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
Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.
... actors of the first water are not more plentiful than playwrights of genius.
New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody's castle-roof perforated.
A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.
Slow down? Rest? With all eternity before me?
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...
I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.
The theatre is the involuntary reflex of the ideas of the crowd.
I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts. As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.
One should hate very little, because it's extremely fatiguing. One should despise much, forgive often and never forget. Pardon does not bring with it forgetfulness; at least not for me.
For the theatre one needs long arms... an artiste with short arms can never make a fine gesture.
I refuse the title of artist to those who owe their reputations to a physical deformity. I regard them as buffoons.
Legend remains victorious in spite of history.
To be a good actor... it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished.