One of the earliest queens of the silent screen, Theda Bara dominated the moving pictures through the mid and late 19-teens. The turning point for Bara, James Card, film historian, believed was her portrayal of a vampire seductress in A Fool There Was in 1915. This was Bara’s second film (in her first, The Stain, she played a bit part) and would begin a torrent of similar roles. This is also luckily one of her few surviving films, as most were destroyed during a Fox film vault explosion in 1937. In Card’s book, Seductive Cinema: The Art of Silent Film, he noted Bara was not the first to introduce female vampires to the silver screen, but she is probably the actress best remembered for this. The Vampire (1910), among a few other films, showcased a female vampire in various forms but Bara made such an impression that many often confuse her as the first. Bara’s name has now become synonymous with the term vamp.
Femme Fashion Forward 1880-1930 