Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1920)

The Confessions of Theda Bara And all the time she didn't believe her own press agent. By AGNES SMITH HERE is the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx. Here is also the answer to the question propounded by Delight Evans several months ago in Photoplay Magazine. Theda Bara did not believe her press agent. The story of Theda Bara, as told me by herself, the story of her success in motion pictures, her strange notoriety, is the weirdest — and funniest — tale I have ever heard. It beats Barnum and Doctor Cook. Frankly, I was afraid to meet Theda Bara. Delight Evan"s story weighed on my mind. I had heard of other interviewers who had found her a woman smothered in incense and black velvet, who prattled orientalism and hocus pocus, who maintained a remarkable and ridiculous pose and who defied any sort of human understanding. I remembered all the Theda Bara legends about the strange woman who had been born within the shadow of the Sphyn.x. I didn't believe them, but I was afraid Miss Bara still did. Then, too, the day set for the interview was only a few days after the opening of "The Blue Flame" in New York. The audience that had assembled to greet Theda Bara was divided into two factions, — her friends and those who had come in the same spirit that sends people to bull fights. It was a terrible opening and a terrible play. It was considerably worse than anything Theda Bara attempted in motion pictures. It looked like a stage burlesque of one of her films. "You know how it is," said The New York Times, the day after the play opened, "when you have visitors from out of town who are possessed to go on a perfectly delightful slumming party down on the Bowery or somewhere to see one of those killing melodramas — Oh, come on, w^on't it be fun?— and you take them, and, after all, the melodrama is not bad enough to be funny and you come home disappointed. Well, 'The Blue Flame' is the kind of play you always expect the cheap theaters to show, and they never do." In the face of all that I wondered if Theda would still burn incense. She didn't. About her apartment were the floral tributes of the opening night. The windows were up and open. There was no incense. Miss Bara lives up on West End Avenue where she shares an apartment with her father, mother and sister. It reminded me of a chapter in "Jurgen.''A nice, respectable girl has the serious misfortune to die. On her way to the cemetery a black cat jumps over her coffin. That, of course, makes her a vampire. So she goes to Hell, venturing forth to practice her sinister calling. But she has no real taste for her work, so she fits up a little corner in Hell to look What the New York Dramatic Critics Said about "The Blue Flame." .\t the end of the tliird act Miss Bara said tliat God had been very kind to her. Probably she referred to the fact that at no time during the evening did the earth open and swallow up the authors, the star and all the company. However, it has often been remarked that the patience of Heaven is infinite. Still, as we remember it. Jonah was eaten by a whale for much less. — Hevwood Brown. New \'ork Tribune. Miss Theda played her part of it seriously and with average conipetence. But despite all 'an\ body could" do, "The Blue Flame" ivas plainly edged with yellow. — -Burns Mantle. New York Evening Mail. "Did you bring the cocaine?" demanded ]\Iiss Theda R'ara. as the heroine of "The Blue Flatne," in the Shuhert Theater, last night. It w-as such a determined, bold-faced intention of being an immediate and unmistakable vampire that the audience fairly shouted in gleeful recognition that the vampire of vampires on the screen ^^as going to be just as devilish on the boards in tlie spoken drama. — New York Evening Telegram. "The tiling is not indecent, it is only offensive in its silliness. "The most encouraging feature of the evening's exhibition was that it was received with derisive laughter by the curious audience which packed every corner of the large theater," — New York Evening Post. Perhaps "The Blue Flame" is not a perfect title for Miss Bara's play, ^Vhy not: "Tenting on the Old \'amp Ground"? — F. P. A.. New York Tribune. like her old home. When she isn't vamping, she enjoys the comforts of respectable home surroundings. Theda Bara has fitted up her corner. It isn't luxurious and no interior decorator had a hand in it. Most of the furniture belonged to father and mother. The only traces of Theda's fame are a statue of Buddha on the table and large pictures of Theda on the walls. However, the record on the phonograph is John McCormick singing "I hear you calling me." Miss Bara herself cam.e in. She was wearing the sort of frock that social workers recommend to working girls — plain, serviceable and neat. She looks younger off the screen than on. She wears her hair becomingly. She has a charming voice and speaks with an accent that has just a touch of the middle west about it. I was embarrassed. Only a few nights before I had heard her pronounce in a hideously strained voice these immortal — and immoral — lines: "Let's get married. All I need is a legal pretext and then I will show you how cold I am. Kiss Me, dearie." And here was a pleasant young person who had just ordered tea, who had a dog named Petey — "known as a bull terrier because he is part bull"— and who wished she had time to go out and buy herself some new clothes. WHO made her a vampire? It wasn't Miss Bara's own doing. It wasn't William Fox. It wasn't even the press agent. It was the public — or rather it was the public's imagination. A vampire is a national superstition. Miss Bara capitalized the superstition. "Of course, there is no such thing as a vampire," she told me. "No women are like that.. That is why you can't get good stories for vampire pictures. They aren't real. As for 'The Blue Flame.' it is only meant to be a melodrama. I chose it because it ga\e me an opportun't\' to play the sort of part the public wants to see me play." It was with shrewdness and humor — yes. she has humor — ■ that Theda Bara traced the story of her five years in motion pictures. She talked about it casually. She had no particu'nr motive in making up stories about herself. There wasn't a press agent in the apartment. She spoke as an impersonal and disinterested spectator of her own career. The best authorities give Theda Bara's birthplace as Cincinnati. Ohio, and her name as Theodosia Goodman. She came to New York about seven or eight years ago because she believed she could act. She played small parts on the stage as Theodosia de Coppet. Her parents had some money and so they allowed Theda to try her lucic at finding fame and fortune. 57