Francesca Annis

Her films have included Dune (1984). The actress La Berma, a fictional character in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time was inspired by Bernhardt. She continued to be a leading television actress throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, appearing in series such as Edward the Seventh (as Lillie Langtry, a role she reprised in Lillie (1978)), Madame Bovary and Parnell and the Englishwoman, in which she played Kitty O'Shea. Sarah Bernhardt has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street. Her performance as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's controversial 1971 film of Macbeth gained her notoriety. She is buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France. While becoming an increasingly well known face on screen, she enjoyed a successful stage career, playing many leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She died in the arms of her son Maurice.

She also presented children's television programmes. Nonetheless, she continued her career, in spite of the need to use a wooden prosthetic limb. In 1967 she played Estella in a television adaptation of Great Expectations. In 1915, ten years after a serious injury, her right leg was amputated, confining her to a wheelchair for several months. Francesca Annis began acting professionally in her teens, and made her film debut in the 1950s. Sarah Bernhardt was made a member of France's Legion of Honor in 1914. Francesca Annis (born May 14, 1944) is an English actress, particularly well known for her film and television appearances, most recently the BBC Television series Wives and Daughters and Deceit. The latter included Sarah Bernhardt à Belle-Isle (1912), a film about her daily life at home.

Bernhardt was also one of the pioneer silent movie actresses, debuting as Hamlet in Le Duel d'Hamlet in 1900. (Technically, this was not a silent film, as it had accompanying cylinders with dubbed dialogue.) She went on to star in eight motion pictures and two biographical films in all. She married Greek-born actor Aristides Damala (aka Jacques Damala) in London in 1882, but the marriage, which legally endured until Damala's death in 1889 at age 34, was quickly collapsed, largely due to the young actor's dependence on morphine. Later lovers included several artists (Gustave Doré and Georges Clarin) and actors (Mounet-Sully and Lou Tellegen). She had an affair with a Belgian nobleman, Charles-Joseph-Eugene-Henri, Prince de Ligne, with whom she had her only child, the writer Maurice Bernhardt, in 1864 (he married a Polish princess, Maria Jablonowska, 1863-1914).

Her social life was as continuously active. She was also to publish a series of books and plays throughout her life. Multi-talented, she was involved with the visual arts as well as acting, painting and sculpting herself, as well as modelling for Antonio de La Gandara. Although primarily a stage actress, Bernhardt made several cylinders and discs of famous dialogue from various productions. One of the earliest was a reading from Phèdre by Jean Racine, at Thomas Edison's home on a visit to New York City in the 1880s.

She soon developed a reputation as a serious dramatic actress, earning the title, "The Divine Sarah"; arguably, she may have been the most famous actress of the 19th century. She made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and was soon in demand all over Europe and in the United States. Her stage career started in 1862, largely in comic theatre and burlesque. She was sponsored into the Conservatoire de Musique et Déclamation by the Duc de Morny in 1859 for theatrical training.

To support herself, she combined the career of an actress with that of a courtesan - at the time, the two were considered scandalous to a roughly equal degree. She was born in Paris as Henriette Rosine Bernard, the eldest surviving illegitimate daughter of Judith van Hard, a Dutch Jewish courtesan known as "Youle." Her father was reportedly Edouard Bernard, a French lawyer, and she was educated in French Catholic convents. Sarah Bernhardt (October 22, 1844 - March 26, 1923) was a French stage actress. Full text of My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/9100) from Project Gutenberg.

Comprehensive list of plays (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~temple/plays.htm). 1923: La Voyante (The Fortuneteller, never completed). 1916: Jeanne Doré (as Jeanne Doré). 1915: Ceux de Chez Nous (biographical, home movies).

1915: Mères Françaises (Mothers of France, as a Red Cross nurse). 1912: Sarah Bernhardt à Belle-Isle (Sarah Bernhardt at Home, as herself). 1912: Elisabeth Reine d'Angleterre (Queen Elizabeth; a major success). 1912: Adrienne Lecouvreur (An Actress's Romance; as Adrienne Lecouvreur).

1911: La Dame aux Camélias (Camille, as Camille). 1908: La Tosca (Tosca, as Tosca). 1900: Le Duel d'Hamlet (Hamlet, as Hamlet). 1913: Bernard's "Jeanne Doré" (as Jeanne Doré).

1911: Moreau's "Queen Elizabeth" (as Queen Elizabeth). 1906: Mendès' "La Vierge d'Avila" (as Saint Theresa). 1906: Ibsen's "The Lady From the Sea". 1904: Maeterlinck's "Pelléas et Mélisande" (as Pelléas).

1903: Sardou's "La Sorcière". 1900: Rostand's "L'Aiglon" as "L'Aiglon". Richepin's "Pierrot Assassin" (as Pierrot). Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (as Lady Macbeth) (in French).

Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (as Cleopatra). 1899: Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (as Hamlet)