She was born illegitimate to a Dutch courtesan and French law student and spent much of her early life in a convent.  She wanted to be a nun, but one of her mother's lovers, a
She was born illegitimate to a Dutch courtesan and French law student and spent much of her early life in a convent.  She wanted to be a nun, but one of her mother's lovers, a half-brother of Napoleon III, arranged for her to enter the Conservatoire.  Her first resounding success was in a revival of Kean, a work by Alexandre Dumas pere, and she captivated international theater audiences of the Belle Epoque with her performances as the title character in Dumas fils' La Dame aux cam?ias.  FTP, name this world renowned French theatre actress of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, known to her admirers as "the Divine Sarah."
She was born illegitimate to a Dutch courtesan and French law student and spent much of her early life in a convent.  
Sarah Bernhardt