Although Bernhardt was more interested in becoming a nun than an actress, her family decided she should give acting a try.
Sarah Bernhardt was born in France in 1844, the illegitimate daughter of a courtesan and, Henriette-Rosine Bernard, as she was baptised, was destined to lead a usual life.
At will, she could modulate the speed, force, and pitch of her distinctive voice, which some described as silver, others as golden. But even Bernhardt’s detractors agreed that audiences loved surrendering to her forceful presence, and Bernhardt was happy to present herself as dominating them. During the late 19Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard on October 22, 1844 in Paris. Columnists joked that she was too small-breasted to need to get anything off her chest.
Asked how she handled unsympathetic theatergoers, she replied, “It is then a battle between me and them, and I always win.”Like many of the later stars who followed in her path, Bernhardt leveraged new platforms and technologies. Sarah Bernhardt, by contrast, was a household name around the world, even among those who never actually saw her perform. Fans serenaded her under hotel windows, made shrines to her in their tiny lodgings, and held vigils outside her Paris apartment while she lay dying.
It was later renamed Théâtre de la Ville. Like those male leaders, she possessed a solid sense of self and an open determination to have her own way.From a young age, Bernhardt sought artistic independence.
She became known for acting with her entire body, which she twisted, torqued, and spiraled in all directions.Bernhardt’s ability to manage her own physical instrument mesmerized spectators. She refused to straighten her unfashionably frizzy hair.
Julie was one of six children of a widely traveling Jewish spectacle merchant, "vision specialist" and petty criminal, Moritz Baruch Bernardt, and Sara Hirsch (later known as Janetta Hartog; c. 1797–1829). In the 1870s, she had herself captured on camera in her bedroom, sleeping in a coffin.
Bernhardt became a superstar by flaunting her agency — her intelligence, her ambition, her artistic vision, her independence — and by using that agency to cow journalists and wow the public. Playwright and theater critic George Bernard Shaw, who prided himself on being a contrarian, found her too showy.
She was the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute, the mistress of a prince and an actress from 1862.
She performed from the age of 17 until her death. Sarah Bernhardt. Coached by Dumas, she recited the fable of On August 31, 1862, after two years of acting studies at the conservatory, Bernhardt made her debut in Racine’s In 1864, after a brief affair with a Belgian prince, Bernhardt gave birth to her only child, Maurice. A serie of snapshots from the life of the famous stage actress Sarah Bernhardt(1844-1923). Bernhardt was born in Paris as Rosine Bernardt, the daughter of Julie Bernardt (1821, Amsterdam – 1876, Paris) and an unknown father. After a lucrative tour of the United States and Canada, she returned to France in 1881 wealthy enough to become her own boss.
Sarah Bernhardt [born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; October 22, 1844—March 21, 1923] was a French stage and early film actress whose career spanned over 60 years.
Reviewers described her as convulsing audiences, administering jolts, chills, even electric shocks.