Magick Magazine No. 9
THEDA BA RA
Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress. She was the original goth model and horror movie anti- heroine. Bara was one of the most popular actresses of the silent era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her riské femme fatale roles earned her the nickname The Vamp (short for "vampire") later fuelling the rising popularity in "vamp" roles that encapsulated, partial nudity, exoticism and sexual domination. Her screen name made an anagram “Death Arab” and fuelled her dark mystique, though people described her as “…very normal in every day life”. Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most were lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire. After her marriage to Charles Brabin in 1921, she made two more feature films and then retired from acting in 1926, having never appeared in a sound film. Several magickal orders claim her as a member.
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