VSent years after her death, the legend of Sarah Bernhardt is still alive… It must be said that she was the greatest French actress of the Belle Époque, a star adored on five continents. She had understood before anyone else the strength of the press, then in full swing, and the notoriety that she could draw from it by imposing her personality.
And what a personality! A new biography by Hélène Tierchant, at Tallandier, returns with relish to the incredible destiny of this sacred monster. “She was a total artist,” explains the author. Theatre, literature, painting, sculpture… She explored all genres, even cinema, which was still in its infancy at the beginning of the century. In her studio, she sculpted the busts of personalities she met and even made a splendid pietà. His dream was to study Fine Arts…”
READ ALSOThe agony of Sarah Bernhardt, the Madonna of her time The bastard daughter of a courtesan, Sarah Bernhardt cut her teeth at the conservatory, then at the Odéon. She was quickly nicknamed “the golden voice” because of her total acting, triumphed at the Comédie-Française in the great tragedies, before resigning with brilliance, which caused a scandal but completed her name of the great audience. She then set up her company and decided to travel the five continents on tours that brought her millions, quickly swallowed up in a rowdy and eccentric life. From London to Sydney, via Constantinople, Moscow, Washington, Rio or even Cairo, Bernhardt fills the halls and builds her legend. “Rather die than not become the greatest actress in the world!” »
The repertoire is always the same: his great hits, like Phaedrus, Hernani, Theodora, or an anthology of his best scenes that we come to applaud in the text, as a pop-star would sing his best hits. She becomes the most famous Frenchwoman after Joan of Arc, we see her traveling across America in a special train, always flanked by her 80 trunks, even going to rent a marquee with five thousand seats to declaim her texts. One evening, in Nebraska, a cowboy makes a scene to obtain a place, in spite of a full house. “I have traveled three hundred miles for the Bernhardt, and I will see her! “he launches brandishing a revolver…
Coffin and champagne
She understood that to be known, you have to give grain to grind to the mass-circulation press. This great mythomaniac therefore puts her life on stage, opens her door to reporters who comment on her famous padded coffin which sits enthroned in her home, where she says she lies down to immerse herself in her roles; or even the personal menagerie with which she likes to surround herself: a wolf, a cheetah, chameleons, monkeys, lion cubs, a boa, a koala and even an alligator brought back from her tours, nicknamed Ali Gaga, to whom she makes drink champagne… “A day will come when to continue to feed the gossip of the newspapers, Sarah Bernhardt will start sweeping the chimneys herself or doing her own cooking, ironically one day Le Figaro. And her friends will exclaim with admiration: it’s nothing to see her in Phaedrusyou have to admire her when she peels her onions…”
But beware, the star can also get her claws out: she made the headlines one day by setting up a commando operation at the home of a former actress friend, Marie Colombier, who released a firebrand on her, The Memoirs of Sarah Barnum. Armed with a dagger and a riding crop, she ransacks her apartment from top to bottom while the culprit slips away without asking for her rest. The affair made the front page of all the newspapers, as far as New York, and the book, which was scraping by in bookstores, quickly became a bestseller, bringing in the colossal sum of 200,000 francs for its author.
Mistress of Edward VII
And what about his private life! On the subject, she remains very free, a Brigitte Bardot before her time who does not hesitate to launch: “Love is a glance, a jerk, and a wipe… “It must be said that she entered the courtship from her youth, as much to pay her rent as to accelerate her career. When the journalists question her about the father of her son, she kicks in touch: “I never remember if it is Victor Hugo, Gambetta, or General Boulanger! “In fact, the list of lovers is impressive: theater owners, journalists, socialites, ministers, the great comedian Mounet-Sully, the Emperor Napoleon III, but also the Prince of Wales Edward VII, who regularly comes to applaud him…
She ended her life in apotheosis by becoming the patroness of the Théâtre des Nations, place du Châtelet, by signing a 25-year lease with the City of Paris. Free to choose, she directs her actors, decides on costumes and sets, and fills the house with Hamlet and especially L’Aiglonby Edmond Rostand: she is over fifty years old, the son of Napoleon Ier is supposed to be 20 years old, but who cares! People come from all over France and Europe to applaud “the Divine”, even the Kaiser will want to see the play…Until the end, the actress imposes an iron discipline on herself to maintain her figure, with a bicycle and a rowing boat. At the age of sixty-six, she attempted the first aesthetic operations, first in Chicago then in Paris to perform a facelift which gave her a youthful look. Just in time to shoot his first films, including The Lady of the Camelliasrenamed Camille, she triumphed in the United States…
READ ALSO“In the nineteenthe century, one was a “wife of” or a prostitute” At the end of her life, she only had 10,000 francs left of the 45 million gold francs she had amassed in her career – around 185 million euros. She sells her belongings, her jewelry, but refuses to give up the leg that had to be cut off to avoid gangrene: an American wanted to have her naturalized to show her off across America! The actress still finds the strength to put on patriotic plays to support the Poilus of 1914 and even goes so far as to play in front of them on the front. When she died in the spring of 1923, a million Parisians would accompany her coffin to Père-Lachaise.
To read : Sarah Bernhardt, scandalous and indomitable, by Hélène Tierchant, Tallandier editions.To see: the exhibition “Sarah Bernhardt. And the woman created the star at the Petit Palais, Paris, from April 14, 2023.