Sarah Bernhardt was born Henriette-Rosine Bernhard at 5 rue de L'Ecole-de-Medicine in the Latin Quarter of Paris on the 22nd or 23rd of October 1844. She was the illegitimate daughter of Judith Bernhard, an elegant courtesan with wealthy clients. The name of her father isn't known, but he was probably from Le Havre, Normandy, in northwestern France. Sarah was to write that her rich father's family paid for her fine education and also to have her baptized as a Catholic, although her mother, Judith said she was of the Jewish faith, and left a large amount of money for Sarah when she became an adult. (Later in her life Sarah said she was an atheist.) Judith traveled a lot and saw little of her daughter, who was raised by a nurse named Brittany in a cottage in the Paris suburb of Neuilly sur-Seine.
Some of Sarah's early life...
When Bernhardt was seven, her mother sent her to a boarding school for young ladies in the Paris suburb of Auteuil, paid with funds from her father's family. There, she acted in her first theatrical performance in the play Clothilde, where she held the role of the Queen of the Fairies, and performed her first of many dramatic death scenes. While she was in the boarding school, her mother rose to the top ranks of Parisian courtesans, consorting with politicians, bankers, generals, and writers. Her patrons and friends included Charles de Morny, Duke of Morny, the half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III and President of the French legislature. At the age of 10, with the sponsorship of Morny, Bernhardt was admitted to Grandchamp, an exclusive Augustine convent school near Versailles. At the convent, she performed the part of the Archangel Raphael in the story of Tobias and the Angel. She declared her intention to become a nun, but did not always follow convent rules; she was accused of sacrilege when she arranged a Christian burial, with a procession and ceremony, for her pet lizard. She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856, and thereafter she was fervently religious. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked years later by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied: "No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a member of the great Jewish race. I'm waiting until Christians become better." That contrasted her answer, "No, never. I'm an atheist" to an earlier question by composer and compatriot Charles Gounod if she ever prayed. [14] Regardless, she accepted the last rites shortly before her death.
In 1859, Bernhardt learned that her father had died overseas. Her mother summoned a family council, including Morny, to decide what to do with her. Morny proposed that Bernhardt should become an actress, an idea that horrified Bernhardt, as she had never been inside a theater. Morny arranged for her to attend her first theater performance at the Comédie Française in a party which included her mother, Morny, and his friend Alexandre Dumas père. The play they attended was Britannicus, by Jean Racine, followed by the classical comedy Amphitryon by Plautus. Bernhardt was so moved by the emotion of the play, she began to sob loudly, disturbing the rest of the audience. Morny and others in their party were angry at her and left, but Dumas comforted her, and later told Morny that he believed that she was destined for the stage. After the performance, Dumas called her "my little star".
Morny used his influence with the composer Daniel Auber, the head of the Paris Conservatory, to arrange for Bernhardt to audition. She began preparing, as she described it in her memoirs, "with that vivid exaggeration with which I embrace any new enterprise." Dumas coached her. The jury was composed of Auber and five leading actors and actresses from the Comédie Française. She was supposed to recite verses from Racine, but no one had told her that she needed someone to give her cues as she recited. Bernhardt told the jury she would instead recite the fable of the Two Pigeons by La Fontaine. The jurors were skeptical, but the fervor and pathos of her recitation won them over, and she was invited to become a student.
No comments:
Post a Comment