The First A-List Actress Was An Icon In Her Day, But Few People Know Her Name Today

Have you ever heard of the actress Sarah Bernhardt? Maybe not — she isn’t exactly a household name these days. But once upon a time, she was “the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture,” according to the French poet Edmond Rostand. Victor Hugo, among France’s greatest writers, said she had a “golden voice.” And Mark Twain once stated that there are “bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses — and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.” She was, in short, an icon of her time. She may even have been the very first ‘celebrity.’ But why do so few of us know her story today? It might have something to do with the fact that her life was impossibly complicated — and often extremely controversial.

A meteoric rise to fame

Bernhardt’s rise to fame was meteoric. In a career spanning many decades, she played some of the strangest and most wonderful parts available. Her acting skills attracted the keen attention of some of the most influential people around, while she personally developed a reputation as something of an eccentric. In short, she was a true celebrity — perhaps the very first one.

Her “special allure”

In 2010 a biography of Bernhardt was published in which its writer, Robert Gottlieb, considered her life and legacy. He mentioned the “special allure” with which she enraptured audiences, a quality he attributed to her thin frame, striking face, and charming, delicate voice. He also noted her fearlessness in revealing her feelings, which at times could imbue her performances with a captivating sense of urgency.

Not everyone’s cup of tea

Not everyone was convinced by Bernhardt, of course. Some of her most distinguished critics included the famed Russian writer Anton Chekhov and the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. But their aversion to the woman did nothing, ultimately, to tarnish her general popularity. From the beginning of her career to the time of her death and beyond, Bernhardt was an idol — the likes of which the world had never seen before.

Difficult to pin down

But despite the intense level of fame that Bernhardt achieved, her story is a difficult one to pin down. It certainly doesn’t help that she was known to fabricate stories about herself. Historians and biographers such as Gottlieb have had to do their best to sift through the murky details of her life to try and tell her tale as best they can. And what’s certain from all that work is that Bernhardt lived quite the life.