Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt (born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress known for starring in major French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Alexandre Dumas fils’s *La Dame aux Camélias*, Victor Hugo’s *Ruy Blas*, Victorien Sardou’s *Fédora* and *La Tosca*, and Edmond Rostand’s *L’Aiglon*. She took on both female and male parts, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Edmond Rostand dubbed her “the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture,” while Victor Hugo praised her “golden voice.” She toured the world, was among the first major actresses to record sound and appear in films, and also worked as a painter and especially a sculptor.

At the peak of her fame, Bernhardt commissioned the first lithographic theater poster from the then-unknown artist Alphonse Mucha for the play *Gismonda*, which she starred in and directed. Pleased with the result, she gave him a contract for six more posters, and Mucha became a highly sought-after Art Nouveau artist.

Born Henriette-Rosine Bernard on 22 October 1844 at 5 rue de L’École-de-Médecine in Paris’s Latin Quarter, she was the daughter of Judith Bernard, a Dutch Jewish courtesan. Her father’s identity was long unknown but is now recognized as an attorney in Le Havre. Bernhardt later wrote that his family paid for her education, insisted she be baptized as a Catholic, and left a large sum for her when she came of age. Her mother traveled often and saw little of her, placing her first with a nurse in Brittany and then in a cottage in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

At age seven, her mother sent her to a boarding school in Auteuil, funded by her father’s family. There, she performed her first theatrical role as the Queen of the Fairies in *Clothilde*, delivering one of many dramatic death scenes. During this time, her mother rose to the top of Parisian courtesans, associating with politicians, bankers, generals, and writers, including Charles de Morny, Duke of Morny, half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III and head of the French legislature.

With Morny’s sponsorship, Bernhardt entered Grandchamp, an exclusive Augustine convent school near Versailles, at age ten. She played the Archangel Raphael in a story based on the Book of Tobit and declared she wanted to become a nun, though she broke convent rules, once arranging a Christian burial for her pet lizard. She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856 and remained fervently religious, but never denied her Jewish heritage. When asked if she was a Christian, she replied, “No, I’m a Roman Catholic and a member of the great Jewish race. I’m waiting until Christians become better.” This contrasted with an earlier answer to composer Charles Gounod, when she said, “No, never. I’m an atheist.” Still, she accepted last rites shortly before her death.

In 1857, Bernhardt learned her father had died overseas. Her mother called a family council, including Morny, to decide her future. Morny suggested she become an actress, which horrified her since she had never been inside a theater. He arranged for her first theater visit to the Comédie-Française, where she saw Jean Racine’s *Britannicus* and Plautus’s *Amphitryon* with her mother, Morny, and Alexandre Dumas père. Moved by the emotion, she sobbed loudly, angering Morny and others, but Dumas comforted her and later told Morny she was destined for the stage, calling her “my little star.”

Morny used his influence with composer Daniel Auber, head of the Paris Conservatory, to arrange an audition. Bernhardt prepared with “vivid exaggeration,” coached by Dumas. The jury included Auber and five leading Comédie-Française actors. She was supposed to recite Racine but had no one to give her cues, so she instead recited La Fontaine’s fable “The Two Pigeons.” The jurors were skeptical but won over by her enthusiasm and pathos, and she was admitted as a student.

From January 1860 to 1862, Bernhardt studied acting at the Conservatory under Joseph-Isidore Samson and Jean-Baptiste Provost, who taught her diction, grand gestures, and simplicity. She changed her stage name from “Bernard” to “Bernhardt.” During her studies, she received her first marriage proposal from a wealthy businessman offering 500,000 francs, which she refused, leaving him in tears. She wrote that she felt “confused, sorry, and delighted—because he loved me the way people love in plays at the theater.”

Before her first tragedy class exam, she tried to straighten her frizzy hair, making it worse, and caught a cold that gave her a nasal voice, so she could barely recite.