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Theda Bara, nicknamed “The Vamp,” was a silent film actress who played seductive and dangerous characters. She never appeared in a sound film and has the highest percentage of lost films of anyone with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Bara was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and began her acting career in New York City. She first played “The Vamp” in her second film, A Fool There Was. Bara worked with the Fox Film Corporation from 1914 to 1919 and moved to Hollywood in 1917 to work on Cleopatra. After her contract with Fox expired, she lost popularity and retired in 1926. She died of stomach cancer in 1955.
Theda Bara was a film actress of the silent era, nicknamed “The Vamp”. She was one of the first movie stars and inspired many imitators in the early years of cinema. Theda Bara is one of the few movie stars who has never appeared in a sound film and, unfortunately, she has the highest percentage of lost films of anyone with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
Theda Bara was born Theodesia Burr Goodman on July 29, 1885 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to European Jewish parents. The eldest of three children, she attended Walnut Hills High School and the University of Cincinnati before turning her attention to the stage. In 1908, Theda Bara moved to New York City and began her acting career. Her first Broadway role was in The Devil (1908). Six years later, she made her film debut in The Stain, one of her few remaining films of hers.
Theda Bara first played “The Vamp,” a predatory femme fatale she would come to personify, in her second film, A Fool There Was. This film also exists and can be found on the Internet. From 1914 to 1919, Theda Bara worked with the Fox Film Corporation, primarily at their New Jersey studio, and was partly responsible for the company’s success. In 1917, Theda Bara moved to Hollywood to work on the film Cleopatra, of which only 40 seconds remain intact.
Since her first films, Theda Bara has become known for her exotic, seductive and dangerous characters. Though she experimented with other roles, such as Juliet, in an effort to avoid being typographical, advertisers presented her as an exotic and mysterious woman in real life. Advertisements claimed that her name was an anagram for “Arab Death” and that she was raised in Egypt, the daughter of a French sculptor and actress. Many of her roles featured her in diaphanous and extremely suggestive oriental-style costumes. In addition to characters such as Cleopatra and Salome, she played crazy women, muses of artists and the victim of a haunting.
After her contract with Fox expired in 1919, Theda Bara lost popularity and appeared in only three more films, made in 1925 and 1926. In 1921, she married director Charles Brabin, who preferred that she end her career . Theda Bara retired after a 1926 Broadway performance in The Blue Flame. She died of stomach cancer in Los Angeles, California on April 17, 1955. Although her film career was brief and only a small percentage of her work remained, Theda Bara and her vampire persona helped define the femme fatale as a key figure in Hollywood.
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