One of the last surviving actors from the silent movie era Carla Laemmle has died in Los Angeles at the age of 104. Ms Laemmle was the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle. Her uncle convinced his brother and family to move to Los Angeles in 1921. They settled into a home near the studio in what is now Universal City. Ms Laemmle went into the family business working as a dancer and an actress. She was cast in the Silent Classic "Phantom of the Opera" as well as "Dracula" where she had the first spoken line of the now classic Universal horror movie. She worked steadily through out the 1930's. She then made her living as a night club dancer. She did make a return to the screen in 2010 in the film "Pool Party" and is in a film slted to come out later this year.
Theda Bara was the original goth girl and one of the biggest silent film stars. Bara made over 40 films between the years 1914 and 1926. One of the most beloved and reviled women of her time Theda Bara was evil, depraved and wildly popular. She never made a film after sound was introduced and that was her decision. The majority of Bara's films no longer exist due to a Fox warehouse fire in 1936 but her influence survives to this day. If there had been no Theda Bara there would be no Siouxsie Sioux or Marilyn Manson.
Born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1885 or 1895 or whatever her press agent said Bara was the child of Jewish immigrants who believed in her dream of becoming an actress. Bara and her family moved to New York in order for her to succeed as an actress. Small roles on Broadway eventually lead her from the stage to the screen. Her first role was an minuscule role in "The Stain" in 1914. Her next role was a starring role as "The Vamp" in 1915's "A Fool There Was". A vamp was a slang term for vampire but not the blood sucking vampire of Bram Stoker but a vampire who stole the heart and sole of a man for her own pleasure and fully under her control. Vamps were bad women and loved for the villainy and revered for their sexuality. They were the pre-suffrage flappers. They were women in control of their own destiny but doomed because of it. Theda Bara was the queen of the vamps and always will be. Fox studio was built on Theda Bara's back. Her movies proved to be so popular Fox pumped them out one after another. Her box office draw also supplied Theda Bara with a very good income. She was as big a draw as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. Her vamp character was her bed and butter but it was also her downfall. When Bara tried near the end of her career to play non-vamp roles she was not anywhere near as popular. In an effort to escape the type casting she had fallen into her last role was in a Hal Roach comedy. She was never able to get away from her sex symbol image. She was after all the first sex symbol.
Bara did perform on stage for a while until she married the director Charles Brabin. After her marriage she and her husband settled into a Beverly Hills home and Bara became a noted socialite. Theda Bara was able to become more than "just a movie person" and entered Los Angeles' elite and closed "Society".
For many years after her retirement Bara was rumored to be making a comeback but none of those comebacks ever materialized. Theda Bara and her husband also had a long and apparently happy marriage. Bara died in 1955 from stomach cancer.
