Barbara La Marr and Paul Bern Encore Interview on Cinema Chat

Barbara La Marr considered writer, director, and producer Paul Bern among her closest friends and confidants.  Deeply in love with Barbara, Paul assisted her with her career, sought to protect her during her oftentimes turbulent love affairs, and helped her with her medical and funeral expenses after she contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and nephritis.  “No one is really poor who can boast the friendship of Paul Bern,” Barbara stated before her passing.  

In an encore appearance on David A. Health’s Cinema Chat podcast (beginning shortly after 51:00), I discuss Barbara and Paul’s relationship.  The first part of the podcast features Laura Riebman, Paul’s great-niece, discussing Paul’s influential role in early Hollywood, his marriage to platinum bombshell Jean Harlow, the impact his sensational death had upon her family, and her efforts to commemorate Paul’s professional achievements with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. The podcast may be accessed here.

(My Barbara La Marr Cinema Chat podcast may be found here. I discuss Barbara’s turbulent teenage years; her many matrimonial ventures; her accomplished careers as a stock theater actress, dancer, vaudevillian, and Fox Film Corporation story writer; her ascension to worldwide fame as one of the silent screen’s leading actresses; and more.)

Barbara La Marr Spotlighted in Dametown’s Hall of Dame

Many thanks to writer Dixie Laite, mayor at Dametown, for reading my book and spotlighting Barbara in Dametown’s Hall of Dame. Dixie writes, “Get ahold of Sherri Snyder’s definitive biography, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood. Sherri has the intelligence, insight and sensitivity to get Barbara’s complexity.” Dixie’s Barbara La Marr post may be read here. Be sure to check out Dixie’s many other fascinating posts as well!  

My Performance as Barbara La Marr and Hollywood Forever Tour on October 13

Silent screen actress Barbara La Marr, known as the “too beautiful” girl, was a legend in her time, leading an astounding, oftentimes scandalous life described by newspapers of the day as “a wilder story than she ever helped to film.”  Join me, Sherri Snyder, at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Sunday, October 13 as I once again don my seamed stockings and paint on my bee-stung lips to portray Barbara in a one-woman performance piece that I wrote about her.  Barbara’s banishment from Los Angeles at age seventeen for being “too beautiful”; her notable careers as an actress, a dancer, a vaudevillian, and a screenwriter; her death at age twenty-nine in 1926; and more will be spotlighted.

My performance is part of the Los Angeles Art Deco Society’s 36th Hollywood Forever Cemetery tour.  Also featured on the tour are the stories—told by performers and historians—of silent screen god Rudolph Valentino, action hero Douglas Fairbanks Sr., actress and William Randolph Hearst mistress Marion Davies, filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, slain director William Desmond Taylor, and over twenty other early Hollywood stars, movie moguls, and pioneers interred at Hollywood Forever. For ticket information and additional details, click here. This event typically sells out.

In addition to performing as Barbara on the tour for many years, this is my third year producing the tour since Frank Cooper, the man who created and ran it for thirty-three years, handed me the reins. 

Photo: (L to R) Barbara La Marr and me (Sherri Snyder) as Barbara.

My Barbara La Marr Book Signing at Cinecon August 31, 2019

I will be at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival on Saturday, August 31 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., signing copies of my biography, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood.  Book signings, part of the festival’s Memorabilia Show, will be located in the third floor meeting area at Lowes Hollywood Hotel (1755 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles 90028).  Information on the festival’s film screenings and other events may be found here.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.

Cinema Chat Barbara La Marr Interview

Happy Birthday Anniversary to Barbara La Marr (July 28, 1896 – January 30, 1926)! Though Barbara passed away at age twenty-nine from tuberculosis and nephritis, it was said that she lived many lives in one.

Thank you to David Heath, host of Cinema Chat, for having me on his podcast to discuss Barbara’s turbulent teenage years; her many matrimonial ventures; her accomplished careers as a stock theater actress, dancer, vaudevillian, and Fox Film Corporation story writer; her ascension to worldwide fame as one of the silent screen’s leading actresses; and more.

In Honor of Father’s Day

Though silent screen star Barbara La Marr and her father, newspaperman and writer William Watson, had their differences—he initially disapproved of her film acting aspirations; clashed with her free-spirited nature; and endured her turbulent, oftentimes scandalous life—they loved each other very much. When Barbara was allegedly kidnapped at age sixteen by her estranged half-sister, William told the press he would spend every cent he had to find her. He was by her side when she wrote stories for the Fox Film Corporation in 1920, typing her manuscripts as she dictated them to him. And when Barbara, plagued by incipient pulmonary tuberculosis and nearing her life’s end, struggled to complete her final film, The Girl from Montmartre (1926), William accompanied her to work at the studio to support and watch over her.    

(Photo above: Barbara La Marr and her father, William Watson, arrive at United Studios in 1925 during the filming of The Girl from Montmartre.)