Cincinnati Fans Fill Seats to See Rare Silent Films
The Mariemont Theatre hosts a sold-out tribute to Theda Bara, whose career is preserved in just three surviving movies.
By Marco Ortega ·
Cincinnati residents will gather at the Mariemont Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 24, for a sold-out evening dedicated to the city's most famous silent film star. The event honors Theda Bara, a local figure whose legacy is defined by the fragility of her surviving work.
Only three of the 40 films Bara produced between 1914 and 1919 remain today. A fire at Fox Studios in 1937 destroyed the rest of her output. This loss makes the surviving prints particularly rare for audiences to see on the big screen.
The program features A Fool There Was, one of the three extant titles. It also includes Theda Bara's Memoirs, an eight-minute documentary produced by Nadya Ellerhorst. The film draws from a 450-page unpublished biography held in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Book Library.
Bara was born Theodosia Goodman on July 29, 1885, at 823 Hutchins Ave. in the Avondale neighborhood. Her parents were a Jewish tailor and a Swiss mother. She attended Walnut Hills High School and the University of Cincinnati before moving to New York to act.
Studio publicists crafted a persona that presented her as an Arab princess raised near the Sphinx. They billed her name as an anagram for 'Arab Death.' Bara rejected this image, describing herself as a nice Jewish girl from Cincinnati. She became known as the original screen vamp, a dangerous and seductive female character.
A panel discussion will follow the screenings. The speakers include Dr. Jennifer Glaser, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati; Brian Powers, a historian with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library; and Ellerhorst. The evening also features a costume contest for attendees.
Those without tickets can view Theda Bara's Memoirs online. The documentary has accumulated 50,000 views on YouTube since May 2025. Bara died of abdominal cancer in Los Angeles in 1955 at age 69. Her former home, a Spanish-style house at Victory Parkway and Ledgewood Drive, was demolished by Xavier University in 2011.
Source: WVXU Cincinnati Public Radio
