Sarah Bernhardt, French Actress
Bernhardt as Hamlet, holding and looking at skull. Sarah Bernhardt (October 23, 1844 - March 26, 1923) was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as the most famous actress the world has ever known. Her stage career started in 1862 while she was a student at the ComÌ©die-Francaise, France's most prestigious theater. She left France, and ended up in Belgium, where she became the mistress of Henri, Prince de Ligne. During this time she acquired her famous coffin, in which she often slept in lieu of a bed. She secured a contract at the ThÌ©atre de L'OdÌ©on where she began performing in 1866. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war performances were stopped and Sarah converted the theatre into a makeshift hospital where she took care of the soldiers wounded on the battlefield. She made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s and was soon in demand all over Europe and in New York. She was one of the pioneer silent movie actresses, starring in eight motion pictures and two biographical films. In 1905, while performing in Victorien Sardou's La Tosca in Teatro LÌ_rico do Rio de Janeiro, Bernhardt injured her right knee when jumping off the parapet in the final scene. The leg never healed properly. By 1915, gangrene had set in and her entire right leg was amputated. She continued her career often without using a wooden prosthetic limb; she had tried to use one but didn't like it. Bernhardt died from uremia following kidney failure in 1923; she is believed to have been 78 years old.
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