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Show KOT TflLi BY IfS; SHE'S , ; MSTSKTY YEHKOf.HGE Bernhardt will play "Camllle"at the Saltalr pavilion on - May 21. In "Camille," by the young Dumas. Mme. Bernhardt haa for many years been known and by many critics of America7 and Europe she is considered . best in that character.' ''' Mme. Bernhardt came to America for this, her farewell tour, under the man- ! agemeht of the "Independents," which has necessitated her use of a circus tent in her tour of the country. The tent is a monster and as an example of the interest she has awakened It is said that in Dallas, Tex., there waa not seating capacity under the enormous canvas, for the crowd. The receipts at Dallas amounted to more than In any week's engagement of any other player ever In the Texaa city. Throughout her tour she has been greeted with the greatest crowds, her trip being one continual con-tinual ovation. Since the use of the P. .,.on at Sa,ta,r na been secured. It will not be necessary to resort to the tent. Senery, however, is carried by the company which will be utilized and seats will be arranged for 6000. M. Jules Huret has prepared an absorbing ab-sorbing narrative of Sarah Bernhardt lire. A mere chronology of her sixty years would be that. But her biographer biog-rapher has done more. He has gathered invaluable data and cleverly thrown in- to the foreground such facts as Illumine Illu-mine the Important aspects of Mme. Bernhardt's temperament and art. Even when she Is well beyond her sixtieth-year line. Bernhardt has not the heart to mention the fact. With quaint precision she names her birthplace birth-place by. street and number. "I was born in Paris at No. 265 Rue St. Honore." Anno Domini, 1844, is not added, however. "My mother was a i Dutch Jewess. She was fair, short and round, with a long body and short legs, but she had a pretty face and beautiful blue eyes. She spoke French badly and with a strong foreign accent, ' She had fourteen children, among them being two pairs of twins. I was the eleventh child." Her father insisted that she should be baptized, so, at 12 she became a I Christian and was sent to the Augustin convent at Grandchamp, Versailles, for her education. "I became very pious," she says. She thought her mother had little love for her; that her sisters were preferred. She was seldom taken out and sometimes left at the convent during dur-ing the holidays. That made her very sad. But there was fun and spirit in the girl and her somber moods soon 1 wore off sooner, possibly, than the nuns would have desired. One day when she had heard that all the schools In France except hers had been given bon bona in honor of the baD- tism of the Prince Imperial she organized organ-ized a rebellion, opened the convent gates by strategy, escaped at the head of her companions and returned not until the police had gathered lri the whole school. When her school days were over the question was what should be done with the Impish child who was "religious In spite of a wayward and passionate temperament." She was strongly Inclined In-clined to become a nun, but a glimpse of the world soon changed her ideas. A glover, a tanner, a chemist at whose shop she had bought perfumes asked her in marriage. She refused them all. The Due de Morny, that nineteenth century Machiavelll. who had engineered engi-neered the coup d'etat for Louis Napoleon, Napo-leon, and who was a friend of her mother, suggested the stage, but her mother thought her not pretty enough and too thin. 8 Nevertheless, she went to the examiners exam-iners of the conservatoire with a letter th. Duke an1 was admitted. Weird and contradictory creatureJy She loathed the prospect. It made her cry. The stage had no attraction for her She felt more disposed to study painting paint-ing than anything else. She has studied it all her life. One of the Instructors at the conservatoire conser-vatoire said she would be a comedienne: come-dienne: another that she would be a tragedienne. Provost said. "She will class '" S 8he Jolned Provost's The teachers made her recite with little lit-tle rubber balls In her mouth to cur .her of the habit of speaking between clenched teeth. When she is nervous the trick comes back upon her to this |
