Days When Sera Wasn't Nice To Know!

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 29, 30 December 1938, Page 5

Days When Sera Wasn't Nice To Know!

N his recently-published rerainiseences, ‘Adventures Among Immorials,’’ Perey Burton, the noted English impresario, reveals how the famous play ‘‘Les Dames aux Camelias" came to be called in America py the shorte-~and quite irrele-vant-title, "Camille." In 1880, Sara Bernhardt’s first visit to America was heralded by a storm of vindictive publicity. It was alleged that the Divine Sara was not a nice person to know, and that her plays were flasranily indecent. Gritics. attacked her long. hefore they had an opportunity of judging her art or her material, ‘and. bishops warned their flocks to stay away from her (thus making the phenomenal success of her tour a foresene conclusion). Most castigated of the plays was "Tes Dames aux Camelias,’* with its free love and consumption theme. During the American rumpus. Bernuhardi’s astute manager was afraid that this production would be banned by the police, which would have meant, of course, flnunecial disaster as it was the play in- wh'ch everyone wanted to see Sara. While scouting round for a new title, he was struck by the similarity between Camelias and Camille. "‘Camille’ it isl" he cried. Someone pointed out that ‘Camille’ had not the remotest connection with any character in

the play nor its plot, but _that didn’t deter the manager, So "Camiile" it became, and re mains to this day in America

whenever the saccharine-drama is resurrected, The motion-picture versions. have all been "Camille," too, im eluding the recent Garbo effort.