Here you will find a relic recently undusted from the Silent Film era.
Theodosia Burr Goodman
She was born in Ohio to a Jewish tailor from Poland, and a Swiss mother. At an early age, her family would move to a Jewish suburb called Avondale in Cincinatti. She would graduate high school in 1903, and would attend the University of Cincinatti. Then she would move to New York City to star in the film The Devil.
Theda Bara
| Old Name | Change | Cognomen | Commemorative | New Name |
| Theodosia | “Theda” nickname | – | Theda | |
| Burr | – | – | – | |
| Goodman | – | shortened “Baranger” | Bara |
| Old Name | Change | Aesthetics | Anagram | New Name |
| Theodosia | exotic | “death” | Theda | |
| Burr | – | – | – | |
| Goodman | exotic | “arab” | Bara |
The real reason for Bara’s name change remains unclear. One theory is that the director Frank Powell, according to The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats, discovered that she had a relative named Baranger and became inspired to give her the surname “Bara,” with “Theda” being her childhood name. Another theory, noted by Fox Studio publicists, was that “Theda Bara” was an anagram of the words “arab death.” Bara’s entire family would also changed their surnames to “Bara.”
While Theda Bara was of Jewish descent and therefore of Middle Eastern descent, her press agents would promote Theda Bara as being the daughter of an Arab sheikh and a French woman in the Sahara Desert.
Sources
- “Famous Silent Screen Vamp Theda Bara Dies Of Cancer”. The Montreal Gazette. Associated Press. April 8, 1955. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
- Garza, Janiss (2008). “Cleopatra (1917)”. Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 8, 2008. Retrieved May 29, 2011. Film review.
- Genini, Ronald (1996). Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography (Kindle ed.). McFarland.
- Golden, Eve (1996). Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Vestal Press.
- Liebman, Roy (2023). Theda Bara: Her Career, Life and Legend (Kindle ed.). McFarland & Company.
- “Theda Makes ’em All Baras”. The New York Times. Vol. LXVII, no. 21847. November 17, 1917. p. 11. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved October 28, 2023.
- “The Devil – Broadway Play – Original”. ibdb.com.