Rachel (actress)

Elisabeth Rachel Félix, better known only as Rachel (21 February 1821 - January 3 1858), was a French theatre actress.

Biography
Born in Mumpf, Aargau, the daughter of Jewish Alsatian peddlers, Rachel earned money as a child singing and reciting in the streets. She came to Paris around 1830, and took elocution and singing lessons, eventually studying under the instruction of the musician Alexandre Choron and of Saint-Aulaire, and taking dramatic arts classes at the Conservatoire. To provide for the needs of her family she debuted in La Vendéenne in January 1837 at the Théâtre du Gymnase. Delestre-Poirson, the director, gave her the stage name Rachel, a name that she chose to keep in her private life. Auditioning in March 1838, she started at the Théâtre-Français in Pierre Corneille's Horace at the age of 17. At this time she began a long liaison with Louis Véron, a wealthy manufacturer and a notorious libertine, and subsequently her personal life was a subject of great scandal, well documented by biographers and acquaintances of the time in the references below.

Her fame spread throughout Europe following a sensational success in London in 1841, and became particularly associated with the works of Racine, Voltaire, and Corneille, touring in Brussels, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. She created the title role in Eugène Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur. Her acting style was characterized by clear diction and economy of gesture, and represented a major change from the exaggerated style of those days. She was best known for her portrayal of the title rôle in Phèdre.

She became the mistress of Napoleon I's son, Alexandre Joseph Count Colonna-Walewski, and together they had a son Alexandre Colonna-Walewski in 1844. In England, Rachel briefly had an affair with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III as well as with Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte. She died of tuberculosis in Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, France. She is buried in a mausoleum in the Jewish part of Père Lachaise Cemetery. The English theatre critic James Agate published an excellent biography of her in 1928.

The character Vashti in Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette was based on Rachel, whom Brontë had seen perform in London.

Rachel, a light tannish colour, primarily for face-powder used in artificial light, is named after her; the raschel knitting-machine is according to the OED also named after her.

Chronological repertoire

 * 1837:
 * La Vendéenne by Paul Duport (Théâtre du Gymnase, 24 April)
 * Le Mariage de raison de Scribe et Varner (Théâtre du Gymnase, 12 June)

At the Théâtre Français:


 * 1838:
 * Camille in Horace by Corneille (12 June to 11 September)
 * Émilie in Cinna by Corneille (27 September)
 * Hermione in Andromaque by Racine (4 September)
 * Aménaïde in Trancrède by Voltaire
 * Ériphile in Iphigénie en Aulide by Racine
 * Monime in Mithridate by Racine
 * Roxane in Bajazet by Racine (23 November)
 * 1839:
 * Esther in Esther by Racine (29 February)
 * Laodice in Nicomède by Corneille (9 April)
 * Dorine in Tartuffe by Molière (30 April)
 * 1840:
 * Pauline in Polyeucte Martyr by Corneille (15 May)
 * First tour in France during the summer (Rouen, Le Havre, Lyon)
 * The title role of Marie Stuart by Lebrun (22 December)
 * 1841:
 * Toured in Belgium and England (summer)
 * 1842:
 * Chimène in Le Cid by Corneille (19 January)
 * The title role of Ariane by Thomas Corneille (7 May)
 * Toured in England and Belgium (summer)
 * Frédégonde in Frédégonde et Brunehaut by Lemercier (5 November)
 * 1843:
 * The title role of Phèdre by Racine (21 January)
 * The title role of Judith by Girardin (24 January)
 * Toured in Rouen, Marseille and Lyon (summer)
 * 1844:
 * The title role of Bérénice by Racine (6 January)
 * Isabelle in Don Sanche d'Aragon by Corneille (17 January)
 * The title role of Catherine II by Romand (25 May)
 * Marinette in Le Dépit amoureux by Molière (1 July)
 * Toured in Belgium (summer)
 * Birth of her son Alexandre in Marly-le-Roi (3 November)
 * 1845:
 * Virginie in Brest (3 July)
 * Polyeucte in Nancy (25 August)
 * 1846:
 * Toured in the Netherlands, in Liège and in Lille (June)
 * Toured in London (July-August)
 * 1847:
 * La Muse sérieuse in L'Ombre by Molière (15 January)
 * Fatine in Le Vieux by La Montagne (6 February)
 * The title role of Athalie by Racine (5 March)
 * Toured in London, in the Netherlands, and at Liège (May-June)
 * 1848:
 * Birth of her second son, Gabriel, at Neuilly-sur-Seine (26 January)
 * Horace (13 March)
 * Toured in Amsterdam (June-October)
 * Britannicus by Racine (October)
 * 1849:
 * Andromaque (January)
 * The title role of Le Moineau de Lesbie by Armand Barthet (22 March)
 * The title role of Adrienne Lecouvreur (14 April)
 * Toured in west and southwest France (29 May - 31 August)
 * 1850:
 * The title role of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle by Alexandre Dumas, père(25 January)
 * Thisbé in Angelo by Victor Hugo (18 May)
 * Lydie in Horace et Lydie by François Ponsard (19 June)
 * Toured in London, Hamburg, Berlin, Potsdam, Brême, Vienna, and Munich (July-October)
 * 1851: Toured
 * 1853: Toured
 * 1854: Toured in Warsaw, Saint Petersburg and Moscow (January-April)
 * 1855: Toured in New York and in the United States (September-December)
 * The troupe separated in Cuba in December.
 * 1858: Rachel died on 3 January