Mixing
Theda Bara
Theda Bara | |
|---|---|
 Bara in 1921 Photo by Orval Hixon | |
| Born | Theodosia Burr Goodman (1885-07-29)July 29, 1885 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | April 7, 1955(1955-04-07) (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Walnut Hills High School |
| Alma mater | University of Cincinnati |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1908–1926 |
| Spouse(s) | Charles Brabin (m. 1921) |
Theda Bara (/ˈθiːdə ˈbærə/ THEE-də BARR-ə;[1] born Theodosia Burr Goodman; July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress.[2]
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"),[a] later fueling the rising popularity in "vamp" roles that encapsulated exoticism and sexual domination.[4] Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most were lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire. After her marriage to Charles Brabin in 1921, she made two more feature films and then retired from acting in 1926, having never appeared in a sound film.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Image and name
3 Persona
4 Marriage and retirement
5 Death
6 Legacy
7 Filmography
8 Cultural references
9 Notes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Early life
Bara was born Theodosia Burr Goodman on July 29, 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio.[2] Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936),[5] a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise Françoise (née de Coppett; 1861–1957), was born in Switzerland.[6] Bernard and Pauline married in 1882. Theda had two siblings: Marque (1888–1954)[7] and Esther (1897–1965),[5] who also became a film actress under the name of Lori Bara. She was named after the daughter of US Vice President Aaron Burr.[8]
Bara attended Walnut Hills High School, graduating in 1903. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked mainly in local theater productions, but did explore other projects. After moving to New York City in 1908, she made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).[citation needed]
Career
Most of Bara's early films were shot along the East Coast, where the film industry was centered at that time, primarily at the Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[9]
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.[citation needed]
Bara in A Fool There Was (1915)
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). In 1920, she turned briefly to the stage, appearing on Broadway in The Blue Flame. Bara's fame drew large crowds to the theater, but her acting was savaged by critics.[10]
Bara in The She-Devil (1918)
Her career suffered without Fox studio's support, and she did not make another film until The Unchastened Woman (1925) for Chadwick Pictures. 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.[citation needed]
At the height of her fame, Bara earned $4,000 per week (the equivalent of over $56,000 per week in 2017 adjusted dollars). 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 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.[citation needed]
Image and name
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."[11][12] In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to Bara.[5]
Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[13] of the movies.[14]
Persona
Bara was known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code (a.k.a. the Hays 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 either Egypt or France.) They called her the Serpent of the Nile and encouraged her 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 (PR) person.[citation needed]
A 2016 book, by Joan Craig with Beverly F. Stout, chronicles many personal, first-hand accounts of the lives of Theda Bara and Charles Brabin.[15] It reveals a great dichotomy between Theda Bara's screen persona and her real-life persona. Included are Bara's surprised responses to the critical reactions to her screen portrayals from a sector of the community. The author was befriended by Theda Bara and Charles Brabin beginning when she was a young girl. Ms. Craig's photographic-like memory paints an important picture of how they lived, where they lived, and what they said and did, even to the point of describing in great detail most of the rooms of their house. The book describes how Ms. Bara, who learned pattern making and wig making from her mother and father, designed and created most of the costumes and gowns she wore in her films, including the striking costumes she wore in Cleopatra.
Marriage and retirement
Bara with Charles Brabin (1922)
Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin in 1921. They honeymooned at The Pines Hotel in Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada, and later purchased a 400-hectare (990-acre) property down the coast from Digby at Harbourville overlooking the Bay of Fundy, eventually building a summer home they called Baranook.[16] They had no children. Bara resided in a villa-style home in Cincinnati, which served as the "honors villa" at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Demolition of the home began in July 2011.[17]
In 1936, she appeared on Lux Radio Theatre during a broadcast version of The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy. She did not appear in the play but instead announced her plans to make a movie comeback,[18][19] which never materialized. She appeared on radio again in 1939 as a guest on Texaco Star Theatre. These may be the only recordings of her voice ever made.[citation needed]
In 1949, producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in making a movie of Bara's life, to star Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.[20][21]
Death
Bara's niche in the Great Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Glendale
On April 7, 1955, Bara died of stomach cancer in Los Angeles, California.[2]
She was interred as Theda Bara Brabin at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[22]
Legacy
For her contributions to the film industry, Bara received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Her star is located at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard.[23]
She 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 40 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.[citation needed]
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, cold-hearted women was morally instructive to men. Bara responded by saying, "I will continue doing vampires as long as people sin.".[24] Additional footage has been found which shows her behind the scenes on a picture.[25] While the hairstyle has led some to theorize that this may be from The Lure Of Ambition, this has not been confirmed.
In 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
Over a period of several years, filmmaker and film historian Phillip Dye reconstructed Cleopatra on video. Titled Lost Cleopatra, the full length feature was created by editing together production still picture montages combined with the surviving film clip. The script was based on the original scenario with modifications derived from research into censorship reports, reviews of the film, and synopses from period magazines.[26] Dye screened the film at the Hollywood Heritage Museum on February 8, 2017.[27]
Filmography
From Romeo and Juliet (1916); standing, L-R: Helen Tracy (Lady Capulet), Alice Gale (Nurse), and Edward Holt (Capulet); seated: Bara as Juliet
Bara with Alan Roscoe in Camille (1917)
Bara in Cleopatra (1917)
| 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 Vampire |
|
| 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[28] |
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 |
Lost film |
| 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, 82 second outtake does exist [29] |
| 1925 |
The Unchastened Woman |
Caroline Knollys |
|
| 1926 |
Madame Mystery |
Madame Mysterieux |
Short film |
| 1926 |
45 Minutes from Hollywood |
Herself |
Short film |
Cultural references
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.[30]
The International Times' logo is 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.[31]
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.
Bara appears as a character in the books "Vampyres of Hollywood" and "Love Bites" by Adrienne Barbeau, and in Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story by Clive Barker.
In season 2, episode 1 of The Lucy Show, Vivian Bagley and Lucy argue over who should play Cleopatra in an upcoming play; Lucy states "I've seen the movie twelve times!" and Vivian quips "She means the one with Theda Bara".
A photo of Bara as Cleopatra is the album artwork for The Lumineers record Cleopatra released in 2016.
In May 2016, a memoir titled Theda Bara, My Mentor, "Under the Wings of Hollywood's First Femme Fatale, by Joan Craig with Beverly Stout, was released. Young Joan, in the companionship of Bara during the 1940s and 1950s, includes tales of Bara's husband, Charles Brabin, friends Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Victor Fleming, and other significant stars of the past.
In season 2, episode 7 of the television series Downton Abbey, butler Carson describes the newly designed bathrooms at a nearby estate as "like something out of a film with Theda Bara".
Notes
^ These roles did not portray the undead vampires featured in later horror films. The term "vampire" for a seductive woman was derived from "The Vampire", an 1897 poem by Rudyard Kipling.[3]
References
^ "Theda Bara Speaking 1936". Retrieved January 7, 2011..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
^ abc "Theda Bara, Screen Star, 68. 'Siren' Of Silent Films Was Top Box-office Attraction During The Twenties Denounced In Churches 'Cleopatra' 'The Vampire,' 'Salome' And 'Madame Du Barry' Among Her Hits Screen 'Vampire'". New York Times. April 8, 1955.
^ Golden, Eve (1996). Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Vestal, New York: Emprise. p. 30. ISBN 1-887322-00-0. OCLC 34575681.
^ Claire Love, Jen Pollack, Alison Landsberg (2017), "Silent Film Actresses and Their Most Popular Characters", National Women's History MuseumCS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
^ abc "Theda makes 'em all Baras" (PDF). The New York Times. November 17, 1917.
^ Ronald Genini (1996). Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography. McFarland. ISBN 9780786491612.
^ "Marque Bara", Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), April 26, 1954, pg. 2.
^ "The Dramatic Life and Mysterious Death of Theodosia Burr". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
^ Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry. Arcadia Publishing. 2006. ISBN 978-0-7385-4501-1.
^ Golden, Eve (1996). Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Vestal, New York: Emprise. pp. 204–209. ISBN 1-887322-00-0. OCLC 34575681.
^ "Cleopatra (1917)". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2011. Film review.
^ "Famous Silent Screen Vamp Theda Bara Dies Of Cancer". The Montreal Gazette. Associated Press. April 8, 1955. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
^ "Classic Images – Vol. 250 – April 1996 Issue". Classicimages.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
^ "Theda Bara Photo Gallery". Bombshells.com. Archived from the original on November 2, 2010. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
^ Joan Craig with Beverly F. Stout (2016). Theda Bara, My Mentor: Under the Wing of Hollywood's First Femme Fatale. McFarland and Company, Inc. ISBN 9781476662831.
^ Lorna Innis (February 26, 2012). "Hollywood's link with province long, varied". Chronicle Herald. Halifax.
^ "Early film star's Cincinnati mansion being torn down", The Columbus Post Dispatch, July 7, 2011.
^ "The Thin Man". Lux Radio Theatre. Internet Archive. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
^ "The Lux Radio Theatre". RadioGOLDINdex. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
^ Thomas F. Brady (January 21, 1949). "De Sylva Working on Movie of Bara". The New York Times. p. 25.
^ Thomas F. Brady (December 2, 1949). "Betty Hutton Set for 2 Metro Films". The New York Times. p. 36.
^ "Rites for Theda Bara Today". New York Times. April 9, 1955.
^ "Theda Bara". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
^ Panati, Charles (1998). Sexy Origins and Intimate Things: The Rites and Rituals of Straights, Gays, Bi's, Drags, Trans, Virgins, and Others. Penguin Books. p. 295.
^ https://ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=79334
^ "Lost Cleopatra".
^ Christine N. Ziemba (February 6, 2017). "Twenty Of The Coolest Events Happening in L.A. This Week in Arts & Entertainment". LAist. Archived from the original on May 1, 2017.
^ "Theda Bara Makes 'Camille' Reality". Hartford Courant. October 30, 1917. Retrieved July 20, 2008.Heralded as one of the screen triumphs of the day, "Camille", adapted from the Dumas novel, and with Theda Bara the featured player, fulfills the promises of the management of Poli's Theater, where this film really heads the bill this half of the week. Vaudeville must...
^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXCendCga10
^ About Our Logo – The Chicago International Film Festival.
^ Miles, Barry (1998). Many Years From Now. Vintage – Random House. p. 232. ISBN 0-7493-8658-4.
Further reading
Shakespeare on Silent Film: An Excellent Dumb Discourse by Judith Buchanan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Chapter 6.
ISBN 0-521-87199-9.
Famous Juliets by Jerome Hart, in Motion Picture Classic, March 1923.
A Million and One Nights by Terry Ramsaye. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926.
Susan Fox (2006). William Fox: A Story of Early Hollywood 1915–1930. Midnight Marquee Press Inc. ISBN 1-887664-62-9.
Christopher DiGrazia (2011). The Director's Cut: A Theda Bara Mystery. 1921 PVG Publishing. ISBN 0-9827709-4-4.
Bob Johnston (2002). Theda Bara and the Frontier Rabbi. Dramatist's Play Service. ISBN 0-8222-1837-2.
Diana Altman (2010). In Theda Bara's Tent. Tapley Cove Press. ISBN 0-615-34327-9.
External links
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Theda Bara |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Theda Bara. |
Theda Bara on IMDb
Theda Bara at AllMovie
Theda Bara at the TCM Movie Database
Theda Bara at the Internet Broadway Database
- Excerpt from Golden's biography Vamp
- Biography at monash.edu.au
Theda Bara photo gallery NY Public Library Billy Rose collection
"Theda Bara", entry in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia
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