Paris exhibit celebrates ‘first celebrity’ Sarah Bernhardt

By THOMAS ADAMSON
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The pioneering and scandalous French stage star Sarah Bernhardt was one of the world’s most famous women by the time of her death in 1923. She owed her fame not only to her acting talent but her instinct to use the press for branding decades before the word existed. Nonetheless it has taken 100 years to stage what is in France the first complete retrospective on the eccentric and multihyphenate star known as “La Divine” whom many consider the world’s first celebrity. The public is now discovering the eccentric jigsaw puzzle of her life iside the Petit Palais museum in Paris. The exhibition is called “Sarah Bernhardt: And the woman created the star” and it runs until Aug. 27.