The original vamp

I've been going crazy ordering books from Amazon.com lately. I've discovered that there are so many books out there that I would actually love to read, that I would otherwise never find in the neighborhood bookstore or Barnes and Nobel. I was recently reading a book about the history of Arab dance (belly dance, whatever you want to call it) and Theda Bara was briefly mentioned.

According the this book, she was the original screen Femme Fatale and the studios went out of their way to build an elaborate (if false) myth around her. Her name is an anagram for Arab Death, and the studios claimed that she had been born in the shadows of the pyramids and she bathed in snake blood. They provided for her a Nubian driver, who drove her round Hollywood in a white limo, while she pretended to not speak a word of english. I love it. I now have a date with a friend to bar hop round LA pretending we only speak arabic. It'll be a challenge, especially once we start drinking, to maintain, but damn it! We'll give it our best!