by Bob Johnston.

Theda Bara appears as a character in the books "Vampyres of Hollywood" and "Love Bites" by Adrienne Barbeau.

Silent film actress of the 1910's and 20's and early American sex symbol.

Theda Bara was featured on a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1994.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_on_stamps_of_the_United...