Theda Bara was an American silent film and stage actress. Bara was one of the more popular actresses of the silent era and one of cinema's early sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp", later fueling the rising popularity in "vamp" roles based in exoticism and sexual domination.
Bara in 1921
Bara in A Fool There Was (1915)
Bara in The She-Devil (1918)
Manuel Rosenberg autographed sketch of fellow Cincinnatian, Theda Bara, 1921 Cincinnati Post
A femme fatale, sometimes called a maneater, Mata Hari, or vamp, is a stock character of a mysterious, beautiful, and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, deadly traps. She is an archetype of literature and art. Her ability to enchant, entice and hypnotize her victim with a spell was in the earliest stories seen as verging on supernatural; hence, the femme fatale today is still often described as having a power akin to an enchantress, seductress, witch, having power over men. Femmes fatales are typically villainous, or at least morally ambiguous, and always associated with a sense of mystification, and unease.
The divine femme fatale of Hindu mythology, Apsara Mohini is described to have enchanted gods, demons and sages alike.
Salome in a 1906 painting by Franz von Stuck
Actress Theda Bara, in the film A Fool There Was
Femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, played by Barbara Stanwyck, in the classic film noir Double Indemnity