Theda Bara - Career

Career

Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist. Most were produced by William Fox, beginning with A Fool There Was (1915) and ending with The Lure of Ambition (1919). The phenomenal success of A Fool There Was gave William Fox the money to found Fox Film Corporation, while the ensuing films ensured the studio's success.

At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week. She was one of the most popular movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. 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.

Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. 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). 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, in which she parodied her vamp image.

About 1920, Bara had her portrait painted by the young Chicago portrait painter Theodore Lukits (1897–1992). The whereabouts of the portrait are unknown.

She was so impressed by his work that she encouraged him to move to Los Angeles where she could introduce him around. Lukits moved west in 1921 and developed a special relationship with Fox Studios, painting some of its stars, including Dolores Del Rio and selling works to Sol Wurtzel, who ran Fox's day to day operations. For the rest of his life Lukits credited his fortuitous meeting with Bara for some measure of his success in Hollywood.

Theda Bara has a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Out of her 40 films, only a few remain completely intact: The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and two short comedies for Hal Roach. 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).

Bara is also one of the most famous completely silent stars – she was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise. She appeared on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theatre in 1936 in a broadcast version of The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy.