Moving Pictures

18

Ginger’s real name is Theda Withel, which might be a very oblique reference to Theda Bara, famous movie star of the 1910s, a kind of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, avant la lettre (‘Theda Bara’ is an anagram of ‘Arab Death’!). Her portrayal of evil women in movies like When a Woman Sins and The She Devil caused the current meaning of the word ‘vamp’ to be added to the English language.

Just as Dibbler later describes Ginger to Bezam Planter as “the daughter of a Klatchian pirate and his wild, headstrong captive”, so does a studio biography describe Theda Bara as born in the Sahara to a French artiste and his Egyptian concubine. But in fact, Theda’s father was a Cincinnati tailor.