180 years ago, an actress was born in Paris who was admired by the entire world. One of the most significant theatrical figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the charismatic and incredibly talented Sarah Bernhardt, had a much different path to fame than today's entertainment stars. She achieved success in an era when acting was recognized as an art form, but film was in its infancy, television didn't exist, and a world tour took weeks or months, not just a few hours.

She was born on October 22, 1844, in Paris as Henriette Rosine, the illegitimate daughter of a young Dutch Jewish woman, Judith Julie Bernardt, who worked as a courtesan. Her father was a lawyer from Le Havre, Édouard Viel, who was imprisoned in 1855 for financial embezzlement and died shortly thereafter. At the request of his family, Sarah was baptized and raised by a foster mother. From the age of 10, she attended a convent school in Versailles. In 1858, at the urging of his friend Alexandre Dumas, the Duke de Morny, Napoleon III's stepfather and her mother's lover, arranged for her to receive acting training at the Comédie Française theater.

After four years of study, she made her debut in the title role of Racine's play "Iphigénie" and began using the name Sarah. However, her career at the theater soon ended when she slapped a colleague and was dismissed. She then only played minor roles on smaller stages. In 1864, she gave birth to a son, Maurice, whose father was the Belgian Prince Henri de Ligne. He wanted to marry her, but his family prevented it.

In 1867, Sarah made a breakthrough at the Odéon theater with the role of the queen in Victor Hugo's play "Ruy Blas." She captivated both the audience and the critics. Three years later, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the theaters were closed, and Sarah organized the transformation of the Odéon into a hospital for wounded soldiers, collected supplies, and assisted doctors as a nurse.

After the war, she returned to the Comédie Française. This marked the beginning of her rise, and she soon became recognized as one of the most important actresses of her time. In France, she was praised by critics as the "golden voice" or the "divine Sarah." She was attractive, slender, petite, and elegant, and she set fashion trends in both clothing and hairstyles. Today's tabloids would have been thrilled by her eccentric habits – she slept in a coffin, kept a menagerie of exotic animals at home, openly had many lovers who had to be wealthy or famous to win her over, and she was not afraid of scandals. Theater was everything to her; she was able to portray both charming and temperamental women, as well as even male roles. The role of Camille in Dumas's "La Dame aux Camélias" became her signature role, which she performed from 1880 until old age.

In 1882, she married Jacques Damal, who worked as an attaché at the Greek embassy in Paris and was also an actor. Together, they opened their own theater, with her son Maurice serving as the director. The theater soon faced financial difficulties and went bankrupt, due to Damal's addiction to morphine and gambling, which he funded with the theater's profits. He died in 1889, but they had been living separately for some time before that.

Sarah's theatrical career suffered a major financial setback, which she offset with income from international tours she undertook with her own acting company. She embarked on several such tours during her lifetime. The first was in London in 1879, followed a year later by a tour of the United States, where she visited 51 cities in six months. This was followed by a major European tour, which included Russia, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Between 1886 and 1889, she performed several times in the United States, and from 1891 to 1893, she undertook a world tour that included a stop in Prague, although she refused to perform in Germany. In December 1894, fate brought her together with the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, who was working at the Lemercier printing workshop in Paris at the time she was commissioning a poster for her new play, "Gismonda." Mucha depicted her as a majestic Byzantine princess holding a palm leaf and a golden halo; the poster, over two meters long and three-quarters of a meter wide, became a sensation in Paris, with a print run of approximately 4,000 copies. Mucha continued to work for Sarah for another six years, creating a portrait of her as "Lady with Camellias" in 1896. This work is considered one of the masterpieces of Art Nouveau graphic design, similar to Mucha's other posters for plays such as "Lorenzaccio" or "Medea." He also designed jewelry for her, which was created by the renowned Parisian jeweler Georges Fouquet. In 1906, Sarah was appointed a professor at the Paris Conservatory, and in 1914, she received a gift for her 70th birthday: the Legion of Honor. However, due to inflammation in her previously injured knee, doctors were forced to amputate her right leg. Even after this, she continued to perform, refusing to use a prosthetic. During World War I, she performed for French soldiers in tents, barns, and field hospitals on makeshift stages. In addition to her acting career, she was also a writer, publishing her memoirs, "My Double Life," in 1907. She also translated several plays and pursued painting and sculpture. She made her first film appearance in 1900 in a two-minute silent film about Hamlet, which premiered at the World's Fair in Paris. Although this experience gave her a negative view of filmmaking, she later appeared in the films "Tosca" in 1909 and "The Loves of Queen Elizabeth" three years later. She died on March 26, 1923, from kidney failure, and nearly the entire city of Paris accompanied her on her final journey to Père Lachaise Cemetery. **Facebook / Gnews.cz – Jana Černá**[Image of Sarah Bernhardt as Gismonda] [Image of Sarah Bernhardt's coffin, 1873]