Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt (born Henriette-Rosine Bernard, 1844 to 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including La Dame aux Camelias, Ruy Blas, La Tosca and L'Aiglon, playing both female and male roles including Shakespeare's Hamlet. She toured theatrically worldwide and was one of the earliest prominent actresses to make sound recordings and appear in motion pictures, and was also an accomplished painter and sculptor in her own right. At the height of her fame she commissioned the then-unknown artist Alphonse Mucha to create a lithographic poster for her play Gismonda, launching his career and the wider vogue for Art Nouveau theatrical posters.