Studio head and founder William Fox signed Theda to a $150 a week 5-year contract. Now that Theodosia DeCoppet was going to be in the movies, she needed a flashier name. "Theda" was her childhood nickname and "Bara" was shortened from the family name Baranger.
Filming began on A Fool There Was, the story of a wicked vampire, or "vamp", woman who sucks not blood, but the will to live out of her hapless suitors. Her slinky, apparently soulless temptress would drive one man to commit suicide at her feet and another to leave his family and die in her lap. Such outrageous behavior was shocking to an audience accustomed to the boundaries of Victorian values.
The movie was built up so much ahead of its release that Theda was a star before audiences ever saw her on the screen. Studio publicists Al Selig and John Goldfrap would dream up outlandish stories about Theda throughout her contract, but the first story would be the most famous.
They invited journalists to a darkened hotel room, draped in velvet curtains and perfumed with incense. There the men announced that Theda had been born in the shadow of the pyramids, to a French actress and an Italian sculptor. She moved to Paris as child, where she became a famous stage actress.
After their speech, the velvet curtains parted to reveal Theda reclining on a couch. She spoke a few prepared lines about her mysterious past and the press was dismissed. A young Louella Parsons hung back long enough to see Theda run to the window and gasp "give me air!" Later, the studio claimed that they had meant for Parson to see Theda break character; no one was supposed to take the stories about her life seriously.
Fool was one of the most successful movies of the year. Eager to capitalize on his new star, Fox immediately put Theda into The Kreutzer Sonata. When that movie was also a success, Theda was put to work on The Clemenceau Case, her third movie in four months.
Theda moved into a spacious New York apartment with her mother and sister. Much to the dismay of her publicists, her home was airy and full of light and she liked to spend her spare time reading. To keep the vampire image alive, Fox had to stage press conferences in exotically decorated hotel rooms. Though most of the press knew Theda's true origins by now, reporters still faithfully reported every outlandish story she recited to them (though often tongue-in-cheek).
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