She was cinema's first sex symbol. Thea Bara took Hollywood by storm in the late 1910s, with her revealing clothing as the Egyptian queen in 1917's 'Cleopatra,' one of silent movie's most lustful performances on screen (a lost movie). Her film career, beginning in 1914 and continuing through 1926, is largely forgotten today. A 1937 Fox movie storage facility fire destroyed most of the 40 films she appeared in. Only four feature movies as well as two shorts, released in 1926, are all that remain of Bara's body of work.
Her last screen performance was April 1926's "Madame Mystery." She appears in the second half of the Hal Roach-produced short comedy, partially directed by Stan Laurel. At 41, Bara acts in a parody of the characters she played in her career. She's an American spy who allegedly has a city-destroying explosive in her possession. She boards an ocean liner bound for America-and that's when the fun begins. Tyler Brooks and James Finlayson, both recognizable comedic character actors in the 1930s, are starving artists who see an opportunity for riches, seizing Bara on board the ship.
Bara was one of those silent movie stars who exited cinema well before the advent of talkies. She married British-born director Charles Brabin in 1921. Brabin, famous for directing the 1932 'The Mask of Fu Manchu,' retired from movies in mid-1930's to be with Bara at their summer vacation home in Harbourville, Nova Scotia, and at their winter home in Cincinnati, Ohio. She never returned to movies after "Madame Mystery." Bara suffered from stomach cancer and died on April 7, 1955, at 69.
Her last screen performance was April 1926's "Madame Mystery." She appears in the second half of the Hal Roach-produced short comedy, partially directed by Stan Laurel. At 41, Bara acts in a parody of the characters she played in her career. She's an American spy who allegedly has a city-destroying explosive in her possession. She boards an ocean liner bound for America-and that's when the fun begins. Tyler Brooks and James Finlayson, both recognizable comedic character actors in the 1930s, are starving artists who see an opportunity for riches, seizing Bara on board the ship.
Bara was one of those silent movie stars who exited cinema well before the advent of talkies. She married British-born director Charles Brabin in 1921. Brabin, famous for directing the 1932 'The Mask of Fu Manchu,' retired from movies in mid-1930's to be with Bara at their summer vacation home in Harbourville, Nova Scotia, and at their winter home in Cincinnati, Ohio. She never returned to movies after "Madame Mystery." Bara suffered from stomach cancer and died on April 7, 1955, at 69.