1937 Fox fire erased 37 Theda Bara films, leaving just three for Cincinnati to screen
The Mariemont Theatre sold out its tribute event for the silent star, whose career ended abruptly in 1919 and whose legacy now rests on rare surviving prints and a new documentary.
By Petra Garnier ·
A 1937 blaze at Fox Studios destroyed 37 of the 40 films Theda Bara made between 1914 and 1919. Only three prints remain. Those three, along with a new eight-minute documentary, form the core of a sold-out screening at the Mariemont Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 24.
Bara, born Theodosia Goodman in Avondale in 1885, became a global icon through studio fabrication rather than local fact. Publicists billed her as an Arab princess and constructed the anagram 'Arab Death' from her stage name. She later described herself simply as a nice Jewish girl from Cincinnati. The event honors this contrast between the manufactured mystique and the local reality of a daughter of a tailor who studied at the University of Cincinnati.
The program screens A Fool There Was and the new film, Theda Bara's Memoirs. Nadya Ellerhorst, the producer of the documentary for WCET-TV and WPTD-TV, calls Bara a fascinating Cincinnati figure. The memoirs film details a 450-page typed biography held in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Book Library. It also includes excerpts from East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman, and Cleopatra.
A panel discussion follows the screenings. It features Dr. Jennifer Glaser, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati; Brian Powers, a historian at the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library; and Ellerhorst. With Halloween approaching, the evening includes a costume contest themed around Bara's silent era roles.
Those who missed the tickets can access Theda Bara's Memoirs online. The film has garnered 50,000 views on YouTube since May 2025 after airing on local channels. The documentary serves as a primary source for her career, which effectively ended before she turned 35. She returned for only two more pictures in the mid-1920s before retiring from full-time acting.
Bara's physical footprint in Cincinnati has also shifted. Xavier University acquired her former home on Victory Parkway in 1979. It used the Spanish-style house as a facility for its Honors College until demolition crews removed it in 2011. Bara married director Charles Brabin in 1921 and died of abdominal cancer in Los Angeles in 1955 at age 69.
Source: WVXU Cincinnati Public Radio
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