Sarah Bernhardt was the first modern celebrity
The actress, who died 100 years ago, was a publicity guru
“There are five kinds of actresses,” Mark Twain once wrote. “Bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses—and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.” No one was, or ever had been, quite like her. The French performer was celebrated not only for her enchanting voice, but also as “the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture”. She played the greatest roles written by Dumas, Molière and Shakespeare and is thought to have inspired the character of La Berma in Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”. A new exhibition in Paris, “And the woman created the star”, marks the centenary of Bernhardt’s death in March 1923.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Prima donna”
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