vaudeville comedian under the stage name of Billy Devore. The Watsons lived in various locations in Washington and Oregon during La Marr's formative years. By 1900, she was living with her parents in Portland, Oregon, with her brother William, her half-sister Violet Ross, and Violet's husband Arvel Ross. As a child, La Marr also performed as a dancer in vaudeville, and made her acting debut as Little Eva in a Tacoma stage production of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1904. By 1910, La Marr was living in Fresno, California, with her parents. Some time after 1911, the family moved to Los Angeles, and La Marr worked at a department store. La Marr also appeared in burlesque shows. In January 1913, her half-sister, now going by the name of Violet Ake, took her 16-year-old sister on a three-day automobile excursion with a man named C.C. Boxley. They drove up to Santa Barbara, but after a few days, La Marr felt that they were not going to let her return home. 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. This episode was published in several newspapers, and La Marr even testified against her sister, but the case eventually was dropped. La Marr's name appeared frequently in newspaper headlines during the next few years. 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. She also stated that she loathed the name Reatha and preferred to be called by the childhood nickname "Beth." Career Early years and screenwriting After marrying and moving in with her third husband, vaudevillian Ben Deely, La Marr, who at one time had aspirations of being a poet, found employment writing screenplays at Fox Film Corporation using the name Folly Lyell. She wrote numerous scenarios for studio shorts at Fox and United Artists, many of which she based on her life, earning over US$10,000 during her tenure at the studios. 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). La Marr continued to write short screenplays for the studio and supported herself