Mary Astor

Mary Astor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her services to Motion Pictures, at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard. The actress La Berma, a fictional character in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time was inspired by Bernhardt. She was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. Sarah Bernhardt has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street. She lived her final years in a Motion Picture Home, before dying as a result of a heart attack. She is buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France. She wrote several novels during this period, and in 1971 published a second memoir that chronicled her Hollywood career, and provided her with another best seller. She died in the arms of her son Maurice.

A heart condition had caused Astor ill health since the early 1950s, and by the mid 1960s her health had deteriorated to the point that she was forced to retire. Nonetheless, she continued her career, in spite of the need to use a wooden prosthetic limb. She received good reviews for her role in Return to Peyton Place (1961), and played her final film role in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), in the small but integral role of Jewel Mayhew. In 1915, ten years after a serious injury, her right leg was amputated, confining her to a wheelchair for several months. It was a best seller. Sarah Bernhardt was made a member of France's Legion of Honor in 1914. She published her memoirs in 1959 and the book titled My Story, detailed her troubled personal life and battle with alcoholism, while scarcely mentioning her film career. The latter included Sarah Bernhardt à Belle-Isle (1912), a film about her daily life at home.

By the 1950s her Hollywood career had faded considerably and she made few film appearances, but she found success in the theater and in television. 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. By the end of the decade she was playing motherly roles such as Mrs March in Little Women (1949). 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. These successes were not enough to propel Astor into the upper echelon of film stars, but she continued working throughout the 1940s in such films as The Palm Beach Story (1942), Across the Pacific (also 1942 and costarring Humphrey Bogart) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Later lovers included several artists (Gustave Doré and Georges Clarin) and actors (Mounet-Sully and Lou Tellegen). An Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress resulted, and for the rest of her life, Astor acknowledged Davis for her generosity. 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).

At Bette Davis's suggestion she was cast in The Great Lie (also 1941), with Davis deliberately stepping back to allow Astor to shine in her key scenes. Her social life was as continuously active. In 1941 she played the role for which she would be most famous, as Brigid O'Shaunessy in John Huston's The Maltese Falcon opposite Humphrey Bogart. She was also to publish a series of books and plays throughout her life. She appeared in Dodsworth (1936) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and the success of both films, and the public's acceptance of Astor, assured the studios that she was still a viable commercial property. 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. During divorce proceedings her estranged husband produced a diary Astor had kept, which detailed among other events, her affair with playwright George Kaufman. The sexually explicit diary was entered as evidence in court, and extracts were published in newspapers throughout the world. Determined to separate her private and professional lives, Astor refused to apologise and her career was renewed by the huge level of publicity. 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.

By 1936, her career had begun to lose momentum until she became the subject of a widely publicised scandal. 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 achieved success playing opposite John Barrymore in Beau Brummell (1924) and Don Juan (1926), and her stature as a film star continued to grow steadily with the advent of "talking pictures". 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. She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926. Her stage career started in 1862, largely in comic theatre and burlesque. Born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke in Quincy, Illinois, Astor was signed to a Hollywood contract at the age of 14 after winning a beauty contest. She was sponsored into the Conservatoire de Musique et Déclamation by the Duc de Morny in 1859 for theatrical training.

Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 - September 25, 1987) was a US film actress. 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)