Sarah Bernhardt - Infinite Women

Born: 25 September 1844, France
Died: 23 March 1923
Country most active: International
Also known as: Henriette-Rosine Bernard

The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.

Sarah Bernhardt, originally known as Henriette-Rosine Bernard, was a famous French stage actress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She starred in popular French plays by writers like Alexandre Dumas fils, Victor Hugo, Victorien Sardou, and Edmond Rostand. She even played male roles, including Hamlet by Shakespeare. Rostand called her “the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture,” and Hugo praised her “amazing voice.” She toured internationally and was a pioneer in sound recordings and motion pictures.

From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:

Sarah Bernhardt (1845-1923), a noted French actress born in Paris of French and Dutch parentage. She was of Jewish descent, but at the age of twelve, in accordance with her father’s wish, was baptized into the Christian faith and entered a convent to be educated.
In 1858 she entered the Conservatoire, where she gained second prize for tragedy in 1861 and for comedy in 1862. In 1867 she joined the company at the Odéon and made her first notable success as Cordelia in a French version of King Lear, and as the Queen in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas. In 1872 she was called to the Comédie Française, later was elected “sociétaire,” and by a series of remarkable performances, chief among which was the role of Dona Sol in Hugo’s Hermani (1877), she steadily increased her reputation till she became the best-known actress of her time.
Leaving the Comédie in 1879 she appeared in London, and later made tours in Denmark, Russia and America. In 1882 she returned to London and married Jaques Damala, a Greek actor, from whom she separated the following year. On her return to Paris she achieved another signal triumph in the Fedora of Sardou, and thus began her long connection with this popular author, who wrote for her Theodora, La Tosca and Cléopâtre. During this decade she made visits to the United States, and made a tour of the world, including North and South America, Australia, and the chief European countries. In 1896, during an elaborate public fête held in her honor at Paris, she received congratulations from [many countries].
Three years later she opened the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt with a revival of La Tosca, and later appeared as the weak-willed son of Napoleon I in Rostand’s L’Aiglon. Her success in this led her to attempt a French production of Hamlet, in which she played the title role. In the spring of 1913 she visited America again and played a short engagement in single acts selected from her repertoire. Owing to a permanent injury to her knee, she was unable to walk without assistance, but her matchless voice was unimpaired and she received an ovation at every performance.
In 1914 she was made a member of the Legion of Honor, and in the same year won one of her greatest triumphs in Bernard’s Jeanne Doré. Six years later, in April, 1920, she appeared in her own theatre in Paris in her famous role of Athalie in Racine’s play. At her first performance the emotion of her admirers who crowded the theatre, was the most singular of all the tributes ever paid to this extraordinary woman. When she was carried on the stage in the golden litter of Athalie, surrounded by attendants, the audience cheered and wept in a kind of frenzy, which even she, in all her fifty years of triumphs, had never known equalled. In spite of her seventy-five years, in spite of her infirmities, including partial blindness, her power seemed as great as ever, and she showed herself still to be beyond question the foremost actress of France. She was at work, rehearsing for a new production, only a week before her death in Paris, on March 26, 1923, aged seventy-eight having been sixty-one years on the stage.
While Sarah Bernhardt’s position as the first actress of her day was undisputed, she was never able, as Modjeska was, to portray the highest inspirations of poetry, and she lacked Duse’s serenity and sincerity and her ability to suggest unutterable emotions; but she was mistress of every item of stage-craft, and when inspiration failed her she triumphed by sheer technical efficiency. Before age destroyed her panther-like grace, her every pose and movement were so artfully contrived that they appeared inseparable from the character she was portraying. Her amazing power of emotional acting, the extraordinary realism and pathos of her death-scenes, the magnetism of her personality, and the beauty of her “golden voice,” made the public tolerant of her occasional caprices.

The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.

Unquestionably the greatest French actress of all times, Sarah Bernhardt knew the rapture of glory almost from her debut. She was the idol of the French students while she played the Passant by Coppee; she conquered the world with her genius. She interpreted Racine, Hugo, Dumas, Sardou, Rostand and all her im- personations will be remembered through the quality of her art.
Many romantic legends, more or less true, cluster about her life, which was indeed extraordinary, but they do not compare with the beautiful reality. She may be given as an example of indomitable courage and determination. Her motto was “Quand Meme” (in spite of everything) and nothing could cause her to despair. For instance, as a child she had a faulty pronunciation but she did not stop studying for three years until she succeeded in having a perfect diction. Her golden voice has inspired many poets. After the amputation of her leg, she continued to act every day, and practically died on the stage, which was, for half a century, the battle-field on which she fought in a manner never to be forgotten. Camille, Froufrou, Phedre, Tosca, Taiglon have lived again in the soul of the “Divine Sarah.”