Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard on October 22, 1844, in Paris, the daughter of a Dutch-Jewish courtesan. Entering the prestigious Paris Conservatoire with the assistance of the Duke of Morny (half-brother to Emperor Napoleon III), Bernhardt joined the Comédie-Française in 1862.

With her luminous golden voice ('la voix d'or'), slender, electric presence, and uninhibited emotional intensity, Bernhardt conquered the French theatrical world in Victor Hugo's 'Ruy Blas' and Jean Racine's 'Phèdre'. In 1880, she launched her own independent touring company, traveling across North America, South America, Australia, and Europe in her luxurious private railway car. She was the first actress to tour internationally on a colossal scale, performing in French to sold-out audiences in Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Melbourne, and Cairo who were transfixed by her physical eloquence.

Fearlessly unconventional, Bernhardt slept in a silk-lined rosewood coffin, kept pet cheetahs and alligators, and played male roles, famously premiering Hamlet at age fifty-five. Even after losing her right leg to gangrene in 1915, she continued to perform on the Western Front for French soldiers in World War I from a carrying sedan chair. When she died in Paris on March 26, 1923, over 500,000 mourners filled the streets for her funeral procession.