Victorien Sardou facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Victorien Sardou
Sardou in 1880
Born	Victorien Léandre Sardou (1831-09-05)5 September 1831 Paris, France
Died	8 November 1908(1908-11-08) (aged 77) Paris, France
Occupation	Playwright
Period	19th-century
Genre	Well-made play

Victorien Sardou (born September 5, 1831, died November 8, 1908) was a famous French writer of plays. He is well-known for helping to create a type of play called the "well-made play" with another writer, Eugène Scribe.

Sardou also wrote many plays that became popular operas in the 1800s. For example, his play La Tosca (1887) was used for Giacomo Puccini's famous opera Tosca (1900). His plays Fédora (1882) and Madame Sans-Gêne (1893) also inspired operas by Umberto Giordano.

Early Life and Challenges

A special plaque at the house in Paris where Sardou was born.

Victorien Sardou was born in Paris, France, on September 5, 1831. His family used to own a large olive farm, but a bad frost destroyed all their trees. This made his family lose all their money.

Victorien's father, Antoine Léandre Sardou, moved to Paris to find work. He tried many jobs, like being a book-keeper, a teacher, and a school principal. Even with all these jobs, he struggled to earn enough money.

When Victorien's father retired, Victorien had to support himself. He had started studying medicine, but he couldn't finish because he didn't have enough money. To make a living, he taught French to foreign students. He also gave lessons in Latin, history, and math, and wrote articles for encyclopedias.

Starting His Career

While working, Victorien Sardou also tried to become a writer. An older writer, Mme de Bawl, encouraged his talent. His first play, La Taverne des étudiants, was performed in Paris in 1854. However, it was not well-received and was quickly stopped.

Other plays he wrote also faced problems. One play was accepted but then canceled. Another play, Le Bossu, was successful, but the credit for it went to other writers. Sardou even showed a play to the famous writer Eugène Scribe, who did not like a certain scene in it.

By 1857, Sardou was very poor and became sick with typhoid fever. He was living in a small, cold room, surrounded by his plays that no one wanted. Luckily, a kind lady named Mlle de Brécourt, who lived in the same building, helped him. She took care of him until he was well.

Mlle de Brécourt also introduced him to her friend, Mlle Déjazet, a famous actress. Déjazet had just opened her own theater. She started performing Sardou's plays, and his luck began to change.

Success on Stage

Even though his first play for Mlle Déjazet was stopped by the censor, his next plays were very successful. Plays like Les Premières Armes de Figaro, Monsieur Garat, and Les Prés Saint Gervais were big hits. His play Les Pattes de mouche (1860), which was later called A Scrap of Paper in English, was also a great success.

The famous actress Sarah Bernhardt in the main role of Sardou's play Théodora in 1884.

Many of Sardou's later plays were written especially for the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. One of these was Fédora (1882), which even helped make the fedora hat popular! This play was later turned into an opera called Fedora.

Sardou also started adding a lot of history to his plays. For example:

• Théodora (1884) was about the Byzantine Empire.
• La Haine (1874) was based on old Italian stories.
• Patrie! (1869) was about a Dutch uprising in the 1500s. This play also became a popular opera.
• La Sorcière (1904) was set in Spain in the 16th century.

He wrote three plays about the French Revolution: Les Merveilleuses, Thermidor (1891), and Robespierre (1899). His play Gismonda (1894) also became an opera. La Tosca (1887) brought the Napoleonic era to life on stage.

Sardou's grave in Marly-le-Roi.

Madame Sans-Gêne (1893) was written for actress Gabrielle Réjane. It was about a brave and kind-hearted wife of a military leader. This play was translated into English and performed in London.

Towards the end of his life, Sardou made recordings of himself reading parts of his plays. His play L'Affaire des Poisons (1907) was very successful when he passed away.

Personal Life and Legacy

Sardou married Mlle de Brécourt, the kind lady who helped him when he was sick. After she passed away, he married Mlle Soulié in 1872. Her father was in charge of the museum at the Palace of Versailles.

In 1877, Victorien Sardou was chosen to be a member of the Académie française, a very important group of French writers and artists. He also received the Legion of Honour, a high award in France, in 1863.

Sardou died in Paris on November 8, 1908, after being ill for some time.

A funny drawing of Sardou from 1891.

Victorien Sardou was known for his clever and easy-to-understand dialogue in plays. He followed the style of Eugène Scribe, focusing on creating a main problem in the play and then building up to a powerful ending. He believed that conflict was the most important part of a good play.

He often made fun of different types of people in his plays. For example, he poked fun at selfish middle-class people in Nos Intimes (1861) and old-fashioned ideas in Les Ganaches (1862).

The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw made up the word "Sardoodledom" to describe Sardou's plays. Shaw thought Sardou's plays were too focused on complicated plots and didn't have enough deep ideas. However, many people, like producer Sir Squire Bancroft, greatly admired Sardou's work and the performances of his plays.

Today, you can find streets named after Victorien Sardou in Paris, Lyon, and Saint-Omer. Also, a famous dish called Eggs Sardou was created in his honor at a restaurant in New Orleans.

Works

Stage Plays

Poster for an 1897 show of A Divorce Cure, based on Sardou's play Divorçons!.

Poster for the 1918 movie Let's Get a Divorce, based on Sardou's play Divorçons!.

Books Written

• Rabàgas (1872)
• Daniel Rochet (1880)

Works Based on Sardou's Plays

Plays Translated

• Nos Intimes! (1862), became Friends or Foes?
• La Papillonne (1864), became Taming of a Butterfly
• Le Degel (1864), became Adonis Vanquished
• Les Ganaches (1869), became Progress
• Nos Intimes! (1872), became Our Friends
• Les Pres Saint-Gervais (1875)
• Dora (1877), became Diplomacy
• Divorçons! (1882), became Cyprienne
• Robespierre

Operas and Musicals

Poster for Henry Février's opera Gismonda.

• Patrie! (1886) by Emile Paladihle
• Fedora (1898) by Umberto Giordano
• Tosca (1900) by Giacomo Puccini
• Les Merveilleuses (1907), a musical play
• Théodora (1907) by Xavier Leroux
• Madame Sans-Gêne (1915) by Umberto Giordano
• Gismonda (1919) by Henry Février

Movies Based on His Works

• La Tosca (1908)
• Cleopatra (1912)
• Princess Romanoff (1915)
• The Song of Hate (1915)
• Marcella (1915)
• Odette (1916)
• The Witch (1916)
• Diplomacy (1916)
• Váljunk el! (1916)
• The Chalice of Sorrow (1916)
• Ferréol (1916)
• Madame Guillotine (1916)
• Fedora (1916)
• White Nights (1916)
• Patrie (1917)
• Andreina (1917)
• Fernanda (1917)
• Cleopatra (1917)
• Az anyaszív (1917)
• Tosca (1918)
• La Tosca (1918)
• Let's Get a Divorce (1918)
• Love's Conquest (1918)
• Fedora (1918)
• The Burden of Proof (1918)
• I nostri buoni villici (1918)
• Spiritismo (1919)
• Dora o Le spie (1919)
• Three Green Eyes (1919)
• Giorgina (1919)
• Ferréol (1920)
• I borghesi di Pontarcy (1920)
• Napoleon and the Little Washerwoman (1920)
• Theodora (1921)
• Rabagas (1922)
• L'Espionne (1923)
• Madame Sans-Gêne (1925)
• Kiss Me Again (1925)
• Fedora (1926)
• Diplomacy (1926)
• Don't Tell the Wife (1927)
• Odette (1928)
• A Night of Mystery (1928)
• The Woman from Moscow (1928)
• L'Évadée (1929)
• Fedora (1934)
• Odette (1934)
• Les Pattes de mouche (1936)
• Marcella (1937)
• Tosca (1941)
• That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
• Madame Sans-Gêne (1941)
• Fedora (1942)
• Dora, la espía (1943)
• Madame Sans-Gêne (1945)
• Pamela (1945)
• La señora de Pérez se divorcia (1945)
• En tiempos de la inquisición (1946)
• Patrie (1946)
• Distress (1946)
• El precio de una vida (1947)
• The Affair of the Poisons (1955)
• Tosca (1956)
• Amor para Três (1960)
• Madame (1961)
• La Tosca (1973)
• Tosca (2001)

Images for kids

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  A sketch of Sardou from 1899.

• 

  Sardou in 1901.

See also

In Spanish: Victorien Sardou para niños