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The Final Resting Place of Theda Bara.
Theda Bara
29th.July 1885 - 7th.April 1955.
Located in the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium Of Memory.
Cause of Death - Cancer.
Theda Bara was the stage name of Theodosia Burr Goodman (July 29, 1885 - 7 April 1955), a silent film actress. As her stage name is an anagram for "Arab Death" an urban legend claims that it was coined for that reason, but instead Theda is short for Theodosia, and Bara was the middle name of her maternal grandmother.
Bara was one of the most popular screen actresses of the time, and the cinema's first sex symbol. She was nicknamed "The Vamp", short for vampire, slang for a sexy predatory woman at the time. Bara, along with the French film actress Musidora, popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and was soon imitated by rival actresses such as Nita Naldi and Pola
Negri.
Birth
Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853-?) a Polish born Jewish merchant. Her mother, Pauline DeCoppett (1861-1957), was born in Switzerland and was also Jewish. Her parents had married in 1882. Theda's brother and sister were Mark Goodman (1888-?) and Lori [originally Estie] Goodman (1897-?). In 1917 all of them changed their names to
"Bara".
Education
She attended Walnut Hills High School in 1899-1903 and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theater productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908.
Hollywood
Briefly known professionally as Theodosia de Coppett, Theda Bara made more than 40 feature films between 1914 and 1926 of which complete prints of only three still exist. Most of these were made for William Fox, starting with "A Fool There Was" in 1914 and ending with "The Lure of Ambition" in 1919.
Her films made Fox a successful studio. She made her Broadway debut in "The Devil" (1908), and her film debut was a bit part in "The Stain" (1914), directed by Frank Powell for Pathé Frères. A large portion of her films are now lost, to the regret of later generations of fans.
She regularly attended parties at the home of powerful actress Alla Nazimova, and was rumored to have been involved with Nazimova romantically, but that has not been confirmed beyond a doubt. She also mingled with other powerful personalities of the day, such as Eva Le Gallienne, Anne Morgan, Charlie Chaplin and Buster
Keaton. At her height, Bara was making $4,000.00 per week for her film roles. Between 1915 and 1919, she was promoted so heavily that when the studios dropped off their support, her career was never able to fully recover. She struggled with several notable roles until 1926, when she retired from film all together.
Sex symbol
Bara was the first sex symbol of that era, and in a number of her films appeared in risqué transparent costumes that left little to the imagination.
Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Hays Code went into effect a few years later, which may have been a factor in declining interest in her films, which could no longer be commercially shown in the United States.
Bara was photographed in several sittings in scant, sexually provocative clothing.
It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious and elusive, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive campaign, billing her an Italian/Arabian princess. They claimed she had been born in the Sahara Desert under the shadow of the sphinx, and that her name spelled backwards meant "Death" in Arabic. They called her the "Serpent of the Nile".
At the height of her fame, her vamp image was notorious enough be referred to in various popular songs of the day. A line in "Red-Hot Hannah" said "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn - make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca" contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara; Theda's bare but Becky's
bare-er".
Marriage and Retirement
She married British-born American film director Charles Brabin (1883-1957), in 1921, and her career ground to a virtual standstill, finally ending in 1926 with the Hal Roach comedy 'Madame Mystery'. A successful but much maligned appearance on Broadway in The Blue Flame came in the following year.
Though she subsequently expressed interest in returning to the stage or screen, her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career, and so she spent the remainder of her life as a hostess in Hollywood and New York, in comfort and relative wealth.
Death
She died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She died under the name "Theda Bara Brabin" and her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthday as "July 22, 1892".
Legacy
Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996 two biographies appeared, 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".
The British video artist Georgina Starr has made a new work based around the lost films of Theda Bara. It will be premiered in London in November 2006.