Bara in The She-Devil (1918)
Most of Bara’s early films were shot around the East Coast, primarily at the Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[6]
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.
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.[7] 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.[8]
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
Bara in one of her famous risqué costumes, in Cleopatra (1917)
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.”[9][10] In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to Bara.[2]
Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[11] of the movies.[12] 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.
Theda Bara in The Siren’s Song (1919)
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 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 person.
Marriage and retirement
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.[13]
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.[14]
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,[15][16] 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.
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.[17]
Death
Niche of Theda Bara, in the Great Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Glendale.
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
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.
Theda Bara poster for East Lynne (1916)
Theda Bara in East Lynne (1916)
Theda Bara in The Unchastened Woman (1925) Lobby Card
Theda Bara in The Unchastened Woman (1925)
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.”[18]
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.
Theda Bara Interview for LUX Radio in 1936
Film Dialogue 
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