A Theda Bara tiara and earrings from Cleopatra
Fox, 1917. Brass tiara in the form of a snake coiled around the wearer's head, with a blue glass bead eye, accompanied by a pair of brick-patterned pyramid form brass earrings, one a reproduction. Worn by the actress in one of the most iconic images from the film.
Provenance: Heritage Auctions, 2008 October Signature Music & Entertainment Auction, lot 49210; Profiles in History, December 15-16, 2012, Hollywood Auction 53, lot 372.
Theda Bara, born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati in 1885, began her career in the Fox Studios on the East Coast, moving to Hollywood to take on the title role in Cleopatra. Bara was the original exotic femme fatale and the subject of rampant speculation about her background and personal life, including rumors that she was the daughter of a Arab sheik and a French woman and that she had grown up in Egypt in the shadow of the Sphinx.