Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardtwas a French stage and early film actress. She was referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known", and is regarded as one of the finest actors of all time. Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, at the beginning of the Belle Epoque period, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a sublime dramatic actress and tragedienne, earning the nickname "The...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionStage Actress
Date of Birth22 October 1844
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
The monster of advertisement...is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out to right and left, in front and behind, its clammy arms, and gathers in, through its thousand little suckers, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat...
You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body, the sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.
Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist.
I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.
Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.
Each action of the actor on the stage should be the visible concomitant of his thoughts.
Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.'
I do love cricket - it's so very English.
The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.
Alas, we are the victims of advertisement. Those who taste the joys and sorrows of fame when they have passed forty, know how to look after themselves. They know what is concealed beneath the flowers, and what the gossip, the calumnies, and the praise are worth. But as for those who win fame when they are twenty, they know nothing, and are caught up in the whirlpool.
... actors of the first water are not more plentiful than playwrights of genius.
The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.
Slow down? Rest? With all eternity before me?
Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.