Elizabeth Rachel Felix

Q: So Rachel can you tell me a little bit about your family and where you came from?

A: I was born on March 24^th 1821 in one of the most prestigious inns in my village of Munf, which is in beautiful Aargau, Switzerland. Father and Mother were peddlers so we did not have much to live for awhile accept for each other and our faith to the torah and God. My father was Jewish with German roots which is why I’m Jewish. Many would say Father is a bit greedy but Mother was just worse! She was very frugal with our money. If any of our friends would even ask her for a cent she would send them right back home. Much like Father she was so very unwilling to share. Although my parents were peddlers most of my four siblings and I took on a different trade. Many of us (well accept for little Rebecca and Sara) took on some kind of form of acting.

My only brother Raphael was very successful especially at the beginning of my childhood. Many in our village called him the greatest Talma or actor of my time. This often made jealous but knowing he was my dear brother I made an effort for it not to bother me. Rebecca was my favorite youngest sister who sadly passed four years before I did. She had such a large heart and it was sad to see her go so soon. Then there is my dear eldest sister Sara who never really wanted to be an actress but instead went into the perfume business selling her signature lotion called L’eau des Fees.

Q: What happened early in your life that sparked your interest in becoming an actress?

A: Well to be honest it all started because of money. In order to earn more money for my family Sara and I sang in the streets and the cafes in Paris. I guess you could say becoming an actress was all just a fortunate accident! One particular day as Sara and I were singing in the streets we encountered a very important listener of our work. Etienne Choron an older Catholic gentleman who was the director of the Paris Opera came to hark to our beautiful music. I watched him as he stayed song after song. When the last song was finished he approached me and offered to give me free private vocal lessons. I quickly accepted and soon this became the action that began my entire career.

After working vigorously with Etienne Choron for quite a while on singing, it became time for me to work on my dramatic skills. Etienne Choron introduced me at thirteen years old to a teacher of dramatics named Pagnon Saint Aulaire who specialized in teaching his students to execute their speech properly. This was a skill I needed greatly for my voice they say was like an obnoxious child running around the city. I worked many different kinds of characters with Pagnon Saint Aulaire. I worked anywhere between comedic to dramatic. I did not find myself so terribly interested in being a comedic actress but more of a dramatic one.

Q: Who were the people in your life influenced u most to become an actress?

A: My passion lied most with my acting career because it was greatly influenced by my teachers. My philosophy is that life is a teacher in itself and with every new step that we take we all become better students. Therefore all those that u look up to for any reason are the ones who you are most likely to learn from. I looked up greatly to Sara, Father, Etienne Choron, and Pagnon Saint Aulaire. I looked up to them because they all had one thing in common: they all wanted me to succeed. And so I did.

I looked up to Sara mainly because she was my eldest sister and she was the first person in which I began my career with. Without my sister I would have never been an actress because Etienne Choron would never have discovered me. I looked up to Father for strongly encouraging me to make a living of my own by doing something I loved. Etienne Choron inspired me by his great interest in music history especially the history of the Renaissance. He was a great scholar of music theory so he would talk for hours on end about the subject. The more I listened to him speak of the matter lesson after lesson the more interested I became. Pagnon Saint Aulaire inspired me to push myself harder than I could ever imagine I was capable of. I remember those long evenings I spent in his classroom with the twelve other students in which I had to repeat the same words time and time again. Pagnon Saint Aulaire inspired me the most much for the same reason Etienne Choron did. They both taught singing and acting through using history.

Q: What was the world of the theater like when you entered it?

A: I found it quite overwhelming at first and lavish compared to my simple life in which I was up brought. Although Mother and Father were greedy, we were poor. I know they had to be greedy because they were poor. When I first started working at the Comédie Française I earned a regular salary of 800 francs. This was a plentiful amount compared to my usual unpredictable earnings on the streets and in the cafes. This was a lavish concept in itself! The first role I first received there was Cameille in Horace by Pierre Corneille: a drama that follows the life of Cardinal Richelieu. My run ran at Theatre Francais from June 12^th, 1838to September 11^th, 1838. After my run my contract was dropped so I went back home and attended to my education.

Theaters purpose during my time was to educate and culture the citizens about morals and values as well as the past. In my time there are two types of works that are often performed: sentimentalism and rationalism. “Sentimentalism is characterized by an over-emphasis on arousing sympathetic responses to misfortune. Rationalism is “an aristocratic and seemingly amoral form of theatre.” (Goldfarb). The other forms of theater were farce, pantomimes, and heroic tragedy. Farce usually uses slapstick comedy and the works are more centered on a simple plot line vs. the development of the characters. Pantomimes were silent and done to music and often combined farce with mythology. I had to play the mute serving made Flipote in a pantomimed work where my only duty( located in the first act) in the scene was to make sure my ears may be soundly boxed by Madame Pernelle. Heroic tragedies “Dealt with conflicts between love and honor or duty, contained violent action, were melodramatic (the heroes were flawless and the heroines chaste).” (Goldfarb).

Q: How did the social, economic, or cultural status around you affect you becoming an actress or your career in general?

A: The middle and upper classes are the only people who are eligible to see my shows. I don’t a liking to this rule because I was once in the lower class.

Q: What were your major accomplishments and the methods you used in your work?

A: My second largest accomplishment (Cameille in Horace being my first) was when I portrayed Emilie in the "Cinna," of Corneille. It made a profit of five hundred and fifty francs compared to Horace which I did six runs of which made only three hundred francs. I also enjoyed when I played Hermione in "Andromaque." by Jean Racine. The work was beautifully written and I had to be in a love triangle with the man I was betrothed to and the man I loved. Unfortunately all the characters (including my character who kills herself) died in the end accept for two. Another lovely work I did was "Le Cid,” in which I played the beautiful Chimene. I would have to say my most favorite work was when I acted as Fredegonde in Le Mercier’s miserable tragedy.

One of the methods I uses was to speak the words slowly like poetry. I would often read poetry out loud in order to speak more clearly. Reading was difficult for me and my writing was just as wretched. I had to teach myself writing by copying how other people wrote their letters. I practiced saying my poems night after night with M. St. Aulaire and every time I would mess up even a word he would call me "ma petite diablesse” his little devil and tell me to start over again.

Q: What were the key opportunities you had that led the turning points in your life and art?

A: I suppose it would be when I began to study at the School of Sacred Music in the Rue Vaugirard. There I learned to discipline myself to work harder and my studies and my singing. There I discovered I was better at reciting than singing and this is why I took the route of acting vs. singing. My teacher had told me to recite the lyrics of a song like a poem before I sang them because my voice was average and did not promise much. The critic of the Journal des Debats, said "I was an unskilled child, but I possessed heart, soul, intellect. There was something bold, abrupt, uncouth about my aspect, gait, and manner. I was dressed simply and truthfully in the coarse woollen gown of a peasant-girl; my hands were red; my voice was harsh and untrained, but powerful; I acted without effort or exaggeration; I did not scream or gesticulate unduly; I seemed to perceive intuitively the feeling I was required to express, and could interest the audience greatly, moving them to tears. I was not pretty, but I was pleased,"(edigg. 1999)

One of my most successful opportunities I undertook was when I saved the Comédie Française from financial ruin. My father offered to pay an enormous amount of money to the managers of the company. This caused a large commotion with the town, the mangers, and the major critics. This is what led me to play Roxane in Racine's Bajazet I which many frowned upon me doing because they thought I just had my father pay my way in, in order to earn my fame. Well those small groups of people were proven wrong when on the following night I received an ovation that was quite overwhelming!

Q: What were the things in your life that put your career in danger or that stopped you from becoming and actress?

A: Many prestigious people came to see my performances such as mangers like Monval of the Gymnase Theater and Samson of the Comedie. Samson of the Comedie was an actor, playwrite, and a professor of elocution at the Conservatoire. Monval was a distrustful old man who was the stage manager of just about every show ever written. As they watched me they both encouraged me to take classes at the Conservatoire. I took their advice and I enrolled in the classes but I found myself very frustrate for I was making little progress. Any time I made an effort to improve on any of my techniques I found myself just not impressing my teachers there. So I left the institution, and never took a class or performed there again. I found myself feeling neglected, hurt, and insulted by my own teachers who I used to look up to! The teachers’ attitude was they felt my leaving was like I was hypocritically pretending that I was doing the right thing when I wasn’t.

Another thing that made me doubt myself as an actress was my looks which I was often criticized for. Bouffe once called me “an odd little girl!” and followed with saying “Assuredly there is something in her. But her place is not here." (edigg. 1999) I look like a typical Jewish young woman and my face is long and my hair a chocolate brown. Mangers, Directors, and companies often look for that sort of girl with the long blonde hair and the big blue eyes rather than the girl with an interesting face like mine for the of roles I wanted to play for awhile especially the romances. I was often turned away from major companies I wanted to work with.

Q: Who are the people in your life that inspire you the most and why do they inspire you?

A: I would have to say I am most inspired by my father and teachers and also my sister. Having begun my career with Sara she had supported me the whole way through and she is the one who encouraged me to begin vocal lessons. Also the more I watched her grow as a person and as an artist like me, the more mature she helped me to become. My father greatly inspired me in a very different way. He never wanted me to be an actress and he wanted me to go into the family peddling business. In a way he discouraging me from doing what I love is what encouraged me to continue acting as a career rather than hobby. It was like reverse physiology, the more he pushed me to become a peddler the more I wanted to defy him and be an actress.

My teachers inspired me to push myself harder than I ever thought I could. I remember a particular day when my good friend and teacher St. Aulaire consulted Monval, who spoke highly of me his manager, Mansur Poirson. From there Mansur Poirson got me a three year contract at the great Gymnase Theater because he believed in me. It inspires me so much that he vouched for an actress he hardly knew because it was to me such a valuable act of kindness. Mansur Poirson thought there was something exciting and new about me and he recommended me often to other companies so I could have more experience. He even helped me to be in one of my earlier productions Mansur Paul Duport’s two act melodrama La Vendeenne!

Q: Do you have any anecdotes that you would like to share that helped you to me come a better actress?

A: My most favorite story that I remember is on one particular evening after I had finished performing as the great heroine Amenaida in Voltaire's Tancrède, my dear family friend Alfred de Musset came to see me. He was a quite admired French poet of the sort who never had a mean thing to say about anyone. So he came backstage during the break between the acts to give me my congratulations and to tell me how beautiful and fit my costume was. There in his hand he held a letter in which he gave me. I was hesitant to open it only to be in fear of its contents. For on that letter was only to be the return address of my former lover. I have had many lovers in my lifetime which is why I never married but I remember this one vaguely. He had been wounded in battle and later I had heard word that he was dying because he believed I betrayed him.

The letter had said "I could not survive your perfidy. I die on the battle-field, but I die of wounds inflicted by you. I wished, cruel woman, in exposing myself for you, to save at once your glory and your life." (Feamale-Ansestors. 2010) I felt such pity for the poor man and I was so greatly moved to tears I could hardly go on to finish the next act, but never the less I did. The play was finished around ten in the evening and as I was walking out to go home a crowd of press agents, artist and fans had followed me. Among them was De Musset, the poet who gave me the letter. He greeted me with great respect and I happily invited him to dinner. He accepted my invitation with gratitude and we proceeded to head home.

This is an experience that taught me to become a better actress because it educated me on how to cope with things under duress. Even though I was so affected by the letter of my former lover I was still able to finish the second act. Also this story helps me to realize the more life experiences I have the better of an actress I will be. What good is playing the emotion of being blue if one as never experienced an honest blue moment of their life? The difference between superb acting and mediocre acting is honesty. My life has been so full of experiences and memories. There are times of joy, times of pleasure, times of despair and times of distress. Because of this I take time everyday to look back at what I have become only to look forward to what I can give to the future.

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