Cleopatra (Fox Film, 1917; presumed lost) Theda Bara 8" x 10" Original Custom Studio Photograph by Albert Witzel Studi...

Description

Cleopatra (Fox Film, 1917; presumed lost) Theda Bara 8" x 10" Original Custom Studio Photograph by Albert Witzel Studios. PSA/DNA Type 1. Vintage gelatin silver matte double-weight 8" x 10" custom portrait studio photograph of Theda Bara in Cleopatra by Albert Walter Witzel. Hand-printed at Witzel Studios in Los Angeles. The last known prints of the film were destroyed in the Fox vault fire in 1937. Theda Bara - 'Serpent of the Nile' and 'Siren supreme of the screen' - was not the offspring of an Arab sheik and a French woman nor of Egyptian of royal lineage as Fox publicists claimed, but born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio. Bara was generally typecast by William Fox after A Fool There Was (1915) as "the Vampire," the destructive siren who devoured men in her rapacious frenzy. Modest of person, quiet, studious, and thoughtful off-screen, her fictional character was a seductive lure during her heyday, 1915-1919, commanding the public's constant gaze. Though all but six of her 44 films are now lost, she was the dramatic actress prototype, a direct antecedent of the modern Diva.

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