Reatha Watson (Barbara La Marr) is most famous as one of the first drug-related deaths in Hollywood, but she is notable for many other reasons. Born in Yakima, Washington, her parents moved to the Imperial Valley in California, where Reatha began her explorations of Los Angeles as a teenager. After several disastrous marriages she worked as a burlesque dancer until she married vaudeville actor Ben Deeley . They moved to New York, where Reatha (under the name Folly Lytell) wrote six scenarios for Fox. She made the successful leap from writer to actress in Douglas Fairbanks ' The Nut (1921/I), and her career skyrocketed under her new name of Barbara La Marr (she adopted the alias because of a scandal when she was arrested in the late Teens, and called by the judge "too beautiful to be alone in a big city"). Barbara Marr lived extravagantly. After an affair with John Gilbert , her career went into a decline and her contract with Metro was terminated. She went to New York, where drugs and alcohol brought on tuberculosis, from which she died in January of 1926. The official studio press release blamed her death on "vigorous dieting". Her adopted son, Marvin, was adopted by La Marr's best friend, Zasu Pitts .

Never had more than two hours of sleep a day, because she felt that life was too short to waste any of it by sleeping.She was one of the first Californians to become rich in the motion picture industry; she was also probably the first to become an actress after being a scenario writer first. MGM chief Louis B. Mayer chose Hedy Lamarr 's name in honor of Barbara La Marr.Stage actress and cabaret artist.The morning after her marriage to Lawrence Converse, he was charged with bigamy. He banged his head against his cell bars, calling for her, until he was knocked unconscious.Phil Ainsworth , husband #3, wound up in San Quentin for passing bad checks.She developed an addiction to painkillers after being prescribed morphine for a sprained ankle while on the set of Souls for Sale (1923). Supposedly it was studio-ordered so that she could continue filming.In 1923 she secretly had a child from one of her numerous affairs. She "adopted" the child to save face and named him Marvin Carville La Marr. After her death in 1926, little Marvin was adopted by good friend Zasu Pitts and her husband Tom Gallery . He was renamed Don Gallery.Arrested at age 14 for underage burlesque dancing.Barbara was adopted by a foster family when she was a month-old baby. No birth certificate was ever found.Although her foster family maintained she was born in North Yakima, Washington, she always listed Richmond, Virginia as her place of birth on all official documents, including marriage certificates.Was, for a time, great friends with the actor William Haines until a falling-out in 1923. They never spoke again.Her half-sister, Violet Ake, was also an actress. In January 1913, Ake and a friend were arrested for taking 16-year-old La Marr on a car ride. Her parents issued warrants for her arrest to bring back La Marr. It was published in the Los Angeles Times.Her brother, William W. Watson Jr, was a 20s vaudeville comedian who went by the stage name of Billy DeVore.In the 1920s she lived at 6672 1/2 Whitley Heights Terrace, in a Mission Revival mansion in the Whitley Highs district of the Hollywood Hills.On the 1900 and 1910 Censuses for Portland, Oregon, and Fresno, California, it states that Barbara La Marr was born in the state of Washington. In the Los Angeles Times, her sister, Violet Ake, is listed as her half-sister who was from her mother Rose's first marriage. It is highly unlikely that she was adopted, and a tale that she made up for her show business career.LaMarr's beach house was blown up for a scene in the film "Inside Daisy Clover"(1965) starring Natalie Wood.