Here’s a wonderful clip of silent screen vamp superstar Theda Bara in 1936, speaking at the end of a Lux Radio Theater presentation of ‘The Thin Man’. Since that movie was directed by W.S. Van Dyke who was known to everyone as ‘Woody’, I assume the person who she’s speaking with and who she calls ‘Woody’ is W.S. Van Dyke and not Woody Allen, who was born the year this aired. Thus we get two evanescent Hollywood legends for the price of one. Woody sounds like he has a sore throat and Theda sounds like she’s Norma Desmond. Could Gloria Swanson perhaps modeled her performance on the real Theda? It’s possible–Theda was alive when ‘Sunset Blvd.’ was made and may have even been approached for the role–Wilder had apparently first attempted to cast Mary Pickford who was insulted to be asked to play a has-been. Ah, actors! You gotta love ’em. I guess…