The Original Queen of Drama
Sarah Bernhardt was defined and deified by the men who loved her. Her latest amorist, Robert Gottlieb, never saw the actress onstage, never heard her hypnotic intonations, never even met her. How could he? Bernhardt died in 1923, eight years before Gottlieb was born. No matter—the former editor at Knopf, Simon & Schuster and The New Yorker is smitten, and he offers a sheaf of reasons.
This admirable biography begins with a warning: Bernhardt was notorious for inventing the details of her personal life. Indeed, Alexandre Dumas fils, alluding to Sarah’s thin figure, observed, “She’s such a liar she may even be fat!” Yet Gottlieb perseveres, ranging through yellowed papers and forgotten cor-respondence. He is not the first to do so, of course. Bernhardt has been the subject of many books, including a 1967 pop biography by Cornelia Otis Skinner (Madame Sarah); a more scrupulous 1991 examination (The Divine Sarah) by the gay pianists Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, whose French connections allowed them to examine Sarah’s private correspondence; and a 1988 novel by Françoise Sagan (Dear Sarah Bernhardt). These writers had an interest in Sarah that amounted to an obsession, but they rarely got the reader to share their enthusiasm. By maintaining a brisk, hypnotic narrative pace, yet omitting no relevant detail, Gottlieb has performed a literary miracle—he has given the Grande Dame a new life in an era with little interest in performers who existed before the advent of the iPhone and Blu-ray.
Stefan Kanfer is the author of more than a dozen books. His book, Tough Without a Gun, about Humphrey Bogart and the male image in American cinema, will be published next year.
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