Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Picture Perfect Wednesday:
Theda Bara, the Original Goth Chick


During the late 1910s and early 1920s, Theda Bara emerged as a hugely popular movie star, specializing in playing evil and creepy women. Her film career began when she was 30, around the age when actresses were considered "too old" for anything but matronly parts, and she went onto star in numerous mega-hits that helped make Fox Studios into a Hollywood power-house. She retired from acting at the age of 41, after marrying director Charles Brabin. Her final film, "Madame Mystery" (1926), was co-directed by Stan Laurel.


Bara has the distinction of being the world's first fabricated off-screen personality. Her official bio from Fox Studios claimed that she was a life-long dabbler in the occult who had been born in he shadow of the Sphinx--the product of a torrid love affair between an artist and an Arabian princess. The truth was that she had been born in Cincinnati to a tailor and a housewife and that she had been a struggling actress on Broadway before getting her first big film break in the 1914 picture "A Fool There Was." Her real name was Theodosia Burr Goodman.

Bara, with her dark, entirely fabricated public image and her heavy, almost panda-like eye make-up, also has the distinction of being history's first Goth Chick.




Only two of Bara's films survive to present day--strangely enough her career bookends of "A Fool There Was" and "Madame Mystery." The original prints for the rest, including her celebrated starring turns in the smash-hit costume dramas "Cleopatra" and "Salome" were destroyed in a fire at Fox Studios in 1937. Bara's personal copies of her films all fell victim to her lack of knowledge regarding proper storage of nitrate-based film stock; she discovered to her sorrow in the 1940s when she checked her library that the passage of time had literally reduced her films to dust..

Theda Bara passed away at the age of 69, Although she has sunken into obscurity, she remains a source of inspiration for Goth Chicks, and was almost certainly the point of origin for the silent movie star turned evil undead cult leader in "The Dead Want Women."

Although I can't help but wonder if she wouldn't prefer to be remembered like this:


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The Milla Jovovich Quarterly

Last quarter, we featured a young Milla with hair out of the 1980s. This time around, we feature an adult Milla with hair out of... well, with hair of some sort.


Thursday, April 18, 2013

Classic Cinema: The Royal Bed


Classic Cinema (also known as Movie Monday at various times) returns with "The Royal Bed," an obscure classic political comedy starring greats such as Lowell Sherman and Mary Astor. You can read my review by clicking here... and then watch this undeservedly obscure film.

 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Louise Brooks Quarterly

Silent movie star Louise Brooks had such a unique and special look that she started fashion trends in her day, inspired the creation of a major comic book character after she had passed, and continues to inspire fashion designers and artists to this day. And now she joins our rotating line-up of quarterly lovelies. Click here to see all posts featuring Brooks that have been featuring previously on Shades of Gray.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Cover graphic for "The Mummy's Tune"

My latest piece of "artwork," based in part on a publicity still from the 1917 silent film "Cleopatra."


The image is for the cover of "The Mummy's Tune," the next supplement for NUELOW Games's ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters. Click on the link to check out the line-up.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Picture Perfect Wednesday:
Happy birthday, Jennifer Love Hewitt!

Okay... so it's one day early, but it's a Picture Perfect excuse to put up some pictures of a beautiful actress! (Jennifer Love Hewitt was born 2/21/1979.)