Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage actress who appeared in some of the most successful French plays of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Alexandre Dumas fils' La Dame aux Camélias, Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas, Victorien Sardou's Fédora and La Tosca, and Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon. She also acted male roles, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand described her as "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture," while Hugo commended her "golden voice." She went on multiple theatrical tours across the world and was one of the first well-known actresses to record and act in films. She is also tied to the success of artist Alphonse Mucha, whose work she helped promote. She was the daughter of Judith Bernard (also known as Julie and in France as Youle), a Dutch Jewish courtesan with an affluent or upper-class clientele. Her father's name was not recorded for a long time, but he was eventually identified as an attorney in Le Havre. Bernhardt subsequently stated that her father's family paid for her schooling, insisted on her baptism as a Catholic, and provided a considerable sum to be paid when she reached adulthood. Her mother travelled much, and saw little of her daughter.
