Category Archives: Barbara’s Film Acting Career

Help Return One of Barbara La Marr’s Films to the Public

Film restorationist Joe Harvat has been working diligently on restoring The Eternal Struggle, a 1923 silent drama starring Renée Adorée as a fugitive caught in a love triangle with the two Northwest Mounted Police officers (Pat O’Malley and Earle Williams) pursuing her. 

Barbara appears in the film as temptress-turned-murderess Camille Lenoir, a supporting part that was enlarged after she agreed to play it.  Despite her relatively minor role, Barbara made an impression when the film hit theaters.  Movie Weekly declared that “no picture requiring a dark-eyed adventuress is complete these days without Barbara La Marr.”

Please consider donating to Joe’s fundraiser. (The campaign begins on Friday, January 24 and will remain open until Sunday, February 2.)

Barbara and Pat O’Malley in a 1923 film magazine ad.

Barbara La Marr Tribute Coffee Blend

I am pleased to announce a coffee blend specifically created to pay tribute to the legendary Barbara La Marr. As one of the silent screen’s leading vamps, Barbara seduced audiences worldwide with her laudable talent, exotic beauty, and enigmatic allure. Offscreen, her sweetness, tender heart, and giving nature endeared her to others. The Siren Blend, a cinnamon vanilla flavored medium roast, salutes Barbara’s fiery screen persona and her kind soul.    

It was a pleasure to work with Dominique Benedict of Breakfast at Dominique’s on this blend in an advisory capacity, providing biographical information and photos for the bag design, naming the blend, and choosing a proceeds recipient.  

Breakfast at Dominique’s fair trade, organic, and sugar-free coffees honor classic Hollywood luminaries and other celebrated icons, including Mary Pickford, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Crawford, and many more. A variety of the blends support charities and other deserving organizations.

Proceeds from Barbara’s Siren Blend benefit the National Film Preservation Foundation. 

(Coffee bags may be purchased here.)

 

Barbara All Dolled Up (Part II)

Published paper doll artist extraordinaire Gregg Nystrom, who specializes in Old Hollywood glamour, has had a longstanding fascination with Barbara La Marr.

When the opportunity arose to create a souvenir doll for the Roaring Twenties-themed 2024 Paper Doll Convention, he chose to spotlight Barbara in her starring turn as a rich, disreputable temptress who finds love with an Englishman in the silent drama The Heart of a Siren (1925).  Featured here are Nystrom’s Barbara doll and Barbara’s Nile green charmeuse, chiffon, and ostrich feather negligee; white crepe satin gown with black beading and tassels; and black velvet gown from the film. 

Oscar-winning designer Charles LeMaire, creator of the costumes, rhapsodized, “[Barbara] was gorgeous, feline, and wore clothes with grace and elegance.”  Nystrom could not agree more.  “I’m an aesthete,” he said, “and she is very beautiful.”

(Read more about Gregg Nystrom, his work, and his Barbara La Marr dolls in my previous post, Barbara All Dolled Up: Celebrating the Work of Gregg Nystrom.)

Happy National Silent Movie Day (September 29)!

Though not all silent films have survived, some of Barbara’s most noteworthy film acting work has!  Why not celebrate the day by watching one of Barbara’s wonderful films free online?

The Nut (1921)

The Three Musketeers (1921)

The Prisoner of Zenda (1922)

Souls for Sale (1923)

The White Moth (1924)

Barbara, Ramon Novarro, director Rex Ingram, and cameraman John F. Seitz film a scene from The Prisoner of Zenda, 1922.

Watch Barbara La Marr in THE WHITE MOTH (1924) Free Online

The White Moth, directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Barbara La Marr as Mona Reid (aka the White Moth), a famous dancer caught in a love tangle with Ben Lyon, Charles De Roche, and Conway Tearle, may now be viewed for free online here.  The photo below, from one of the film’s scenes, features Barbara in what was considered in 1924 to be a very provocative scenario in a film: a woman in a bathtub.  Though she was completely covered, censors in some states cut the scene before allowing the film in theaters.  Still, one critic raved that “Barbara is scintillating as she has never scintillated before” in the film.    

Barbara in The White Moth (1924)

Fun Fact: Barbara La Marr and Hedy Lamarr

Barbara La Marr was one of film producer Louis B. Mayer’s favorite actresses.  They made four films together (Harriet and the Piper, Strangers of the Night, The Eternal Struggle, and Thy Name Is Woman) in the 1920s.  In the late 1930s, over a decade after Barbara’s untimely passing, Mayer discovered a gorgeous, talented, intelligent young actress named Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler.  He christened her Hedy Lamarr in honor of Barbara.

Barbara La Marr (on left) and Hedy Lamarr

My Barbara La Marr Yesterday USA Radio Interview

I recently had the pleasure of discussing the unbelievable life and estimable career of silent screen luminary Barbara La Marr; my biography, Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood; and my one-woman show about Barbara on Yesterday USA Radio with Walden Hughes. Listen to a replay of the live broadcast here (the interview begins after about a minute and fifty seconds of music and is approximately fifty-four minutes long).