Theda Bara

I'm coming to it.

But honest, Bill, I want you to meet Theda.

You'll go for her.

Hey, look, look, I'm gonna put her on the phone and say hello.

Here she is.

Uh, uh, Theda?

[phone ringing]

Hello, Bill Storm.

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There are already full-length episodes on Grace Kelly, Theda Bara, and Barbara Stanwyck.

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She plays Esmeralda apparently fairly like the novel where she's this innocent waifu.

While critics were pretty mixed on The Darling of Paris, according to Variety's review of the movie, and I'm reading this directly here, the film's main weakness is the casting of Theda Bara in the role of an innocent gypsy girl with no opportunity to wear modern, alluring costume creations.

She's not showing enough leg for us! But the Chicago Post said of Esmeralda, it is a fitting role for the gifts of the talented actress.

So critics were pretty mixed on this movie, which was the first American film adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

And though she certainly experienced anti-Semitism, Libby's frequent and lifelong encounters with Black culture smack of the privilege she had to pass as White when that was convenient, and also pass as non-White when that was convenient.

Another product of Cincinnati's Jewish community was Theodosia Goodman, who would become a massive movie star in 1915, the year Libby turned 11, under the screen name of Theda Bara.

We did a whole episode on Bara over a decade ago.

If you need a refresher, she is widely considered to be American cinema's first sex symbol for her roles in films such as A Fool There Was, and a silent version of Cleopatra, but even more so for the publicity persona that was crafted around her.

The girl born Theodosia Goodman was given a stage name that was an anagram of Arab Death, and a fake backstory describing the daring escape of the supposed Egyptian princess from war-torn France.

Ticket buyers and readers of movie gossip alternately swallowed this claptrap or enjoyed laughing at it, but either way, the fiction as to where Theda Bara came from was necessary because there was no such thing as being a proudly Jewish sex symbol in this new age of celebrity.

Did Libby know Theda or her family? Was she aware of her stardom? This is a question I can't answer, as I've come across nothing in the writings on Libby that mention Theda.