ACTRESS FRANCEIt is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm, the charm that holds the attention of the spectator, so that he listens rapt, and on leaving seeks to be alone, in order to recapture the charm he has felt.
—SARAH BERNHARDT
The curtains pulled back, and light flooded the stage. Sarah squinted out at the audience and could barely make out the faces of the experienced actresses and actors who had come to judge her performance. She was ready—she had practiced and practiced the scene for her entrance exam at the prestigious French theater company. The judges stopped her. “You need to choose a boy to act in the scene with you,” they said. Sarah was horrified. She had rehearsed the scene alone. She didn’t even know any of these boys. How could she concentrate on her lines with some boy messing up her scene? “I won’t,” she told them.
The judges were shocked at her stubbornness but offered to let her choose another piece instead. But she hadn’t practiced anything else. What scene would she do now? Then it struck her—she would tell them a story. She chose a fable she knew and began to recite it. Again, the judges were bewildered—it was a very odd choice—but after the first few lines, the panel was captured by her clear, melodious voice. Before she could even finish, she had been accepted. Thirteen-year-old Sarah had become a member of the Conservatoire of the Comédie-Française. It was the beginning of a long path that would lead her to become known as the Divine Sarah and the greatest actress of all time.
Sarah was always known as a rebellious and dramatic girl. She was even suspended three times from her convent school.
Sarah Bernhardt was born Rosine Bernard on October 22, 1844, in Paris. Sarah’s mother was a Jewish woman from Holland who was known for her beauty and her love of travel. Sarah never knew her father. While her mother traveled around Europe, Sarah was cared for by family and friends. At twelve, she entered a convent school and a few years later decided she wanted to become a nun and teach at the school.
Sarah’s family, however, wasn’t sure that she should make such an important decision when she was only fourteen years old. A family friend suggested that she study acting at the Conservatoire of the Comédie-Française, a prestigious French theater. After her unusual but brilliant entrance performance, Sarah was accepted into the acting school.
LE PASSANT was so highly acclaimed that Napoleon III himself asked for a command performance in his palace garden.
Sarah studied at the Conservatoire for a few years and then performed at the Comédie-Française. She made her first stage appearance when she was seventeen, but she received mixed reviews. After two more disappointing performances and a violent argument with a lead actress, Sarah left the company. She continued to act over the next few years and even tried her hand at singing, despite being tone-deaf.
Sarah didn’t give up. She signed with another theater company and trained intensively. Her acting received consistent good reviews, and she developed a loyal following of fans. Her big break came in 1869, when she played a page in a play called Le Passant, which ran for more than one hundred nights in Paris. Sarah was on her way to a long-lasting and triumphant career, during which she came to be called the Divine Sarah.
The tragedies of the next few years interrupted Sarah’s path to success, however. First a fire in her Paris apartment destroyed everything she owned. Then the Franco-Prussian War began, and Paris was under attack. During the siege, Sarah created a hospital in the theater where she performed.
Offstage, Sara was known to be quite eccentric. She had many exotic pets, including a lion and a monkey. She also had a special coffin made, which she slept in.
After the war ended in 1871, Sarah returned to the stage. She was praised for her role in Ruy Blas, which was written and directed by famous author Victor Hugo. Her energy and emotion were riveting, and she delivered her lines with entrancing poeticism. Her performance was so well-received that she was invited once again to act at the Comédie-Française. There, Sarah enjoyed success after success, firmly establishing her place as a leading actress.
Sarah loved to take on challenging roles. One controversial performance was in L’Aiglon. All of Paris’s most prominent citizens turned out to see fifty-six-year-old Sarah portray a young man. This groundbreaking actress was one of the very first to play male roles, an idea that shocked many people. Proving the skeptics wrong, Sarah delivered a superb performance as Napoleon’s illegitimate son and as other male characters. In other performances, Sarah played Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth, Hamlet, Saint Teresa of Avila, and many more roles.
After achieving great fame in France, Sarah became an international star, touring Europe as well as North and South America. She began producing plays and even bought her own theater, which she named the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah’s passion for theater was unconquerable. When she was seventy-one, her leg had to be amputated due to an injury, but she refused to give up acting. Instead, she reworked all her scenes so she could remain seated throughout the plays. Sarah continued acting until she was seventy-eight years old!
Sarah had many rocky love affairs. She once married an aspiring actor, only to separate from him a few months later.
After acting in hundreds of plays and earning international fame, Sarah died in Paris in 1923. The world mourned the loss of a legendary actress, who was arguably the greatest of all time. Sarah was one of the first true international celebrities in the theater. Her performances and her life were the very definition of stardom.
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world by writing screenplays. I would like to make people laugh when I write something funny and cry when I write something sad. Even if I just make one person feel better by watching my movies, I’ll know I did well.
MAUREEN GUALTIERI 
AGE 12