Barbara La Marr was born in Yakima, Washington on July 28, 1896 with the birth name of Reatha Watson. Her childhood was mostly uneventful, mainly because Yakima, today, a medium sized city with a population of over 50,000, wasn`t exactly the hub of social life. As Barbara advanced in her childhood, her parents moved to the Los Angeles area where she began to explore the show business lifestyle, in whatever form she could.
Barbara loved the L.A. way of living and she was forced to grow up fast. She was still Reatha at the time, but her arrest for dancing in burlesque while still a teen caused her to change her name to Barbara La Marr to avoid being associated with her past.
Her passion was dancing and writing, but other people, who were the power brokers in the movie industry thought otherwise. Her beauty had captured the imagination of all who came across her path.
Moving to New York, Barbara was ultimately lured into the film world with her first picture being HARRIET AND THE PIPER in 1920. She was still going by her married name of Barbara Deely (already working to shed her fourth husband) and was being dubbed as "The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful." The next year she appeared in THE THREE MUSKETEERS and DESPERATE TRAILS.
While the pictures were mediocre at best, it was as Claudine Dupree in THE NUT that sent Barbara into super-stardom. Hoards of fans flocked to the box-office to see this beautiful actress in movies such as ARABIAN LOVE, TRIFLING WOMEN, DOMESTIC RELATIONS, and THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (all in 1922) that kept them enthralled with this latest film beauty.
In 1923, Barbara kept up the frenzied filming pace with such pictures as POOR MEN`S WIVES, THE BRASS BOTTLE, and SOULS FOR SALE. The public adored her, as shown by the volumes of fan mail, but Barbara adored the late night partying she was involved with.
The combination of alcohol and drugs was, clearly, beginning to wear her down. She made four films in 1924 and three in 1925. Her last motion picture was THE GIRL FROM MONTMARTRE in 1926.
On February 2 of that year, Barbara died of tuberculosis in Altadena, California. Her demise was, no doubt, brought about by her constant late night partying. She had lived a lifetime and had made 30 films, but was only 29 when she died.