Cincinnati audience packs Mariemont Theatre for rare Theda Bara screening

The Mariemont Theatre in Cincinnati will host a sold-out tribute to silent-film star Theda Bara on Saturday, October 24, highlighting the scarcity of her surviving work. Only three of the 40 films she produced between 1914 and 1919 are still in existence. The remaining titles were lost in a 1937 fire at Fox Studios.

Bara, born Theodosia Goodman on July 29, 1885, at 823 Hutchins Ave. in Avondale, rose to fame as the original screen vamp. Studio publicists crafted a fictional backstory portraying her as an Arab princess with a name that was an anagram for Arab Death. In reality, she was the daughter of a Jewish tailor and a Swiss mother who grew up in the city.

Nadya Ellerhorst, producer of the eight-minute documentary Theda Bara's Memoirs, describes Bara as a fascinating local figure. The documentary is set to premiere at the event alongside the feature film A Fool There Was. The screening marks the final public opportunity to see these rare prints in a theater setting.

A panel discussion will follow the films, featuring Dr. Jennifer Glaser, an associate professor and Bara historian at the University of Cincinnati, and Brian Powers, a historian with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. Ellerhorst will also participate in the conversation. The evening includes a costume contest for attendees.

Those without tickets can access Theda Bara's Memoirs online. The film has accumulated 50,000 views on YouTube since May 2025 after airing on local channels 48 and 16. The documentary includes clips from A Fool There Was, East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman, and Cleopatra.

The film also examines a 450-page unpublished biography held in the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Book Library. Bara's career ended abruptly in 1919 before she turned 35, though she returned for two films in the mid-1920s. She married director Charles Brabin in 1921 and later died of abdominal cancer in Los Angeles in 1955 at age 69.

Her former home at Victory Parkway and Ledgewood Drive was acquired by Xavier University in 1979. The institution used the Spanish-style house for its Honors College before demolishing the structure in 2011.