Sarah Duhamel

Duhamel was the daughter of an operetta singer and appeared on stage at a very young age. In 1893 she made her debut as a singer with the play Eldorado,[1] and consequently went on a two-year tour through Italy and the South of France. From 1895 on she worked at various revues in Paris. In 1910 she met the film director Romeo Bosetti who worked for Pathé Comica in Nice. She made several short comedy films with Bosetti, her character was called ‘Rosalie’ (in the English-speaking countries ‘Jane’).[2] Later she started working for the company Eclair (La Société française des films et cinématographiques Eclair) where her character was called Pétronille. She was also cast to star with Maurice Schwartz in the Little Moritz series, and with Lucien Bataille in his Casimir comedies.[3]

Duhamel’s partnership with Bosetti lasted until 1916, when he stopped filmmaking due to his injuries suffered during the WWI. After the World War I, Duhamel's career became less successful, though she continued to work on stage and for films.

In 1915 Duhamel married Édouard Louis Schmitt (1884-1972), a fellow stage actor better known as Darmaine or Darmène. Duhamel’s older sister Louise Jeanne Bibiane Duhamel (1870-1910) was also famous as an operetta singer.

• 1889 : Monsieur Alphonse, (Alexandre Dumas fils) : Adrienne
• 1892 : Article de Paris (Maxime Boucheron, Edmond Audran)
• 1892 : La Petite Pologne, (Lambert Thiboust and Ernest Blum): Fauvette
• 1892 : Les Mouchards, (Jules Moinaux and Paul Parfait) : Andrée
• 1892 : La Lune à Paris, (Jules Oudot, Léon Nunès, and Léon Schlésinger) : Miss Helyett
• 1895 : Les Contes de Piron, (Gaston Habrekorn and Célestin Controne) : Suzanne
• 1895 : Paris-Sensuel, (Léon Némo and A. Bural) : la commère
• 1896 : Les Bibelots du diable, (Théodore Cogniard and Clairville) : Risette
• 1896 : Les Deux rosses, (Pierre Decourcelle by Paul Briollet and Jacques Yvel, and Émile Duhem and Émile Cambillard)
• 1896 : La Petite goualeuse, (Gaston Marot and A. Lévy) : la petite goualeuse
• 1902 : La Demoiselle de chez Maxim's, (Gardel-Hervé) : la môme Grenouille
• 1903 : Josiane !, (Valérien Tranel and Eugène Joullot) : Josiane
• 1908 : Cartes transparentes, (Jules Moy)
• 1908 : Une nuit tragique au pays du Czar, (Montéhus) : l'héroïne
• 1910 : Pige-moi ça !, (Cinq-Mars and Charles Pillon) : la femme au cadenas
• 1910 : La Conscrite, (Raoul Hugo) : la colonelle
• 1922 : Madame Cantharide, (Louis Lemarchand and Fernand Rouvray)

• Chirat, Raymond.; Le Roy, Eric., Catalogue des films français de fiction de 1908 à 1918. Cinémathèque française, Musée du cinéma, [Paris] ([1995]). ISBN 2-900596-11-4
• Preschl, Claudia., Lachende Körper : Komikerinnen im Kino der 1910er Jahre. Synema - Ges. für Film u. Medien, Wien (2008). ISBN 978-3-901644-27-6

• Sarah Duhamel on the Internet Movie Database