Family Theater: Sara Bernhardt

Family Theatre presents Donamiechee and Jeanette Nolan. Hollywood, the mutual network in cooperation with Family Theatre brings you Jeanette Nolan and John McIntyre in Sarah Bernhardt. To introduce the drama, your host and narrator, Donamiechee.

Thank you, Jean Baker. We all wear many masks in our lives, for one reason or another. So the life of Sarah Bernhardt, one of the greatest actresses of all time, should be very close to our hearts.

What is acting but a masquerade? And what is life but a deeper masquerade where the hearts and souls of men are etched on their faces? This is the Paris of 1844. The day, October 22nd, the event, a child is born.

A frail little girl child of Dutch and Jewish parentage. A delicate head, misted with a web red gold hair. The skin so quite so transparent, the blue veins looked as though they'd been traced by an delleville ink.

A pretty baby? No. A plain, everyday type of baby. But many things were in store for this child. Titles, gleaming swords, smiles, and prayers. This child was to become the woman whose intelligence, genius, and sest for living not Not only blinded those about her to her plain face, but of that very plainness made a thing

of beauty. Sarah Bernhard, the Divine Sarah, who now speaks for herself. Yes, but I was the ugly little one. And not only was I ugly, but I was lonely. You see, my papa passed away when I was still a baby.

And my mother? She was a famous beauty, traveled a great deal everywhere. So most of my childhood was spent in a convent at Versailles. And at the great age of fifteen, it was only natural that I decided to become a nun.