VANITY FAIR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 243, 14 October 1931, Page 2

VANITY FAIR

A COLD WREATH FOR SARAH BERNHARDT It was during her next to the last “farewell tour” in America, and the American actors had decided to present the great French tragedienne with a gold wreath of laurel. 1 was chosen to make the presentation, although I'm sure they could have found someone much more prominent and more worthy of the honour. However, they would not take a refusal from me, so I prepared a little presentation speech in French. Madame Bernhardt was playing in vaudeville then, at the Palace, so after the matinee, the ceremony took place. The "Divine” Sarah was seated on the stage, dressed in flowing, classic robes, and close to a little table on which one of her expiessive hands rested. She looked fascinating and quite young. I confess I experienced stage-fright when I got up to make my little speech, and my hands trembled violently as 1 proffered her the golden wreath on a velvet cushion. And then Sarah Bernhardt, gripping the table beside her, rose with a fine show of spirit and grace . . . and she kissed me on both cheeks and thanked me over and over, her golden voice poignant with emotional tears. After that, I stepped back and she thanked the cheering audience, made up almost entirely of the profession. The amusing part of all this, as far as I'm concerned, happened afterward, when Mr. Acton Davies informed Madame Bernhardt that I was the original Buttercup, in America. Sarah Bernhardt could not make this out. She looked at me in a most bewildered manner and shook her head, and then went off into a volley of amazed, excited questions, flinging them at Acton Davies. Then I understood what it was that puzzled her. She thought that Acton Davies had said that I Was the original Butterfly in Puccini s opera. It took some time before We could make her understand, giving her a literal translation of butter and cup. I didn't blame her for being am azed, for I was about seventy then, and Puccini's opera had been first produced in America only abou t ten years before that time.—Mrs. Thomas Whiffen, in "Keeping Off the Shelf.”