SARAH BERNHARDT AT THE PLAYERS IN 1911

                                                      A loving memory from George Middleton

                  George Middleton was a Player for 40 years. In his autobiography, he describes in detail Sarah Bernhardtʼs visit to the Players in 1911.  

         “My one meeting was at the Players: a reception, one of the very few our club ever gave a woman. She plucked the carnations from a vase on a tea table by which she stood. She gave me mine. I can see the smile yet. Iʼll wager I am the only one who still has the flower. I have always been sentimental about the great ladies of the stage. Sentiment is all I could ever give them in return for what they have given me. Ada Rehan moves into my thoughts often, and even now, as I write. . . . But place a Sarah, for her little scene.

          " It is hardly anything---a flower, and a woman in a crowd; but I have kept the impression.  She was more than an individual, of course--such personalities suggest so much beyond their mere being; she was a world of emanations, the countless memories others like myself have kept alive which she gave birth to!  She was a tradition that those of us still living helped to make. She was to be the last of a royal line, and in her turn, had made the theatre of her time great. Also, she was unquestionably the most famous woman then alive. Yet, only a few years later, I was to stand at her grave...... 

           She came to the Club June 20, 1911, with a couple of secretaries and Lou Tellegen, her last romance. She was still able to walk in spite of her bad leg. She stood by the stairs to greet us with the spontaneous grace which had, no doubt, become a mechanical habit.  She wore a toque, on the side of which a bunch of grapes seemed mysteriously to dangle. Her hair edged about this---it was not gray, of course. The gown was of yellow lace, with golden buckles around her waist. The collar reached chin-high so that her neck was hidden; the sleeves ended in long points which left only the fingers visible. It was all designed to mask her age; for even then she was past sixty. " Her face was a marvel of make-up; the eyes shadowed, the cheeks without a wrinkle! The only time her age showed was when she smiled; for nothing could conceal the way the skin sank back around the mouth. She carried her habitual long scarf, wound around her back and over both arms. "

                     Francis Wilson, Vice President, greeted her in French. He didnʼt know French; but, to our astonishment, he had acquired this perfect sample. That was Frank. " She responded, full of emotion. How happy she was to be there! Her arms lifted up ecstatically and held high and pausing, for a moment, as I had so often seen her on the stage--while the long scarf hung from them, lining her in its frame. Her face at times was innocent, almost virginal; yet, in profile, it was a sphinx cynically guarding every secret of life she herself had devoured. It was a double woman I saw. As she talked, the scarf wound constantly with the serpent life she gave it.  We went out where tea was served. She stood by the table and poured. She hesitated to put sugar in one cup, as there were no prongs. A member gallantly begged her to use her fingers. She smiled and did. It was then she reached for the red carnations and gave them to us--to me; just so that I could write this now perhaps.

             A telegram from John Drew, our President, who was on the road, was passed to her. I was standing behind her when she eyed it, clasped it to her heart, overcome with sentiment. But I noticed that she held the wire upside down. With the resource of one who had forgotten a cue she handed it over and mentioned that it be read out loud. Some one translated it. She got it that way. How moved she was!

           A tactless, well intentioned member brought forward a photograph she had given the club many years before. The sun had faded it even more than time had touched her own youth. She looked at it and murmured softly in French, so that only those of us near could hear: “I will give you another, but not so pretty.”

      She kept her word. There hangs now in the clubhouse a striking photograph of her as Pierrot. Under it she wrote:

                      “Cʼetait pour les aveugles, fermez les yeux et admirez.”

POSTSCRIPT

This photo by Nadar may not be the one hanging in the clubhouse, but I found it on the Internet and thought it was appropriate.

George Middleton. These Things Are Mine The Autobiography of a Journeyman Playwright 

The Macmillan Company. New York. 1947

BOOK Cover portrait by Gordon Stevenson 

Book owned by Mari Lyn Henry