SARAH BERNHARDT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 28 March 1923, Page 5

SARAH BERNHARDT

HER LAST MOMENTS

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association)

PARIS, March 26,

“How slow is my death agony!” These words were muttered by Sarah Bernhardt with cheerfulness born of tremendous vitality, ns she lay sinking to-day. Later, in spasdomic delirium, those around her bedside heard her enact again some of her most famous roles. In lucid intervals she gave directions for her funeral, insisting on the use of a rosewood coffin which had been in the house for thirty years, also minute instructions for the number and variety of the flowers to he placed thereon. Enormous crowds, including famous actors and actresses and dramatists stood all day long in tho vicinity of her home.

Great crowds waited outside the window of Sarah Bernhardt’s room. When they saw it gently closed they knew tho great idol had passed away. Men bared their lieads, women dropped on their knees, and sobbing was heard everywhere.

The doctors announced to the throng that Sarah Bernhardt passed away quietly in the arms of her son, while the remainder of the, family stood at the bedside. She had been in agony all day long. Although her death was expected the news created a deep sensation. All the most distinguished personages arrived and signed the visitors’ hook. BODY LYING IN STATE PARIS, March 2Y. Sarah Bernhardt is lying in state. A long procession viewed the body, inc'uding many notables, actors, and playwrights. Many pages of the visitors’ book were .filled with signatures. Flowers in profusion have been received, mostly roses, her favourite flower.

In. accordance with her wish the body was clothed in white satin, her bed with white laco strewn with lilies and roses, and on her breast is the Cross of the Legion of Honour. It s stated that Sarah Bernhardt carried the rosewood coffin on her world’s tours, following a dream in which she saw herself buried without a coffin at sea.

A national funeral is possible, though she wisiied it to be quiet and simple. There will be no valedictory orations at the graveside. Before death she reexpressed a wish to be buried at Rocky Island, Brittany coast, where she had her residence and designed a tomb and monument.

(Sarah Bernhardt was born in Paris on October 23rd, 1844, and had been on the stage for nearly 60 years. In February, 1872, the actress arrived at one on the turning points of her life, when she made a great success of Victor Hugo’s “Ruy Bias,” in which she played tne Queen. Immediately after this success the critics urged M. Perrin, the manager of the Theatre Francaise, to engage the rising star. Sarah, however, was bound to the Odeon, hut by the payment of an indemnity of £2OO she was enabled to return to the ComedieFrancaise. She made her reappearance there in “Mademoiselle de Belle Isle”. Then came the engagement by Mr Mayer of the Comedie-Francaise troupe for a series of performances to be given at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in June, 1879. “On the first evening,” says a biographer dealing with her career, “she insisted* on playing the second act of ‘Phedre’ as an interlude. Just as her turn was coming, she was seized by cue of those ‘blue funks’ by which actors arc sometimes liable to be paralysed. She fell down in a state of collapse; her hands and feet became icy cold, and she had to be rubbed vigorously for tea minutes to put a little life- into her. She was half carried on to the stage. As was only to he expected, attacked her words badly, went on worse, . and failed completely. The audience, however, noticed nothing, and applauded her frantically. She was ‘called,’, and was enthusiastically cheered as she stood leaning on the arm of J\f. Mounet-Sully, without whose support she must have fallen, half dead as she was. In 1882 Sarah Bernhard) married M. Jacques Damala, an actor by choice, tut formerly an attache in the Greek diplomatic service, but separated from him, the following year. He died some years ago. In 1880 she made »-*»'; mst of several highly successful tours of America, and in 1891 she visited Australia, playing short seasons in .Melbourne and Sydney. While appearing in “Joanne d’Arc” in Paris in 1915 she had a fall which so badly injured her right leg that it had to be amputated.