Alexandre Dumas fils live with his father. There he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration for the character Marguerite Gauthier in his romantic novel "La Dame aux camélias" ("The Lady of the Camellias"). Adapted into a play, it was titled "Camille" in English and became the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, "La traviata", Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valéry. Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had great success with the play, which started his career as a dramatist. He was not only more renowned
Sarah Bernhardt Nonetheless, her film is cited as one of the first examples of a sound film. Eight years later, in 1908, Bernhardt made a second motion picture, "La Tosca". This was produced by Le Film d’Art and directed by André Calmettes from the play by Victorien Sardou. The film has been lost. Her next film, with her co-star and lover Lou Tellegen, was "La Dame aux Camelias", called "Camille". When she performed on this film, Bernhardt changed both the fashion in which she performed, significantly accelerating the speed of her gestural action. The film was a success in the United States,