Millions of playgoers who saw Sarah Bernhardt consider her the greatest actress of her era-perhaps the greatest in theatrical history. Her native France awarded her the Legion of Honor and she was acclaimed throughout the world. Beautiful, glamorous, reckless, her character was as dramatic as any she portrayed on stage.

Sarah's childhood in Paris was troubled and lonely, for her mother was indifferent to her. At sixteen, bored by a frivolous social life, she escaped marriage to an old man by entering dramatic school. Engaged by the famous Comedie Francaise, she began the gruelling work that slowly blossomed her talent to genius. Then came her heart-breaking love affair with handsome Prince Henri de Ligne. When she sent him away, telling him she loved the theatre more than she loved him, she was acting the most pathetic and courageous role of her career.

The spell of Sarah Bernhardt's beauty-her fire, her passion, her magnificent voice-enchanted the drama critics who spread her fame. When Victor Hugo saw her in one of his tragedies, he wept and sent her his "tear-drop"—a diamond on a golden chain. Her life was a path of jewels and flowers. She had become "The Divine Sarah," raised to immortality in a few brief years.

Unlike many actresses, Sarah was always and predominantly a woman. Contemptuous of prejudice, fearless of controversy, she followed her heart wherever it led. At the age of seventy-one, with an amputated leg, she went to the front and entertained soldiers of World War I. At seventy-five she made a triumphant comeback in Paris and had the whole city at her feet.

Iris Noble takes us behind the scenes of Sarah Bernhardt's life, revealing the struggles, the triumphs, the deep romantic involvements. In these thrilling pages the years roll back, the lights go up, the curtain rises, and once more a great actress stands center stage, dazzling, legendary, yet close to our hearts.

From the book