Sepia toned photograph of Theda Bara. Theda Bara was an American actress in both silent film and the stage. Bara was cinema's original vamp, the dark, heartless seductress who lured men to their destruction. It was a persona that she and her studio also perpeturated off-screen. The daughter of immigrant Jews, Bara was born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was widely thought that she took advantage of her stage name as an anagram for "Arab death." After becoming a star in her first major film, 1915's "A Fool There Was", she appeared in more than three dozen silent films over the next four years. This photograph captures Bara in a posed position, clasping both hands while simultaneously gently supporting her chin. Bara tilts her head slightly to the left. The original photograph was created in 1921, by famed photographer Orval Hixon. Hixon was a long-time resident in Kansas City, Missouri from 1903 through 1930 before moving to Lawrence, Kansas.