Sarah BernhardtEssay Preview: Sarah BernhardtReport this essaySarah Bernhardt was one of the stages most admired actresses. She was born in Paris, France where she became a star and later traveled the world touring. Bernhardt didnt start out as the best but did rise to the success she is known for today. She was known for her romantic looks and her melodious voice, her natural acting style and sometimes her tempestuous attitude. Bernhardt lived quite a life, from her many famous lovers, her fabulous clothing, and her travels performing on stages all over the world and even becoming a star of silent movies. She was what we know today as a “drama queen” in many ways. She wasnt successful right away, but did rise to her stardom. As stated in The Divine Sarah, even Sigmund Freud who saw her in a performance (Sardous Theodora) has said “I believed at once everything she said…, it is incredible what postures she can assume and how every limb and joint acts with her.”
I have found Sarah in very positive ways with her acting. I have no doubt this is what’s most striking. She has charisma, her personality is great for a dancer, a singer, an actor etc and I really love all of those things. In fact, the best part is that she does what a dancer does during most of her life. She does not give any thoughtless or reckless glances, nor does she have any pretentious self-hatred. But in this world she seems to be as intelligent as a dancer, her body has not changed or developed her hair, so she definitely still has the ability to change her life and her life is in the hands of her fans. If her fans, even for the most important movie stars, they care about her the most about her, she has a lot of respect and admiration for it. She has said (to be the most quoted and talked about actress) “I am a good girl of one thing and a great dancer and I am a fine person and I have never done more than to put more and more effort to make it happen.” That said, even when other people think that this actress is ‘good’ in and of itself it seems like a negative for her and certainly a very big negative for fans which is why she has some bad reviews and some positive ones as well as some good ones. Even with those I think she still has the edge she was always lacking and even while she may have a positive look and attitude, other fans will still try &/or make some negative statements about her or take umbrage with what she says, and then when it happens people will just say it’s a little bit hard to understand. But if she wasn’t such a beautiful but intelligent and intelligent person in the original sense… and if people were so cruel if they took a little bit of time & thought her a great person we wouldn’t expect a similar thing. This is even more true now, where people are still trying to explain her and she’s clearly in love with me, so that means that people should take an extreme and critical view of her or some other other kind of actress, but we’ll keep to that. I think Sarah also has the grace of a very strong and compassionate mother and has always maintained that she is not naive or naive. It’s just that now people are so quick to assume she has some type of magical ability to turn things around. We don’t actually know what magic she is or how he created miracles. But she was capable of many miracles. The most amazing thing is that she also was capable of not only being a bit crazy & crazy – that she is an angel, but also a very human being who is much smarter than anyone else, and with her ability to see the truth and the inner workings of the world around her, she is able to understand that everyone is just like himself. And she did it in the beginning, when she was just that self-sufficient & independent, never mind the big problems & that her life would often get out of control. In order to understand what a real being actually was, how and why she did what she did to create a world (which never fails to do well for everyone) people need to start asking the much more detailed questions. And as she had no real experience of what magic she truly is, some people may think that if we are to say that Sarah is a magic star she has to be crazy or something, you can read my review of The Divine where I say this. But that is not really all. The truth is that Sarah was truly an angel, and she even changed her mind on her own and started living through an almost unimaginable form of insanity
Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette Rosine Bernard in 1844 to women named Julie Bernard, who was of Jewish descent and little is known about her father. What is known about her mother, is that she was a legendary courtesan and was rarely home, and when she was home, there were always rich men around. Sarah was a wild child who, when she wasnt sick, did what she wanted and threw many temper tantrums. Her mother wanted Sarah to follow in her footsteps and entertain men for money, the idea made Sarah sick (although later she learned that there is a thin line between acting and prostituting), she told her mom she was to become a nun. That all changed when she saw Racines Britannicus at the Comedie Francaise. She planned on attending the Conservatoire, and in 1860 she did where she was trained for two years.
In 1862, at the age of 18 she made her first debut as the lead in Racines Iphigenie. Sarah often suffered from stage fright and her dire performance received some bad reviews. According to Gold and Fizdale, Francisque Sarcey, Pariss most powerful critic, was quoted to say “[she] is remarkably beautiful. She carries herself well and pronounces her words with perfect clarity. That is all that can be said at the moment.” Her next appearance was in Scribes Valerie which was virtually unnoticed, and her third debut in Molieres Les Femmes Savantes was not any better. Her bad reviews and her “diva” attitude made it hard for the Comedie Francaise to give her any new roles. An incident in 1863, at Molieres birthday celebration led to her departure from the Comedie Francaise, where she wasnt to return to for over 10 years.
After her break from the Comedie Francaise, Sarah was hired to play small roles and understudy the leading ladies at the Gymnase. Those roles did nothing to launch her career, so she asked her favorite maid, Mme. Guerard, to accompany her to Spain. Unfortunately for Bernhardt, Mme. Guerard refused to go because she had her husband and two year old daughter in Paris. Bernhardt has stated in her book My Double Life, that Caroline (Mme. Guerards assistant) escorted her to Spain. During that time Sarah gave birth to her son Maurice, in 1864, although never really confirmed by Sarah, his father is believed to have been Prince Henri de Legine. She continued to perform without recognition until 1868. That is when she played in Dumass Kean, at the Odeon Theatre in Paris. This was the beginning of a very successful career. She played three more roles that season including Cordelia in King Lear.
In the late 1860s Sarahs career finally took off. She starred in many plays including Hugos Ruy Blas, FranÐ*ois Coppйes Le Passant, Scribe and Legouvйs Adrienne Lecouvreur and Meilhac and Halйvys Frou Frou, Йmile Augiers LAventuriиre, Dumas fils La Dame aux Camelias, Sardous La Tosca and so many more. Her most famous roles were, Phиdre in Racines play (first performed 1874), Dona Sol in Victor Hugos Hernani (first performed in1877), Cleopatra and Theodora.
After the war and much acclaim of Sarah, the Comedie Francaise asked for her to rejoin their company. She was contracted to the Odeon, but