The most famous tragedienne of her age, Sarah Bernhardt handed her posters to Alfons Mucha: pasted up across Paris on 1 January 1895, they gave her a worldwide image and made her the first performer turned into merchandise. After the amputation of a leg in 1915, she went on acting seated or carried. She lies in the rosewood coffin in which she learned her lines, under a slab that bears nothing but her name and her dates.
The story
Out of the Conservatoire, she made her debut at the Comédie-Française in 1862, in Iphigénie. Two years later Maurice was born, her only child: she put his paternity down to the Prince de Ligne, but would also answer, depending on the day, Gambetta or Victor Hugo. She married once, in London in 1882, the Greek actor Aristides Damala, a morphine addict, and remained his lawful wife until his death in 1889.
On 26 December 1894 she ordered a poster from an unknown Czech illustrator, Alfons Mucha: she wanted it for 1 January. On New Year's morning her Gismonda poster covered the walls of Paris. The partnership ran six years and gave her career a second wind: her worldwide image came from those posters more than from the roles. She was the first performer to see her likeness turned into merchandise.
In 1900 she filmed Le Duel d'Hamlet: one of the few nineteenth-century glories to step over the threshold into silent cinema. A knee injured on stage in Rio, in 1905, never healed: her right leg was amputated in 1915, when she was seventy. She went on acting, seated or carried on.
Her legend was also a staging of her own death. Early on she bought a padded rosewood coffin, installed it at home, lay in it to learn her lines and had herself photographed there. It is in that coffin that she was buried.
She died on 26 March 1923, at seventy-eight, a chevalier of the Legion of Honour since 1914 and an officer since 1921. An immense crowd followed her cortège to Père-Lachaise, where she lies in Division 44 with her son Maurice.
The grave
The slab is of an unexpected sobriety for the first global celebrity: in Division 44, along the path that separates it from Division 91, it bears nothing but “Sarah BERNHARDT 1844 – 1923” — no title, no role, no ornament, no signed statue. Beneath the stone lies the padded rosewood coffin she had bought decades earlier, in which she would lie to learn her lines and have herself photographed. Her son Maurice, a playwright who died in 1928, joined her there.
On site, do not miss
Count the words engraved: there are two, and two dates. Then look at the neighbouring graves, laden with titles and medallions — it is by contrast that this one stands out.
Visitors' questions
Where is Sarah Bernhardt's grave?
In Division 44, along the path that separates it from Division 91, in the central part of the cemetery — Allan Kardec's division. Look for a bare slab among laden graves.
Yvette ChauviréWhat does her gravestone bear?
“Sarah BERNHARDT 1844 – 1923”, and nothing else: no title, no role, no epitaph — a plainness that sits oddly against her legend.
Patrice ChéreauWhy did Sarah Bernhardt sleep in a coffin?
Sarah Bernhardt had bought a rosewood coffin lined with white satin while still very young, and had kept it at home. She would lie in it to learn her lines and have herself photographed there — images that travelled through the press. It is in that coffin that she lies.
Pierre DesprogesWhen did Sarah Bernhardt die?
On 26 March 1923, at seventy-eight. An immense crowd followed her funeral procession to Père-Lachaise, where she rests in Division 44 beneath a slab that bears nothing but her name and her dates.
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