Ella Christiansen
Theda Bara was born to a French artist and his Arabian mistress in the sands of the Sahara. As she matured beneath the shadow of the great Sphynx, she developed a set of intuitions and wicked capabilities that could only be described, even by the most skeptical of critics, as occult (Smith) (Picture Show 1920). This good fortune followed her to Paris where she cut her teeth performing au Théâtre Antoine (Smith). Under the advisory of director Frank Powell who was transfixed by Bara’s vampiric beauty, William Fox brought Bara safely to the states before the first world war (Picture Show 1921). Fox announced their acquisition of this ethereal foreign talent in a 1917 press release emphasizing her ability to act “with her head as well as her heart” but audiences knew better (Kinematograph and the Lantern Weekly). Bara was no mere Fox Star. Theda Bara was a vampire. Only, Theodosia Goodman, an actress from a Jewish family from Cincinnati was not, by any standards vampiric or even unscrupulous (Smith). Thus, fan magazines’ deliberate juxtaposition of Theodosia Goodman with her curated image of Theda Bara demonstrates the commanding power of publicity and the overwhelming nature of ethnic and gender stereotypes in early Hollywood.
The disparity between the actor Theodosia Goodman and her ‘star’ image, sex symbol, Theda Bara demonstrates the tumultuous, albeit integral, position of publicity departments and fan magazines in launching Bara’s career. In 1920, five years after her breakout role in the 1915 Fox production, A Fool There Was, Bara vocalized her conflicted feelings about portraying such an immoral woman, much to the confusion of audiences who were under the impression Bara
truly was an Arabian princess. She sought to clear her name of her hypersexual image because, as she explained in an interview for a fan magazine, “‘Never have I liked being a vampire” a confession the fan author follows cleverly with the note that “... starring contracts do not hang on every rosebush...” (Picture Show 1920). This interview was published after five years of costumed interviews, press photographs, and film performances at the advisory and the “conscienceless typewriter” of her publicist, Al Selig, a former New York ‘newspaper man’ hired by Fox to keep up Bara’s ruse (Photoplay 1924). Fan magazines’ acrid description of
Selig’s work as ‘conscienceless’ illustrates audiences’ brewing resentment towards the immoral ‘vamp’ character and the unjust application of this archetype to the conversely moral, Theodosia Goodman. Her ‘vamp’ films, no matter how grandiose, were relegated by the trades to the status of a “prize smut film,” (Billboard 1918). This vamp identity was the epicenter of Bara’s separation from Fox in late 1919. The trades ran with the information, noting that she “...charged him with ‘driving her out of pictures’ by purposely assigning impossible scenarios to her” (Variety 20). Such ‘impossible scenarios’ are implied to be the acts of a ‘vamp’ which Variety reported as a sticking point in Bara’s contracts, not even a year before (Variety 1919). Bara’s tumultuous relationship to her image was solidified when she attempted a return to Hollywood in 1924, to no avail, with her managers reporting to Variety that “...none of the scripts provided for her four prospective pictures will call for a ‘vamp’ role,” (Variety 1924). Thus, Theda Bara’s tumultuous relationship with her star image demonstrates the control and value of publicity in the early Hollywood star system.
The creation of Theda Bara as a ‘foreign’ and ‘hypersexual’ vamp shows how the Fox Film Corporation puppeteered Theda Bara to create a taboo and objectional depiction of femininity and ethnic ‘otherness.’ Under conservative fire in the late 1910s as a threat to the respectability of Hollywood, fan magazines saved Bara’s career by advocating that she was not an Egyptian vampire. They routinely published her anti-vamp interviews to create a “... distinction between her on-screen roles and her ‘true self’...” (Frymus 10). This support was critical in revitalizing Bara’s career because “The Theda Bara myth grew so pungent that it defeated itself, by the refusal of many a conservative news writer to even meet the dangerous lady,” (Photoplay 1924). This concerted return to respectability shows that Bara had no interest in breaking sexual or ethnic boundaries in favor of progressive causes (Frymus 10). Further, it was Bara’s whiteness and wealth that allowed her to revitalize her career. This is because “Only from the position of cultural insider, could one construct an identity as an exotic outsider...” (Negra 45). This illustrates that Bara’s whiteness is a crucial reason why fan magazines sympathized with her struggle against ‘the vamp’ image in the first place. Compared to her contemporaries with more ‘ethnic’ features, Bara was “...easier to classify,” which meant she could portray an image of immigré sensuality that was both palatable and risqué without reminding the “...audiences of the ‘foreign’ ethnic threat...” (Nochimson). Thus, Bara served as an “...incarnation of the threat of immigrant female sexuality” (Negra 15). This ethnically ambiguous vamp alleviated xenophobic anxieties through the blatant “...the objectification of
the ethnic Other...” (Hain 77). In serving as a sexual and ethnic other, Theda Bara weaponized her whiteness to reinforce stereotypical and objectified depictions of feminine sensuality and of ethnically marginalized peoples.
Thus, fan magazines’ curation of Theodosia Goodman’s star power through her character, Theda Bara, demonstrates the power of publicity and Bara’s impact conveying conservative messages about gender, ethnicity, and ethics in the early star system. Bara’s legacy undeniably benefitted from the machinations of Fox’s publicity department, regardless of whether this was her intention. Fox’s formation of a foreign, hypersexual, man-eating beauty perfectly encapsulated Hollywood’s aspirational exoticism, xenophobic anxiety, riches, and plentiful social standards. Serving as the first in a line of many American sex symbols to be under the thumb of a studio, Theda Bara’s life and career perfectly illustrates the necessity of publicity within early Hollywood, full to the brim with murky values and murkier rumors.