Cincinnati Gathers for Oct. 24 Screening of Surviving Theda Bara Films

Cincinnati residents seeking tickets for Saturday's Theda Bara program at the Mariemont Theatre are out of luck: the Oct. 24 event sold out. Attendees will see the eight-minute film Theda Bara's Memoirs alongside a screening of A Fool There Was, followed by a panel discussion and, with Halloween one week away, a costume contest in Bara's style.

Bara was born Theodosia Goodman on July 29, 1885, at 823 Hutchins Ave. in Avondale, the daughter of a Jewish tailor and a Swiss mother. She graduated from Walnut Hills High School, spent two years at the University of Cincinnati, then left for New York City to act. Studio publicists recast her as an Arab princess raised near the Sphinx and said her stage name was an anagram for "Arab Death." She described herself differently: "a nice Jewish girl from Cincinnati."

Between 1914 and 1919 she appeared in 40 films, among them The Stain, A Fool There Was, The Devil's Daughter, The Serpent, East Lynne, Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra, The She Devil and The Siren's Song. "She's truly a fascinating Cincinnati figure," said Nadya Ellerhorst, producer of The Art Show series on WCET-TV and WPTD-TV. Ellerhorst also produced and directed Theda Bara's Memoirs, which aired on Channels 48 and 16.

The documentary has drawn 50,000 views on YouTube since May 2025 and remains available online to anyone who did not get a ticket. It includes excerpts from A Fool There Was, East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman and Cleopatra, and describes a 450-page typed, unpublished biography held in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Book Library.

Most of her work is gone. A 1937 fire at Fox Studios destroyed 37 of her 40 films; three survive. Her film career ended in 1919, before she turned 35, though she returned in 1925 for The Unchastened Woman and in 1926 for Madame Mystery.

The Saturday panel includes Dr. Jennifer Glaser, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati and Bara historian, Brian Powers, a historian with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library, and Ellerhorst. Bara married film director Charles Brabin in 1921 and died of abdominal cancer in Los Angeles in 1955 at age 69.