Theda Bara was an American silent film and stage actress.
28 Facts About Theda Bara
2.
The studios promoted a fictitious persona for Theda Bara as an Egyptian-born woman interested in the occult.
3.
Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most are now lost, having perished in the 1937 Fox vault fire.
4.
Theda Bara was born Theodosia Burr Goodman on July 29,1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio.
5.
Theda Bara was named after the daughter of US Vice President Aaron Burr.
6.
Theda Bara's father was Bernard Goodman, a prosperous Jewish tailor from Poland.
7.
Theda Bara's mother, Pauline Louise Francoise, was born in Switzerland.
8.
Theda Bara lived with her family in New York City during this time.
9.
Theda Bara was the Fox studio's biggest star between 1915 and 1919, but tired of being typecast as a vamp, she allowed her five-year contract with the company to expire.
10.
Theda Bara's fame drew large crowds to the theater, but her acting was savaged by critics.
11.
Theda Bara's career suffered without Fox Studios' support, and she did not make another film until The Unchastened Woman for Chadwick Pictures.
12.
Theda Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy Madame Mystery, directed by Stan Laurel for Hal Roach; in this, Bara parodied her vamp image.
13.
At the height of her fame, Theda Bara earned $4,000 per week.
14.
Theda Bara appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
15.
The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Baranger, and that Theda was a childhood nickname.
16.
Theda Bara was known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films.
17.
The studios promoted Theda Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor.
18.
Theda Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin in 1921.
19.
Theda Bara resided in a villa-style home in Cincinnati, which served as the "honors villa" at Xavier University.
20.
Theda Bara did not appear in the play but instead announced her plans to make a movie comeback, which never materialized.
21.
Theda Bara appeared on radio again in 1939 as a guest on Texaco Star Theatre.
22.
Theda Bara was survived by her husband, her mother, and her younger sister, Lori.
23.
Theda Bara was interred as Theda Bara Brabin at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
24.
Theda Bara never appeared in a sound film, lost or otherwise.
25.
Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist: The Stain, A Fool There Was, East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman, and two short comedies for Hal Roach.
26.
Theda Bara was one of three actresses 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.
27.
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.
28.
Theda 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.