Cincinnati sold out Mariemont Theatre to screen only three surviving films of Theda Bara

The Mariemont Theatre in Cincinnati is hosting a sold-out screening on Saturday, Oct. 24, to honor the legacy of silent-film star Theda Bara. The event marks the centennial of her peak popularity, yet the program features only three surviving works from her extensive career. A 1937 fire at Fox Studios destroyed the majority of her films, leaving a limited archive for modern audiences to view.

Bara, born Theodosia Goodman in Avondale in 1885, worked in Hollywood from 1914 to 1919. During that period, she produced 40 films, including titles such as The Stain and A Fool There Was. Studio publicists marketed her as a mysterious Arab princess, an anagrammatic name they claimed signified Arab Death. In reality, she was the daughter of a Jewish tailor and a Swiss mother who graduated from Walnut Hills High School.

Nadya Ellerhorst, a producer for The Art Show series on local public television, described Bara as a fascinating Cincinnati figure. Ellerhorst directed an eight-minute documentary titled Theda Bara's Memoirs, which will be the first feature shown on Saturday. The film is also available online, where it has accumulated 50,000 views on YouTube since its release in May 2025. The documentary includes excerpts from A Fool There Was, East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman, and Cleopatra.

The evening's program continues with a panel discussion featuring Dr. Jennifer Glaser, a University of Cincinnati associate professor and Bara historian. Brian Powers, a historian with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library, will also participate. The group will discuss the actress's life and the unpublished 450-page biography held in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Book Library. A costume contest is scheduled to conclude the night, timed one week before Halloween.

Bara's film career effectively ended in 1919, before she turned 35. She returned to the screen in 1925 for The Unchastened Woman and in 1926 for Madame Mystery. In 1921, she married director Charles Brabin. The couple's home in Cincinnati, located at Victory Parkway and Ledgewood Drive, was purchased by Xavier University in 1979. The university used the Spanish-style house for its Honors College before demolishing it in 2011.

Bara died of abdominal cancer in Los Angeles in 1955 at the age of 69. Her story illustrates the fragility of early cinema preservation. Of the 40 films she made in her prime, only three remain. The rest were lost to the 1937 Fox Studios fire, a disaster that erased a large portion of silent-era history.