Sarah Bernhardt (Sarah Bernhardt): biography and career of the actress (photo). Sarah Bernard - Biography, Info, Personal Life
The great actress wrote the autobiographical book “My Double Life” (1907), but she hid a lot in it, did not finish, especially from the area of personal life. This book only deepened the mystery around the phenomenon of Sarah Bernhardt.
What is known for sure? Sarah Bernhardt was born on October 22, 1844 in Paris. Her mother is Dutch Jewish Judith Hart, a musician who actually led the life of a beautiful kept woman. Sarah's father is the engineer Edouard Bernard, although some researchers believe that the father was a certain Morel, an officer in the French navy. However, Sarah Bernard, herself becoming a mother, carefully concealed from whom she gave birth to a son, Maurice.
Sarah received her upbringing in a monastery, but she never mastered obedience: she grew up hot-tempered, stubborn, a real demon. But when it came time to go beyond the fence, Sarah felt as if she had been thrown into the sea. And she can't swim...
The fate of the girl was determined by the next owner of her mother, the Count de Morny: he decided to send Sarah to the conservatory. So "Mop" (nickname of Sarah Bernhardt) appeared in public, became, in modern terms, a public person. Well, then the theater, which she had long dreamed of. The director of the Comédie Francaise expressed doubt: "She's too skinny to be an actress!" Nevertheless, Sarah Bernard was accepted, and at the age of 18 she made her debut in Racine's tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis. This happened on September 1, 1862.
“When the curtain slowly began to rise, I thought I would faint,” Bernard recalled. Regarding her first exit, the opinion of critics was as follows: “The young actress was how beautiful, just as inexpressive ...” Only the golden mass of fluffy hair conquered everyone.
The unsuccessful debut did not break Sarah, it was not for nothing that her motto was the words: "By all means." She had a steel character and extraordinary courage. She left the House of Molière and played in the theaters Gymnasium, Porte Saint-Martin, Odeon, to return to the Comédie Française as a prima donna in all the brilliance of acting. She wonderfully played young heroines in the classical repertoire - Phaedra, Andromache, Desdemona, Zaire, and then began to shine in the plays of modern playwrights. One of the best roles of Sarah Bernhardt is Marguerite Gauthier ("Lady of the Camellias" by Alexandre Dumas son).
Madam! You were charming in your grandeur, - said Victor Hugo. - You excited me, old fighter. I cried. I give you a tear that you vomited from my chest, and I bow before you.
The tear was not figurative, but diamond, and it crowned the bracelet chain. By the way, there were a lot of diamonds donated to Sarah Bernhardt. She loved jewelry and did not part with them during travels and tours. And for the protection of jewelry, she took a pistol with her on the road. “Man is such a strange creature that this tiny and absurdly useless thing seems to me a reliable defense,” the actress once explained her addiction to firearms.
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Interestingly, few actresses played as many male roles as Sarah Bernhardt - Werther, Zanetto, Lorenzaccio, Hamlet, Eaglet ... In the role of Hamlet, Sarah Bernard conquered Stanislavsky himself. And the 20-year-old Eaglet, the unfortunate son of Napoleon Bonaparte, the actress played when she was 56 years old! The premiere of the heroic drama by Edmond Rostand took place in March 1900 with a resounding success - 30 encores! ..
Stanislavsky considered Sarah Bernhardt an example of technical perfection: a beautiful voice, perfect diction, plasticity, artistic taste. The theater connoisseur, Prince Sergei Volkonsky, highly appreciated the stage skills of Sarah Bernhardt: “She perfectly mastered the polarity of emotions - from joy to grief, from happiness to horror, from affection to rage - the subtlest nuance of human feelings. And then - “the famous talker, the famous whisper, the famous growl, the famous“ golden voice ”- la voix d’or,” Volkonsky noted. - The last stage of skill - her explosions ... How she knew how to lower herself in order to jump up, to gather herself in order to rush; how she knew how to aim, to crawl up to burst. The same thing in her facial expressions: what a skill from a barely noticeable inception to the highest scope ... "
Newspaper articles describing Sarah Bernhardt's tour of America and Europe sometimes resembled reports from the theater of war. Attacks and sieges. Triumphs and defeats. Raptures and lamentations. The name of Sarah Bernard in the news of the world often replaced economic and government crises. First, Sarah Bernhardt, and only then conflicts, disasters and other incidents of the day. On trips, she was invariably accompanied by a retinue of reporters. Public and religious organizations treated her differently: who sang glory to her, and who betrayed her blasphemy. Many in America considered her visit "an invasion of the accursed snake, the offspring of the French Babylon, who arrived to pour poison into pure American mores."
In Russia, they were waiting with interest for the “new Napoleon in a skirt”, who had already conquered all of America and Europe and was moving straight to Moscow. Moskovskie Vedomosti wrote: “The greats of the world showered this fabulous princess with honors, which, probably, neither Michelangelo nor Beethoven dreamed of in a dream ...” Why be surprised? Sarah Bernhardt was essentially the world's first superstar.
Sarah Bernard visited Russia three times - in 1881, 1898 and 1908. The success was huge, although there were critics, including Turgenev. In a letter to Polonskaya in December 1881, he wrote: “I can’t say how angry I am with all the madness that is being committed about Sarah Bernhardt, this impudent and distorted poofist, this mediocrity, which only has that lovely voice. Surely no one in the press will tell her the truth? .. "
What to say about this? Turgenev's heart was completely filled with Pauline Viardot, and there was not even a tiny corner left for Sarah Bernhardt. However, the negative emotions of Ivan Sergeevich could not overshadow the glory of Bernard. Great - she is great, even if someone does not think so.
But the stage is one thing, and life outside of it is already something else. Sergei Volkonsky believed that Sarah Bernhardt, outside the theater, was “an ugly person, she is all artificial ... Red tuft in front, red tuft in the back, unnaturally red lips, powdered face, all made up like a mask; amazing flexibility of the camp, dressed like no one else - she was all “in her own way”, she herself was Sarah, and everything on her, around her gave off Sarah. She created not only roles - she created herself, her image, her silhouette, her type ... "
She was the first superstar, hence the advertising of her name: perfume, soap, gloves, powder - "Sarah Bernard". She had two husbands: one - a prince from an ancient French family, the second - an actor from Greece, an unusually handsome man. But the main passion of Sarah Bernhardt was the theater. She lived by them, she was inspired by them. She did not want to be a thing, a toy in the hands of the powerful of this world - she was engaged in painting, sculpture, composed funny novels and funny plays. She ventured into the sky in the Giffard balloon, where, at an altitude of 2300 meters, the daredevils “dined heartily on goose liver, fresh bread and oranges. The champagne cork saluted the sky with a muffled noise...
Sarah Bernhardt has often been compared to Joan of Arc. Considered a witch. It was she who prompted Emile Zola to stand up for the poor Captain Dreyfus. Chaos reigned in her apartment: carpets, rugs, ottomans, trinkets and other items were scattered everywhere. Dogs, monkeys and even snakes spun under their feet. There were skeletons in the actress's bedroom, and she herself liked to teach some roles, reclining in a coffin upholstered in white crepe. Outrageous? Undoubtedly. She loved scandals and demonstrated her special charms to the world. She wrote about herself like this: “I love it very much when people visit me, but I hate visiting. I love receiving letters, reading them, commenting; but I don't like answering them. I hate places of human walks and adore deserted roads, secluded corners. I love giving advice and I really don't like it when they give it to me."
Jules Renard noted: “Sarah has a rule: never think about tomorrow. Tomorrow - come what may, even death. She enjoys every moment... She swallows life. What an unpleasant gluttony! .. "
The word "gluttony" is clearly felt envy of the successes of Sarah Bernhardt. Yes, she lived a full life, excitedly, and even after her leg was amputated in 1914. Despondency was never her lot. Sarah Bernard died on March 26, 1923, at the age of 79. Almost all of Paris came to the funeral of the "queen of the theater." Tens of thousands of admirers of her talent followed the rosewood coffin through the whole city - from Malserbe Boulevard to the Pere Lachaise cemetery. The last path of Sarah Bernhardt was literally strewn with camellias - her favorite flowers.
“Sarah Bernhardt, an actress of almost legendary fame and fame, has died. There was a lot of exaggeration in judgments about Sarah Bernhardt - in one direction and the other, - Alexander Kugel, one of the best Russian critics, wrote in an obituary. - Of the thousand theatrical dreams, more or less intoxicating, that I dreamed, the dream of Sarah Bernhardt -
one of the most original and complex-entertaining.
Sarah Bernard (fr. Sarah Bernhardt; nee Henriette Rosine Bernard, fr. Henriette Rosine Bernard; October 22, 1844, Paris, France - March 26, 1923, ibid.) - French actress, who at the beginning of the 20th century was called "the most famous actress in all history."
She achieved success on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and then toured America with triumph. In her roles were mostly serious dramatic roles, because of which the actress received the nickname "Divine Sarah".
Sarah Bernhardt was born on October 22, 1844 in Paris. Sarah's mother - Judith (later Julia) Bernard (1821, Amsterdam - 1876, Paris), came from a Jewish family and was the daughter of a traveling salesman Moritz Baruch Bernardt and Sarah Hirsch (1797-1829). Since 1835, Judith, her four sisters and brother were brought up by their stepmother Sarah Kinsbergen (1809-1878). The father remained unknown. Sometimes they consider Paul Morel, an officer of the French fleet (some official documents testify to this). According to another version, the father is Edouard Bernard, a young lawyer.
Before coming to France, Judith worked as a milliner. But in Paris, she chose to become a courtesan. Pleasant appearance, the ability to dress with taste ensured her a comfortable existence at the expense of wealthy lovers. The born daughter prevented Judith from leading a carefree life, and therefore Sarah was sent to England, where she lived with a nanny. She could have stayed there until adulthood if an accident had not happened: the nanny left Sarah alone with her disabled husband, Sarah was able to get out of her chair and came too close to the fireplace, the dress caught fire. The neighbors rescued Sarah. Judith at this time traveled around Europe with another sponsor. She was called to her daughter, she came to England and took Sarah to Paris. However, she soon left her again, leaving in the care of another nanny.
Forced to live in a dull place, in a gloomy house where her nanny brought her, Sarah withdrew into herself. But fate still united mother and daughter. A chance meeting with her aunt, Rosina, who was the same courtesan as Judith, plunges Sarah into a frenzy. In a fit, she falls from the nanny's arms and breaks her arm and leg. The mother finally takes her away, and it takes several years for the lonely girl to remember what a mother's love is.
Sarah was not taught to read, write, or count. She is sent to Madame Fressard's school, where she spends two years. During her stay at school, Sarah takes part in performances for the first time. During one of the performances, she suddenly sees her mother enter the hall, having decided to visit her daughter. Sarah has a nervous attack, she forgets all the text and "stage fright" has remained with her since then until the very last days, continuing to haunt her even during her period of world fame.
In the fall of 1853, Sarah was sent to study at the privileged private school Grandchamp. The patronage suits another admirer of Judith, the Duke of Morni.
As a teenager, Sarah was very thin, constantly coughing. Doctors examining her predicted her quick death from tuberculosis. Sarah becomes obsessed with the theme of death. Around this time, her famous photographs were taken, where she lies in a coffin (the coffin was bought by her mother after much persuasion). One day, the mother arranged a meeting of close relatives and friends, where they decided that Sarah should be married as soon as possible. In affectation, the girl looks up to heaven and declares to those present that she is given to God and her fate is monastic clothes. Duke Morny appreciates this scene and recommends that the mother send her daughter to the conservatory. At the same time, Sarah gets her first real performance at the Comédie Française.
At the age of 13, Sarah entered the drama class of the Higher National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, from which she graduated in 1862.
Despite the patronage, in order to enter the conservatory, Sarah had to pass an exam before the commission. To prepare for it, she takes diction lessons. Alexandre Dumas-father becomes her main teacher at this time. An artistic genius, he teaches Sarah how to create characters through gestures and voice. At the exam, everyone is fascinated by Sarah's voice and she enters training without any problems, to which she gives all her strength. At the final exam, she wins the second prize.
On September 1, 1862, Sarah Bernhardt made her debut at the Comedie Française in Jean Racine's Iphigenia, performing leading role. None of the critics saw a future star in the aspiring actress, most believed that soon the name of this actress would quietly disappear from the posters. Soon, due to the conflict, Sarah Bernhardt stopped working with the Comédie Française. Her return there took place only ten years later.
After leaving the theater, difficult times come for Bernard. Little is known about the next four years of her life, except that during this period she changed several lovers. But Sarah did not want to become a courtesan like her mother. On December 22, 1864, Sarah gives birth to a son, Maurice, whose father was Henri, Prince de Ligne. Forced to look for funds for the existence and upbringing of her son, Sarah gets a job at the Odeon Theater, the second most important of the Parisian theaters of that time. After several not-too-successful roles, critics notice her in King Lear, where she plays Cordelia. The next success comes with the role in the play "Kean" by Dumas, the father, who was very pleased with the game of his protégé.
In 1869, the actress played the role of the minstrel Zanetto in François Coppé's Passer-by, after which success came to her. The role of the Queen in Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, which she played in 1872, became triumphant for her.
She worked in the theaters "Comédie Française", "Gimniz", "Port-Saint-Martin", "Odeon". In 1893, she acquired the Renaissance Theater, in 1898 the Nation Theater on Chatelet Square, which was named the Sarah Bernhardt Theater (now the French Théâtre de la Ville). Many prominent theater figures, such as K. S. Stanislavsky, considered the art of Bernard a model of technical perfection. However, virtuoso skill, sophisticated technique, artistic taste were combined in Bernard with deliberate showiness, some artificiality of the game.
Many prominent contemporaries, in particular, A. P. Chekhov, I. S. Turgenev, A. S. Suvorin and T. L. Shchepkina-Kupernik, denied that the actress had talent, which was replaced by an extremely refined and mechanistic playing technique. Such a major success was due to the phenomenal publicity provided to Bernard by the press, and more concerned with her personal life than the theater itself, as well as the unusually inflated excitement that preceded the performance itself.
Among the best roles: Dona Sol (“Hernani” by Hugo), Marguerite Gauthier (“Lady of the Camellias” by Dumas son), Theodora (the play of the same name by Sardou), Princess Greuze, Duke of Reichstadt (in the play of the same name and “Eaglet (fr.)” Rostand), Hamlet (the tragedy of the same name by Shakespeare), Lorenzaccio (the play of the same name by Musset). Since the 1880s Bernard has toured in many countries in Europe and America. She performed in Russia (1881, 1892, 1908-1909) within the walls of the Mikhailovsky Theater, in Moscow, as well as in Kyiv, Odessa and Kharkov.
During a 1905 tour in Rio de Janeiro, Sarah Bernhardt injured her right leg, which had to be amputated in 1915. But, despite the injury, Sarah Bernard did not leave the stage activity. During the First World War, she served at the front. In 1914 she was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 1922 she left the stage activity.
The actress died on March 26, 1923 in Paris at the age of 78 from uremia after kidney failure. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
The most famous roles on the theater stage:
1862 - Racine, Iphigenia
1862 - Eugene Scribe, Valérie
1862 - Molière, Learned Women
1864 - Eugene Labiche & Deland, Un mari qui lance sa femme
1866 - T & G Cognard, La Biche aux Bois
1866 - Racine, Phaedra (as Aricie)
1866 - Marivaux, The Game of Love and Chance (as Sylvia)
1867 - Molière, Learned Women (as Armande)
1867 - George Sand, Marquis de Vilmer
1867 - George Sand, François the Foundling (as Mariette)
1868 - Dumas father, Keane, genius and debauchery (as Anna Dumby)
1869 - Koppe, Passerby (in the role of the troubadour Zanetto); first big successful role
1870 - George Sand, L'Autre
1871 - André Thérier, Jeanne-Marie
1871 - Coppe, Fais ce que dois
1871 - Fussier and Edmond, Baroness
1872 - Bouyet, Mademoiselle Aissé
1872 - Victor Hugo, Ruy Blas (as Dona Maria of Neuburg, Queen of Spain)
1872 - Dumas father, Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (as Gabrielle)
1872 - Racine, Britannicus (as Junie)
1872 - Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro
1872 - Sando, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière
1873 Feyet, Delilah (as Princess Falconieri)
1873 - Ferrier, At the lawyer
1873 - Racine, Andromache
1873 - Racine, Phaedra (as Aricie)
1873 - Feyet, Sphinx
1874 - Voltaire, Zaire
1874 - Racine, Phaedra (as Phaedra)
1875 - Bornier, La Fille de Roland Dumas son, L "Étrangère (as Mrs. Clarkson)
1877 - Victor Hugo, Ernani (as dona Sol)
1879 - Racine, Phaedra (as Phaedra)
1880 - Ogier, Adventurer
1880 - Legouwe & Eugene Scribe, Adriana Lecouvreur
1880 - Meliac & Halévy, Froufrou
1880 - Dumas son, Lady of the Camellias (as Margarita)
1882 - Sardu, Theodora Sardu, Theodora (as Theodora)
1887 - Sardou, Tosca Dumas son, Princess Georges
1890 - Sardou, Cleopatra, as Cleopatra
1893 - Lemaitre, Kings
1894 - Sardou, Gismonda
1895 - Moliere, Amphitrion
1895 - Magda (translated from German by Suderman Heimat)
1896 - The Lady of the Camellias
1896 - Musset, Lorenzachio (as Lorenzino de "Medici)
1897 - Sardu, Spiritualism
1897 - Rostand the Samaritan
1897 - Mirbeau, Les Mauvais bergers
1898 - Catul Mendes Medea
1898 - Lady of the Camellias (as Margarita)
1898 - Auguste Barbier, Joan of Arc (as Joan of Arc)
1898 - Moran & Sylvester, Izéïl (as Iseil)
1898 - Shakespeare, King Lear (as Cordelia)
1899 - Shakespeare, Hamlet (as Hamlet)
1899 - Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (as Cleopatra)
1899 - Shakespeare, Macbeth (as Lady Macbeth)
1899 Richpin, Pierrot Assassin (as Pierrot)
1900 - Rostan, Eaglet (as Eaglet)
1903 - Sardou, La Sorcière
1904 - Maeterlinck, Peléas and Melisande (as Peléas)
1906 - Ibsen, Woman from the Sea
1906 - C. Mendes, La Vierge d'Avila (as St. Teresa)
1911 - Moreau, Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (as Queen Elizabeth)
1913 - Tristan Bernard, Jeanne Doré (as Jeanne Doré).
French actress Henriette Rosine Bernard, known to her fans as Divine Sarah, is recognized as the first star of the international stage. She has played about 70 roles in 125 productions in Europe, USA, Canada, South America, Australia and the Middle East. Sarah Bernhardt's notable roles in the theater were Phaedra Jean-Baptiste Racine, Tosca and Théodore Victorien Sardou, Adrienne Lecouvreur Eugene Scribe, Dona Sol from Victor Hugo's Hernani and Marguerite Gauthier from Alexandre Dumas-son's Lady of the Camellias. She managed several theaters in Paris before renting the Théâtre des Nations, later renamed the Théâtre Sarah Bernard (today the Théâtre de la Ville). Bernard acted as a public person whose stage novels and tragedies filled her own life.
Early biography
Sarah Bernhardt was the daughter of a Dutch courtesan of Jewish origin, Julia Bernhardt. Born October 23, 1844. Her birth certificate has been lost, and biographers often give the date as 22 October. Sarah was the eldest of Julia's three illegitimate daughters. The second was Zhanna (1851-1900) and the third was Regina (1853-1884). It is not clear who the father of the great actress was. It is assumed that this was a young student named Morel, who later made a career as an officer. navy. When Sarah was 13 years old, instead of her father, her uncle Edward signed her baptismal certificate.
The girl's childhood was spent in a boarding house, where a nanny looked after her, and then in a boarding school near Versailles. Most of the time the mother was away. Given the religious education, the girl wanted to become a nun. And yet, when she turned 16, her mother's lover Charles Duc de Morny, the illegitimate half-brother of Napoleon III, got her into the theater.
Study and stage name
For two years, Bernard studied acting at the Paris Conservatory, where her ideal was the graduate of this educational institution, the famous actress Rachel, who was also Jewish. Throughout her career, Sarah had a portrait of her that she constantly compared herself to. Rachel became a celebrity in Paris and London with her performances as Phaedra in 1843 and Adrienne Lecouvreur in 1847.
In choosing her stage name, Bernard knew that Rachel's fame and her own future reputation would be tied to her romantic and antisemitic interest in Jewish women. Their origins have given rise to discriminatory antisemitic cartoons that have attacked them for alleged greed, for example. The nationality of actresses was emphasized in anti-Semitic novels and pseudo-biographies, such as Felicien Champso's Dinah Samuel, Marie Colombier's Memoirs of Sarah Barnum, and others.
After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, Bernard was forced to defend herself against accusations that she was Jewish and German, proudly admitting the former and rejecting the latter. In a letter written in connection with these accusations, she re-asserted her Jewish identity. The foreign accent, which she deeply regretted, Bernard called cosmopolitan, but not Teutonic. She claimed to be the daughter of the great Jewish race, and her unbridled tongue was the result of forced wanderings.
When Sarah reached fame and independence, she took her troupe around the world, turning from a rejected wanderer into an international star revered by all.
Carier start
In 1862, the actress Sarah Bernhardt performed for the first time at the national theater Comédie Française in the role of the heroine of the play by Racine Iphigenia. But just a few months later, she was fired after she slapped an older actress who insulted her. Dissatisfied with the small roles she was given in the fashionable Gymnase-Dramatique theatre, she fled to Brussels. December 22, 1864 Bernard gave birth to her only son Maurice. It was the fruit of her love with Henri Prince de Lin.
In 1866 she began working at the Odeon. In 1868, Bernard achieved her first public success playing the seductive Anna Demby in Alexandre Dumas' Keene. Critics noted her eccentric costume and warm voice. In the same year, she played Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear. In 1869, her role as the minstrel boy Zanetto caring for an elderly courtesan in the one-act play The Passerby by François Coppé enjoyed great success.
During the Franco-Prussian War, Bernard opened a hospital in the Odeon. When Victor Hugo returned from exile, she brilliantly played Queen Mary in his Ruy Blaise. The audience was captivated by her gestures, expressive voice and excellent recitation.
In 1872, the actress's success convinced the Comédie Française to invite her again. In the following years, she fully developed and became a celebrity through her performances as Phaedra and Doña Sol.
Actress Talents
Bernard developed her own emotive romantic acting style based on a lyrical voice, emotional acting, frustrating audience expectations for her characters, revealing strength in weakness and weakness in strength. She impressively played drag queens such as Zanetto in Passerby and Shakespeare's Hamlet. However, the essence of the performance was pictorial.
Sarah Bernard's memory was amazing. She memorized the roles very quickly, having read the text 2-3 times. But after the cessation of performances, she completely forgot the text. Early in her career, Bernard had bouts of memory loss and stage fright.
In addition to the stage, Sarah sculpted and achieved some success, exhibiting at the Paris Salon between 1876 and 1881. In 1880 she exhibited her painting there. However, her greatest talent was projecting emotional poses into unforgettable scenes. She worried about her appearance being in harmony with the masterpieces (for example, when playing Theodora, she dressed like the empress in the mosaic paintings in Ravenna), or advertised as such through portraits, posters and photographs in which she was depicted in key scenes. The photo of Bernard in the role of Melandri became famous, in which she is depicted lying with her eyes closed in a coffin, repeating the painting "Ophelia" by Sir John Evert Mill and "The Young Martyr" by Paul Delaroche. The image served as an advertisement for her favorite scenes of dying heroes such as Marguerite, Fyodor and Adrienne, falling lifelessly into the arms of their lovers.
bohemian life
In 1876, a tragedy occurred in Sarah Bernhardt's personal life: her mother died. In the same year, her reputation as a femme fatale provoked a scandal when two journalists were called to a duel in defense of her honor.
At the same time, she left her apartment on the Rue de Rome and moved into her newly built stately home on the corner of rue Fortuny and avenue de Villiers. Her friends - famous artists Gustave Doré, Georges Clerin, Louise Abbema and Philippe Parrault - painted the walls of her house with allegorical paintings. The artistic bastion symbolized her new bohemian lifestyle.
Unlike other well-known European salons of the second half of the 19th century, the main attraction of her house was not the guests, but the hostess herself. Bernard's friends included the authors George Sand and Victor Hugo, the painter Gustave Moreau, the novelist Pierre Loti, and playwrights such as Jean Richepin and Jules Lamaitre, who were also her lovers.
International success
In June and July 1879, Sarah Bernhardt made her triumphant debut at the Gaiety Theater in London as part of the Comédie Française. And in early 1880, she left the theater and with her troupe went on a tour of Europe and the United States. For the American tour, Bernard chose the plays that best manifested her talents: Phaedra, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Hernanita, Frou-Frou by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, and the yet unplayed Lady of the Camellias by Dumas son . Her tour was a huge financial success.
Early in 1882, Sarah met Aristidis Damala, an officer in the Greek army who was 12 years her junior. They married in St. Andrew in a Protestant ceremony in London at the end of a successful tour of Italy, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, England, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and Russia. Revered equally with members of the royal families, Sarah was recognized as the highest nobility. King Umberto of Italy gave her a delightful Venetian fan, King Alfonso XII of Spain gave her a diamond brooch. After her performance in Phaedra, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria put an ancient necklace on her. In St. Petersburg, Tsar Alexander III was deeply moved by her art.
Acquisition of the theater
In July 1882, after returning to France, Sarah Bernhardt, inspired by the success of her troupe, bought the theater de l'Ambigu in the name of her son Maurice. This decision was her first managerial disaster, which, however, was accompanied by her triumph as an actress in the tabloid theater.
The playwright Victorien Sardu offered her his melodramatic scripts, which emphasized her talents. With the consent of Bernard, he wrote such plays as "Fedora", "Theodora" and "Tosca". Because she received the highest pay as an actress, her theater went into huge debt. Son Maurice relinquished leadership, and Bernard rented the large 1,800-seat Porte Saint-Martin theater.
After the success of Frou-Frou and The Lady of the Camellias, Richepin's new play Nana Sahib, written especially for her, failed. Bernard returned to The Lady of the Camellias to save the theater from financial disaster.
Work in the theater "Port of Saint-Martin"
In September 1884, Sarah Bernhardt began a successful partnership with Félix Duquesnel as the new director of Porte Saint-Martin and Sardou as playwright. Their main sensation was the play Theodora, which premiered on December 26, 1884. In 1885-86. it was played 300 times in Paris and over 100 times in London. In 1886, Bernard embarked on a tour of South and North America, starting in Brazil. In the summer of 1887 she returned to Paris and proudly boasted to her friends that the tour had made her rich. Bernard bought a house at 56 Pereire Boulevard, where she lived until her death. In the same year, her son Maurice married the Polish princess Maria Therese of Jablonowska. Bernard's partnership with Duquesnel and Sardou reached even greater triumph with the production of Tosca.
In 1889 her husband died of a morphine overdose.
A few months after the actress Sarah Bernhardt had her granddaughter Simone, she asked Duquesnel to direct a new play by Émile Moreau, The Trial of Joan of Arc. with the roles of a vicious queen, a prostitute and a lady of questionable conduct.Although the play was spectacular and successful, it closed after 16 weeks because Bernard suffered physically from having to constantly fall to her knees.The successful partnership was put on hold with the failure of Sardou's Cleopatra in 1890 year.
world tour
In 1891, Bernard went on another world tour. In June 1892 she went to London to rehearse Oscar Wilde's Salome, written in French especially for her. Rehearsals were interrupted due to the Lord Chamberlain's refusal to grant permission for it to be shown in England. A year later, she sold the Porte Saint-Martin theater and her agent arranged for the purchase of the Théâtre de la Renaissance, intended for small productions and intimate rococo evenings. Bernard returned to France from a world tour as the richest and most popular actress of the day. Its capital amounted to 3.5 million francs.
creative search
The five years that Sarah Bernhardt devoted to honing every aspect of rehearsal were the most innovative. She was ready to experiment with young writers such as Jules Lemaitre and Octave Mirbeau. The latter's treatment of the topic of striking factory workers caused a scandal that forced her to temporarily close the theater. The play "The Dream Princess" (1895) by Edmond Rostand was her attempt to join the modern symbolist theater. But she failed to benefit from mysticism and religiosity, playing in performances based on the plays of Sardou "Spiritualism" and Rostand's "Samaritan". Competing with the sensational 1897 season of Eleonora Duse, the following year Bernard presented The Dead City by Duse's lover Gabriele D'Annunzio. However, her theater's debts amounted to 2 million francs.
"Theatre of Nations"
In January 1899, determined to avoid further financial losses, Bernard leased the Théâtre des Nations in Châtel, which belonged to Paris, for 25 years. The theater was monumental, allowing her, at the age of 55, to be at a safe distance from the audience. She renovated the premises to match her star status. The foyer became her own little Louvre. Here were presented large canvases by Abbema, Clairin, Louis Bernard and Alphonse Mucha, depicting the actress in the role of the Samaritan woman, Gismond, Theodora, Marguerite Gauthier ("Lady of the Camellias"), Princess of Dreams and the son of Napoleon.
The theater opened with the revival of Tosca, continued the controversial performance of the role of Hamlet. Sarah Bernhardt triumphed with her travesty role in Rostand's The Eaglet in March 1900. Dressed in military uniform, she portrayed the 17-year-old son of Napoleon. The production was timed to coincide with the Paris Exposition, which drew large crowds and encouraged a patriotic spirit. Sarah gave 250 performances of The Eaglet, earned respect and became a national heroine.
In 1903, further success was achieved with Sardu's seventh and last historical melodrama, The Enchantress, set in Toledo during the Inquisition. Sarah played the role of a passionate gypsy pursued by a villain. In 1904 she played Pelléas in the London production of Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande.
Trips to America
In 1905, Bernard went on a long tour of America. During her last performance at Tosca in Rio de Janeiro, she had an accident that led to her right leg being amputated a decade later.
In March 1906, she performed in a huge tent, accommodating 5 thousand spectators, in Kansas City, Dallas and Waco. In 1906, after her return to Paris, she played Saint Teresa in the controversial play The Virgin of Avila by Catulé Mendez.
In October 1910, after a successful performance in London with "Eaglet", Bernard, at the age of 66, again went to America. She chose the 27-year-old handsome Lou Telegan as the host of the tour, who became her lover for the next 3 years.
Sarah Bernhardt's filmography includes several silent films, but the only successful one was a 1912 film in which she played Queen Elizabeth of England. After returning to Paris in late 1913, she played the role of Sarah, the mother of a man who killed a rival who kidnapped his bride, in Tristan Bernard's play Jeanne Doré.
In 1914, the actress became a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
Army support
During World War I, Bernard visited French soldiers at the front and starred in the propaganda film French Mothers. This year, at the age of 70, she left for her last American tour, which lasted 18 months. She was received as a celebrity and spoke at public meetings urging Americans to join the Allies. Although Bernard was deprived of the opportunity to move freely around the stage, her voice alone was enough to bring the audience into ecstasy.
last years of life
In 1920, Bernard played in Racine's Atali, presenting the monologue of an aging woman. She performed in "Daniel" by Louis Verneuil and in "Gloire" by Maurice Rostand. In the autumn of 1922, Bernard gave a benefit performance to raise money for Madame Curie's laboratory by playing in Verneuil's Rhine-Armand.
In early March 1923, a Hollywood agent offered her the lead role in a film by Sacha Guitry. Shortly thereafter, on March 26, 1923, Bernard died of uremia. There was a massive funeral procession from the house on Pereire Boulevard to the church of St. Francis de Sales and from there to the Pere Lachaise cemetery. There is the grave of Sarah Bernhardt.
Artworks
Bernard wrote poetry, prose and plays. In 1878, she published the prose study In the Clouds. Bernard wrote two plays in which she herself played: the one-act melodrama about adultery L "Aveu (1888) and the 4-act play A Man's Heart (1911). In addition, she adapted the drama Adrienne Lecouvreur (1907). Bernard wrote an autobiography "My Double Life" (1907) and two fictional episodes from her life - the novel "The Little Idol" (1920) and Jolie Sosy Her retrospective review of acting and theater was published in the book "The Art of the Theater" in 1923.
April 17, 2012, 13:27The great French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) always surrounded herself with secrets. Even in her memoirs, there are so many unsaid that the real life story of the famous actress, who, in fact, became the first superstar, can be traced with great difficulty. Sarah Bernhardt was satisfied with this situation, it was not for nothing that she even said: “I don’t know everything about myself.” During the period of her stage fame, and it was extremely long, performances with the participation of Sarah Bernhardt were always sold out. Sarah Bernhardt was the idol of the audience, the queen of the theater and a recognized master of shocking. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, a kind of bohemian chaos reigned in the apartment of Sarah Bernhardt. The actress approached the interior design of her home in an extraordinary way. She “decorated” her apartment with stuffed birds holding skulls in their beaks. Even in the choice of pets, it was ambiguous: in addition to traditional cats and dogs, the actress got a monkey, a cheetah, a white Irish wolfhound and chameleons lived in the garden. In the bedroom of Sarah Bernhardt, a real coffin was kept with a thick mattress made of love letters. The story of this "interior detail" is as follows "... Sarah Bernard's mother was a courtesan and prepared her daughter for this profession, but the girl refused this role, although she considered it very profitable. Little Sarah was given a terrible verdict by doctors - tuberculosis. Then the girl persuaded her mother to buy her a beautiful coffin so that she would not be put in some “freak.” It was this coffin that accompanied her, already grown woman, on all trips. 
However, despite the pessimistic forecasts of doctors, Sarah lived a very long and eventful life. In the coffin, Sarah Bernhardt rested, read, memorized new roles. In this coffin, she posed for photographers, releasing ominous jokes during the photo shoot. 
There were rumors in Paris that Sarah Bernard indulged in love pleasures in her coffin. It was rumored that not all of her lovers were satisfied with such a strange bed. When her sister stayed with her, Sarah gave her her bed, and she herself moved to the coffin for the night. As the actress explained, two beds in her bedroom would still not fit. Of course, the sinister bed became an occasion for gossip. Seeing the actress in the coffin, her manicurist ran out of the room in horror. Another episode related to the coffin, the actress called “tragicomic.” After the death of her sister, the coffin with the deceased stood in the bedroom until the undertakers arrived. When they finally appeared and saw two coffins, they were embarrassed and were about to send for a second hearse, but Sarah, who at that moment brought her mother to her senses, overtook them and defended her beloved deathbed. Her eccentric antics were the enduring "topics of the day." During the 1878 World's Fair, Sarah ventured on a hot air balloon flight, having breakfast at an altitude of 2300 m goose pate and champagne. This is how cartoonists captured her flight - Sarah Bernhardt reclines in a languid pose in the famous coffin, which replaces the hot air balloon basket. It was said that Bernard seduced almost all the heads of European states. Among her admirers were the heir to the English throne, who later became King Edward VII, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, King Alfonso of Spain, King Umberto of Italy, King Christian IX of Denmark. And when they asked who the father of her son Maurice was, she answered carelessly: "Who knows, maybe Hugo, or maybe Mirbeau." 
What kind of poisoned arrows did the rumor not send her! What is the rumor, I.S. Turgenev wrote about her: “I can’t say how angry I am with all the madness committed about Sarah Bernhardt, this impudent and distorted poofist, this mediocrity, which only has that lovely voice. Really, no one in the press will tell her the truth? .. ”Sarah Bernard generally toured a lot. Only in the USA it was 9 times. There was no language barrier for her. American journalists wrote that if Bernard had played in Chinese, the audience would still have burst into her performances. 
before Sarah's performance... It is said that when she met Theodore Roosevelt (she dined with him while on tour in America in 1892), Sarah summed up: "Oh, this man and I could run the world perfectly!" And she was not far from the truth, because she never followed the accepted laws - she established them. Sarah Bernhardt visited Russia three times. The audience greeted her enthusiastically. The actress was invited to the Winter Palace. After the performance, she was introduced Alexander III. Sarah Bernhardt was about to curtsy. The king stopped her: - It is I, madam, who must bow before your high art. She was independent, ambitious and absolutely fearless. She didn't care about the opinions of those around her. For everything “impossible” of her time, she asked the only question: “Why?”. Sarah claimed that if she were a man, she would constantly fight duels. She was an accurate shot with a pistol, a good fencer and a great horse rider. 
The huge earnings that Sarah Bernard brought foreign tours gave her the opportunity to lead a chic lifestyle. Banquets and social receptions went literally one after another. The guests were treated to exquisite and, accordingly, expensive food. Sarah Bernard severely punished cooks for the slightest omission. And the cooks did not stay with her. Got it and the servants. At the maid who did not please her, Sarah could launch the first thing that came to her hand. However, she was outgoing. And, having calmed down, she compensated for moral, and even physical damage with a valuable gift. Sarah Bernhardt was a multi-talented and enthusiastic person. She wrote novels, short stories, plays, critical articles. Engaged in painting and sculpture. Her sculptures were exhibited at the annual Paris Salon. The audience was delighted. True, the great Rodin called the sculptural works of Sarah Bernhardt outright hack-work. And the public is stupid. Sarah Bernhardt was not offended. In everything else that did not concern the theater, she considered herself an amateur. She just did what she liked. No more. 
She visited an anatomist, worked at the construction site of her own house, tamed a tiger, put herself to sleep with chloroform, personally looked after the wounded in her hospital ... “I have to survive this. By all means,” Sarah repeated her catchphrase. Sarah Bernhardt was not inclined to hide anything. Including years. She believed that even advanced age did not prevent her from looking young. They say that in one of the plays, Sarah was supposed to play a woman of 38 years old. A fifty-year-old actor was invited to play the role of her brother. - They can take him for my father, - 76-year-old Sarah was sincerely indignant. When the actress was in her eighties, her leg was amputated due to an injury while on tour in Rio de Janeiro. But the very next year, she again went on tour in the United States. On the posters, at her request, it was written: "Come see the oldest woman in the world!". Sarah Bernard not only rehearsed her funeral in detail in advance, but also informed the press about all the preparations. When the great actress was dying (she was 78 years old), her last order was to choose the six most beautiful young actors who would carry her coffin. When asked when she was going to stop lighting her life with the flame of love, Bernard replied: "When I stop breathing." On her last journey, spectacularly and elegantly, she set off on March 26, 1923. Tens of thousands of admirers of Sarah Bernhardt's talent followed her famous pink coffin through the whole city - from Malserbe Boulevard to the Pere Lachaise cemetery. 
The French said that they have three attractions in their country - the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and Sarah Bernhardt.
Sarah Bernhardt (fr. Sarah Bernhardt; October 22, 1844, Paris - March 26, 1923, ibid., nee Henriette Rosine Bernard (fr. Henriette Rosine Bernard) - French actress of Jewish origin, who at the beginning of the 20th century was called "the most famous actress in all history". She achieved success on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and then toured with triumph in America. Her roles were mainly serious dramatic roles, which is why the actress received the nickname "Divine Sarah."
Sarah Bernhardt was born on October 22, 1844 in Paris. Sarah's mother's name was Judith. Jewish, either of German or Dutch origin, she gave birth to Sarah at the age of sixteen. The father remained unknown. Sometimes they consider Paul Morel, an officer of the French fleet (some official documents testify to this). According to another version, the father is Edouard Bernard, a young lawyer.
Before coming to France, Judith worked as a milliner. But in Paris, she chose to become a courtesan. Pleasant appearance, the ability to dress with taste provided her with a comfortable existence at the expense of wealthy lovers. The born daughter prevented Judith from leading a carefree life, and therefore Sarah was sent to England, where she lived with a nanny.
She could have stayed there until adulthood if there had not been an accident: the nanny left Sarah alone with her disabled husband, Sarah was able to get out of her chair and came too close to the fireplace, the dress caught fire. The neighbors rescued Sarah. Judith at this time traveled around Europe with another sponsor. She was called to her daughter, she came to England and took Sarah to Paris. However, she soon left her again, leaving in the care of another nanny.
Forced to live in a dull place, in a gloomy house, where her nanny brought her, Sarah withdrew into herself, grew thin. But fate still united mother and daughter. A chance meeting with Aunt Rosina, who was the same courtesan as Judith, plunges Sarah into a frenzy. In a fit, she falls from the nanny's arms and breaks her arm and leg. The mother finally takes her away, and it takes several years for the lonely girl to remember what a mother's love is.
Sarah was not taught to read, write, or count. She is sent to Madame Fressard's school, where she spends two years. During her stay at school, Sarah takes part in performances for the first time. During one of the performances, she suddenly sees her mother enter the hall, having decided to visit her daughter. Sarah has a nervous attack, she forgets all the text and "stage fright" has remained with her since then until the very last days, continuing to haunt her even during her period of world fame.
In the fall of 1853, Sarah was sent to study at the privileged private school Grandchamp. The patronage suits another admirer of Judith, the Duke of Morni.
As a teenager, Sarah was very thin, constantly coughing. Doctors examining her predicted that she would soon die from tuberculosis. Sarah becomes obsessed with the theme of death. Around this time, her famous photographs were taken, where she lies in a coffin (the coffin was bought by her mother after much persuasion).
One day, the mother arranged a meeting of close relatives and friends, where they decided that Sarah should be married as soon as possible. In affectation, the girl looks up to heaven and declares to those present that she is given to God and her fate is monastic clothes. Duke Morny appreciates this scene and recommends that the mother send her daughter to the conservatory.
At the same time, Sarah gets her first real performance at the Comédie Française. After that, her fate is sealed.
At the age of 13, Sarah entered the drama class of the Higher National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, from which she graduated in 1862.
Despite the patronage, in order to enter the conservatory, Sarah had to pass an exam before the commission. To prepare for it, she takes diction lessons. Alexandre Dumas-father becomes her main teacher at this time. An artistic genius, he teaches Sarah how to create characters through gestures and voice. At the exam, everyone is fascinated by Sarah's voice and she enters the training without any problems, to which she gives all her strength. At the final exam, she wins the second prize.
On September 1, 1862, Sarah Bernhardt made her debut at the Comedy Française Theater in the play Iphigenia by Jean Racine, playing the title role.
The director of the Comédie Francaise expressed doubt: "She's too skinny to be an actress!"
“When the curtain slowly began to rise, I thought I would faint,” Bernard recalled. Regarding her first exit, the opinion of critics was as follows: “The young actress was how beautiful, just as inexpressive ...” Only the golden mass of fluffy hair conquered everyone.
None of the critics saw a future star in the aspiring actress, most believed that soon the name of this actress would quietly disappear from the posters. Soon, due to the conflict, Sarah Bernhardt stopped working with the Comédie Française. Her return there took place only ten years later.
After leaving the theater, difficult times come for Bernard. Little is known about the next four years of her life, except perhaps that during this period she changed several lovers. But Sarah did not want to become a courtesan like her mother. On December 22, 1864, Sarah gives birth to a son, Maurice, whose father was Henri, Prince de Ligne. Forced to look for funds for the existence and upbringing of her son, Sarah gets a job at the Odeon Theater, the second most important of the Parisian theaters of that time.
After several not so successful roles, critics notice her in King Lear, where she plays Cordelia. The next success comes with the role in the play "Kin" by Dumas, the father, who was very pleased with the game of his protégé.
- Madam! You were charming in your grandeur, - said Victor Hugo. - You excited me, old fighter. I cried. I give you a tear that you vomited from my chest, and I bow before you.
The tear was not figurative, but diamond, and it crowned the bracelet chain. By the way, there were a lot of diamonds donated to Sarah Bernhardt. She loved jewelry and did not part with them during travels and tours. And for the protection of jewelry, she took a pistol with her on the road. “Man is such a strange creature that this tiny and absurdly useless thing seems to me a reliable defense,” the actress once explained her addiction to firearms.
In 1869, the actress plays the role of the minstrel Zanetto in François Coppé's Passerby, after which success came to her. The role of the Queen in Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, which she played in 1872, became triumphant for her.
She worked in the theaters "Comédie Française", "Gimniz", "Port-Saint-Martin", "Odeon". In 1893, she acquired the Renaissance Theater, in 1898 the Nation Theater on Chatelet Square, which was called the Sarah Bernhardt Theater (now Théâtre de la Ville in French).
Stanislavsky considered Sarah Bernhardt an example of technical perfection: a beautiful voice, perfect diction, plasticity, artistic taste. The theater connoisseur, Prince Sergei Volkonsky, highly appreciated the stage skills of Sarah Bernhardt: “She perfectly mastered the polarity of emotions - from joy to grief, from happiness to horror, from affection to rage - the subtlest nuance of human feelings. And then - “the famous talker, the famous whisper, the famous growl, the famous“ golden voice ”- la voix d’or,” Volkonsky noted. - The last stage of skill - her explosions ... How she knew how to lower herself in order to jump up, to gather herself in order to rush; how she knew how to aim, to crawl up to burst. The same thing in her facial expressions: what a skill from a barely noticeable inception to the highest scope ... "
However, virtuoso skill, sophisticated technique, artistic taste were combined with Bernard's deliberate showiness, some artificiality of the game.
Many prominent contemporaries, in particular, A. P. Chekhov, I. S. Turgenev, A. S. Suvorin and T. L. Shchepkina-Kupernik, denied that the actress had talent, which was replaced by an extremely refined and mechanistic playing technique. Such a major success was due to the phenomenal publicity provided to Bernard by the press, and more concerned with her personal life than the theater itself, as well as the unusually inflated excitement that preceded the performance itself.
Among the best roles: Dona Sol (Hernani by Hugo), Marguerite Gauthier (Lady of the Camellias by Dumas son), Theodora (Sardou's play of the same name), Princess Greuze, Duke of Reichstadt (in the play of the same name and Rostand's The Eaglet), Hamlet (Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name), Lorenzaccio (Musset's play of the same name).
Newspaper articles describing Sarah Bernhardt's tour of America and Europe sometimes resembled reports from the theater of war. Attacks and sieges. Triumphs and defeats. Raptures and lamentations. The name of Sarah Bernard in the news of the world often replaced economic and government crises. First, Sarah Bernhardt, and only then conflicts, disasters and other incidents of the day.
On trips, she was invariably accompanied by a retinue of reporters. Public and religious organizations treated her differently: who sang glory to her, and who betrayed her blasphemy. Many in America considered her visit "an invasion of the accursed snake, the offspring of the French Babylon, who arrived to pour poison into pure American mores."
In Russia, they were waiting with interest for the “new Napoleon in a skirt”, who had already conquered all of America and Europe and was moving straight to Moscow. Moskovskie Vedomosti wrote: “The greats of the world showered this fabulous princess with honors, which, probably, neither Michelangelo nor Beethoven dreamed of in a dream ...” Why be surprised? Sarah Bernhardt was essentially the world's first superstar.
Sarah Bernard visited Russia three times - in 1881, 1898 and 1908. The success was huge, although there were critics, including Turgenev. In a letter to Polonskaya in December 1881, he wrote: “I can’t say how angry I am with all the madness that is being committed about Sarah Bernhardt, this impudent and distorted poofist, this mediocrity, which only has that lovely voice. Surely no one in the press will tell her the truth? .. "
What to say about this? Turgenev's heart was completely filled with Pauline Viardot, and there was not even a tiny corner left for Sarah Bernhardt. However, the negative emotions of Ivan Sergeevich could not overshadow the glory of Bernard. Great - she is great, even if someone does not think so.
But the stage is one thing, and life outside of it is already something else. Sergei Volkonsky believed that Sarah Bernhardt, outside the theater, was “an ugly person, she is all artificial ... Red tuft in front, red tuft in the back, unnaturally red lips, powdered face, all made up like a mask; amazing flexibility of the camp, dressed like no one else - she was all “in her own way”, she herself was Sarah, and everything on her, around her gave off Sarah. She created not only roles - she created herself, her image, her silhouette, her type ... "
She was the first superstar, hence the advertising of her name: perfume, soap, gloves, powder - "Sarah Bernard". She had two husbands: one - a prince from an ancient French family, the second - an actor from Greece, an unusually handsome man. But the main passion of Sarah Bernhardt was the theater. She lived by them, she was inspired by them. She did not want to be a thing, a toy in the hands of the powerful of this world - she was engaged in painting, sculpture, composed funny novels and funny plays. She ventured into the sky in the Giffard balloon, where, at an altitude of 2300 meters, the daredevils “dined heartily on goose liver, fresh bread and oranges. The champagne cork saluted the sky with a muffled noise...
Sarah Bernhardt has often been compared to Joan of Arc. Considered a witch. It was she who prompted Emile Zola to stand up for the poor Captain Dreyfus. Chaos reigned in her apartment: carpets, rugs, ottomans, trinkets and other items were scattered everywhere. Dogs, monkeys and even snakes spun under their feet. There were skeletons in the actress's bedroom, and she herself liked to teach some roles, reclining in a coffin upholstered in white crepe. Outrageous? Undoubtedly. She loved scandals and demonstrated her special charms to the world. She wrote about herself like this: “I love it very much when people visit me, but I hate visiting. I love receiving letters, reading them, commenting; but I don't like answering them. I hate places of human walks and adore deserted roads, secluded corners. I love giving advice and I really don't like it when they give it to me."
Jules Renard noted: “Sarah has a rule: never think about tomorrow. Tomorrow - come what may, even death. She enjoys every moment... She swallows life. What an unpleasant gluttony! .. "
The word "gluttony" is clearly felt envy of the successes of Sarah Bernhardt.
In 1882, in St. Petersburg, Sarah experienced the most ardent love affair, which finally ended in her marriage. The subject of Sarah's passion was the Greek diplomat, the handsome Aristidis Jacques Damalla., who was 11 years younger than her. He left the service, career, homeland and joined the troupe of his favorite actress. Sarah, in love, considered him a genius. Aristidis entered the proposed role, but apart from success with young actresses, he achieved nothing.
For self-affirmation, he boasted to Sarah of his victories on the intimate front and received great satisfaction if he managed to publicly humiliate the great actress. In general, a cross between Casanova and the Marquis de Sade. The man is not very smart, he played too much, became a drug addict and a gambler. And this is not acting. Here the stakes are higher. They divorced, but when Arstidis was dying of morphine, all the last months Sarah carefully took care of her ex-husband and already useless lover.
At the age of 66, during a tour of America, Sarah Bernhardt meets Lou Tellegen, who was 35 years younger than her. Their love affair lasted over four years. In his old age, this man admitted that the years with Sarah Bernhardt were the best years of his life.
During a 1905 tour in Rio de Janeiro, Sarah Bernhardt injured her right leg, which had to be amputated in 1915.
But, despite the injury, Sarah Bernard did not leave the stage activity. During the First World War, she served at the front. In 1914 she was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 1922 she left the stage activity.
The actress died on March 26, 1923 in Paris at the age of 78 from uremia after kidney failure. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Her last order was to choose the six most beautiful young actors who will carry her coffin.
Almost all of Paris came to the funeral of the "queen of the theater." Tens of thousands of admirers of her talent followed the rosewood coffin through the whole city - from Malserbe Boulevard to the Pere Lachaise cemetery. The last path of Sarah Bernhardt was literally strewn with camellias - her favorite flowers.
“Sarah Bernhardt, an actress of almost legendary fame and fame, has died. There was a lot of exaggeration in judgments about Sarah Bernhardt - in one direction and the other, - Alexander Kugel, one of the best Russian critics, wrote in an obituary. “Of a thousand theatrical dreams, more or less intoxicating, that I had, the dream of Sarah Bernhardt is one of the most original and complexly entertaining.”
Portraits of Sarah Bernhardt were painted by Bastien-Lepage, Boldini, Gandara and other artists, she was repeatedly photographed by Nadar. Alphonse Mucha wrote promotional posters for her performances.
D. Marell wrote the play "Laughter of Lobsters" about Sarah Bernhardt.
Sarah Bernhardt played 13-year-old Juliet at 70.
Sarah Bernhardt has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the motion picture industry.
Well, and a little Flies to you, since they mentioned him.