Film Stardom
Bernhardt was one of the first female actresses to become a motion picture film star. She first appeared in front of the camera in 1900 when she was approached by the famous Lumiere brothers' cameraman Clement Maurice to shoot a short adaptation of a scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. She later made two more films in 1908, La Tosca (now lost film) and her famous role in La Dame aux Camelias.
In 1912, Adolf Zukor, one of the founders of Paramount Pictures, bought the distribution rights to show Queen Elizabeth, a French film starring Bernhardt, in the United States (Hoover). A hefty investment in this film by Zukor led to it finding great success with American audiences, and helped Bernhardt gain an international reputation as a film star. As film began to take off as a popular form of entertainment, studios began to utilize former theater and Vaudeville stars as big names to draw their pre-existing audiences in. Douglass and McDonnell describe this phenomena, as they state that “studios started publicizing the names of actors in their movies, and started recruiting famous theatrical performances, like the renowned actor Sarah Bernhardt, to appear in them” (94). Bernhardt's involvement in this film also helped her break into the film industry in the United States.
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Throughout the course of her life, Sarah Bernhardt starred in 100+ plays and 10+ films. Bernhardt was also featured in one of the first documentaries, taking viewers into her home and through her day. Similarly, she wrote an autobiography, titled Ma Double Vie, which translates to “my double life” from French. Through this autobiography, Bernhardt writes about the progression of her life and experiences traveling the world as an actress. By the time film began to fully take off in popular culture, Bernhardt was well into her 70s but was still a prolific actress. Closer to the end of her life, producers and directors would bring the studio to her house so the aging Bernhardt did not have to travel to film (Skinner, 332).
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“Jeanne Doré” with Sarah Bernhardt
These two pages from The Moving Picture Weekly feature advertisements for films that exhibitioners could book. When film was first entering the public conscience, film distribution was tricky because the equipment needed to show a film was expensive. Exhibitioners purchase copies of film and the equipment and then travel around, showing their catalog to audiences. By the 1910s, when these magazines were published, Nickelodeons became the most popular mode of film exhibition. Sarah Bernhardt’s name and star power was used as a major selling point to entice exhibitioners to purchase films, as she was considered to be one of the most famous actresses of the time due to her history in theater.
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Bernhardt and Rejane in Pictures
“It may well be doubted whether money alone would have induced Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest of living actresses, to play "Camille" before a moving picture camera. To such a passionate lover of her art, it must have seemed glorious to defy the limitations of space and time and have the whole world as her audience. The cinematograph is indeed a monument, "acre perennius" — more enduring than brass and it is far more ornamental and useful as well. The immortality conferred by the motion picture is well worth having.”
This article from the January-March 1912 edition from Moving Picture World provides a firsthand account of Bernhardt’s star power, as W. Stephen Bush says: “It is not the smallest tribute to the genius of Sarah Bernhardt to say her art loses nothing in its transmission to the little strips of celluloid. The gifts of other noted artists do not shine as well in the motion pictures as they do on the speaking stage, just as some singers please us in opera, but are heard to poor advantage in the graphophone. The splendor Sarah Bernhardt art remains undimmed in the photoplay” (p. 760).
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Business-Getting Suggestions
“Be careful about your choice of the remainder of the program when you show ‘The Son of Democracy.’ Don’t fill up with cheap stuff. When Sarah Bernhardt plays in a vaudeville theater, the remainder of the bill is always made up of the highest class of acts that can be booked. It’s good business. Sarah Bernhardt brings into the theatre hundreds of person who never before have patronized vaudeville houses. They see Sarah Bernhardt. And they also see other first-class acts.”
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This February-March 1918 edition of the Paramount Artcraft Press Books gave suggestions for exhibitors looking to put on various films. It included early versions of a press release, with suggestions for how to advertise films, cuts to use, and photos to use while promoting the films. This specific image shows “Business-Getting Suggestions” for exhibitors looking to put on The Son of Democracy, which was a series of 10 photodramas produced by Benjamin Chapin. They advise to be strategic about the other films put on a playbill when a Sarah Bernhardt film is being shown, as she will draw in large crowds who will then be seated for the other films being shown at the theater that day. Oftentimes, early audiences of films would make a whole day out of their visit to the movie theater. Theaters would engage in block-booking, where they rented out a “block” of films varying in quality and production level in order to get access to the prestige films (such as The Son of Democracy, which Bernhardt starred in).
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Film star advertisements
Seen above is a selection of magazine advertisements highlighting films starring Bernhardt. Many advertisements like these utilized prominent film stars as focal selling points which not only drove up ticket sales to watch the movies that starred in but also increased purchasing of film fan magazines and promotional materials.
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