Producer’s Blog: Shining a light on the words of a silent film star for The Art Show
“Disco Theda.”
A la all the Mysteries at the Museum I watched growing up, I’ve asked Jason and Zach to give an incredible artifact a little dramatic flair via some stylistic lighting. As Zach sifts through the settings on a tube light, it suddenly begins flashing in multicolor, much to the amusement of Chris Harter, Head of the Archives and Rare Books Library at the University of Cincinnati.
We’re there to tape b-roll of Woman or Vampire?, the unpublished, ghostwritten memoir of silent film star Theda Bara. Born Theodosia Goodman in the Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati, she was a household name in her day. It’s from Bara that we got the “Vamp” trope, and she’s even been called the first goth.
I first learned about Bara while attending Walnut Hills High School – she’s an almuna herself (Go Eagles!) A part of me has always been fascinated by her: her Cincinnati origins, her striking presence, the ostentatious persona the studio created for her for publicity’s sake. But another notable – and tragic – aspect of Bara is that most of her life’s work literally went up in flames. Her films were among those lost during the 1937 Fox vault fire in Little Ferry, New Jersey. Today, only a handful of movies remain from her prolific career.
So, when I came across a Cincinnati Magazine article detailing the Archives and Rare Books Library’s acquisition of this manuscript, I knew this story belonged on The Art Show. In my latest segment, you’ll learn more about Bara’s upbringing in Cincinnati, her career, the contents of the memoir and how it’s been preserved. In short, you’ll see things from all different angles, just like we did.
While we were in the library for the manuscript, we still got to see some of the other treasures housed there, like a glass case holding all kinds of books about witchcraft. Chris pulled out a 15th century vellum illuminated manuscript and a cuneiform tablet for us to openly gawk at.
And, on our walk across campus to the Preservation Lab during taping, we happened upon this emotional support pony:
We taped all of our interviews in the library space. Sharp focus was our priority during set-up.
This was after I told the crew to 86 the set-up they’d just completed:
I kid, I kid!
We also recorded plenty of b-roll in the library space. Here’s our resident gimbal expert getting some sweeping shots of the shelves!
We also captured a few shots in the Preservation Lab, where we witnessed experts doing painstaking preservation work and discovered this intimidatingly large paper cutter.
Among my many tasks as a producer on The Art Show is media management. I’m given the SD cards of all the footage we get, be it interviews or b-roll, and I back up all the video files to numerous hard drives for use in the editing suite. While it has yet to happen to me at time of writing, my personal nightmare as someone who works in this field is lost media. If you’re on a deadline and something goes awry with your footage – and your crew isn’t available to re-shoot – you’re in big trouble. And even if by luck you can reschedule, some things are simply lost to time that you can’t recreate. It gives the concern an existential edge alongside a practical one.
So, imagine you’re Theda Bara, and your entire work just disappears with no trace. She didn’t even have the benefit of back-up copies; I read somewhere that any duplicates of her movies she had in her personal possession simply crumbled due to the fragile nature of film. If my hard drive goes kaput, there’s at least a small chance that the footage can be saved if I take it to a professional. Once your reel of nitrate film is gone, it’s gone.
But there is hope. Every few years, it seems like fragments of Bara’s films are discovered. Thus far, they’ve only been small snippets – from Cleopatra (1917) to Salome (1918) – but there’s promise there. And a little dread. It’s hard for me to think about a full reel of a Bara film locked away in an attic or storage facility without climate control unbeknownst to us.
But then there are objects like this manuscript, parts of who Bara was beyond what appeared on a two-dimensional screen. Throughout the research I did for this segment, I discovered that there’s tons of Bara artifacts out there, although most are in private collections. The headdress she wore in her role as Cleopatra was up for auction and an outfit she wore in the role is on display at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. It truly makes me wonder what we have yet to see.
And there’s no doubt that she’s still exerting her influence in the present. Her likeness is featured on the Chicago International Film Festival logo and a Lumineers album cover. She’s got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She runs the box office at the Museum of the Moving Image’s Tut’s Fever Movie Palace installation. A bit of what’s believed to be Theda Bara graffiti was just discovered under the Lincoln Memorial.
Now, my question is this: When’s she going to get her own mural here in Cincinnati?
I feel as though Bara is a sort of underground icon – not known by that many, but revered by those that do. But I’d argue that she hasn’t really gotten her due in her hometown. We take pride in our celebrities, yet rarely do I hear about Bara in a way that’s more than a brief mention of her “Vamp” glory (and in Cincinnati fashion, her high school is always highlighted – I repeat,Go Eagles!)
We only have so much tangible material that remains from Bara – that we know of, at least – but I didn’t want this The Art Show segment to only be informational. The specifics of the memoir are fascinating, sure, but there was a person beyond the words and films reels. And Cincinnati was her home. Maybe what I’ve really been producing is a tribute. And, dare I say, a well-deserved one.
This episode of The Art Show aired this month on CET/ThinkTV16, and it is also available to stream on the PBS App and online at https://thinktv.org/theartshow/
Nadya Ellerhorst
CET and ThinkTV Producer
