La Marr was finally "discovered" by Douglas Fairbanks, who gave her a prominent role in The Nut (1921), then cast her as Milady de Winter in his production of The Three Musketeers (1921).

In 1924, La Marr's health began to falter after a series of crash diets for comeback roles further affected her, leading to her death from pulmonary tuberculosis and nephritis at age 29.

[2][7] As a child, La Marr also performed as a dancer in vaudeville,[3] and made her acting debut as Little Eva in a Tacoma stage production of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1904.

Ake and Boxley finally let La Marr return to Los Angeles after they realized that warrants were issued for their arrests, accusing them of kidnapping.

In November 1914, she came back to California from Arizona and announced that she was the newly widowed wife of a rancher named Jack Lytell and that they were supposedly married in Mexico.

[17] After marrying and moving in with her third husband, vaudevillian Ben Deely, La Marr, who at one time had aspirations of being a poet,[12] found employment writing screenplays at Fox Film Corporation using the name Folly Lyell.

[19] She was credited as writer Barbara La Marr Deely on the films The Mother of His Children, The Rose of Nome, Flame of Youth, The Little Grey Mouse, and The Land of Jazz (all released in 1920).

[21] While working in the writers' building at United Artists, La Marr was approached by Mary Pickford, who reportedly embraced her and said, "My dear, you are too beautiful to be behind a camera.

[26] She starred in the lead role, with Bert Lytell and Lionel Barrymore, in The Eternal City (1923), which featured a cameo appearance by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

[27] In 1924, during the filming of Thy Name Is Woman, production supervisor Irving Thalberg made regular visits to the set to ensure that La Marr's alcoholism was not interfering with the shoot.

[28] The same year, La Marr's first starring, above-the-title role came in the drama Sandra, from First National Pictures, which she filmed in New York City in August 1924.

[18][31] While shooting The Girl from Montmartre in early October 1925, La Marr collapsed on set and went into a coma as the studio wrapped production without her with use of a double in long shots.

[34] Converse died of a blood clot in his brain, allegedly caused by banging his head against the cell bars while calling for La Marr, three days later on June 5.

[34] Although the son of well-off parents, Ainsworth eventually was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison for passing bad checks, and the couple divorced in 1917.

[37] La Marr partied long hours and got very little sleep during the latter part of her career, often pairing this behavior with drinking during especially low points; she once told an interviewer: "I cheat nature.

historians and writers have claimed that La Marr was addicted to morphine and heroin, which she had been prescribed after injuring her ankle and which may have contributed to her health problems.

[12] La Marr's funeral at the Walter C. Blue Undertaking Chapel in Los Angeles attracted over 3,000 fans, and five women reportedly fainted in the crowd and had to be removed by police to safety.

[44] Producer Louis B. Mayer persuaded actress Hedwig Kiesler to adopt the stage name Hedy Lamarr on behalf of his wife, a longtime admirer of La Marr.

[31] Children's author Edward Eager set an episode of his 1954 book Half Magic at a showing of La Marr's Sandra and includes ironic descriptions of the movie.