Sarah Bernhardt (1880) and Toyah Willcox (1979)
demonstrate the art of coffin sleeping
I.
An anonymous reader writes with reference to a recent post which can be read here:
'I know you sometimes like to present yourself as a "thanatologist", but, really, to celebrate someone such as Sarah Bernhardt - the world's original ham actress - due to the fact they sleep in a coffin is a little pathetic.
There's nothing in the least amusing about her morbid behaviour and hysterical exhibitionism and one suspects that Shaw was quite right to identify Bernhardt as ultimately nothing more than an attention-seeking egotist who never explored or revealed anything of the characters she played on stage and film, but simply turned them all into manifestations of her self.'
I have to say, I suspect that's a little unfair on Miss Bernhardt - and it also gives a false impression of the post I wrote in her memory. For whilst I do mention the coffin sleeping - alongside her love for a pet lizard whilst a child - what I actually celebrate is her stoicism, courage, and endurance; for the fact that she dared to live dangerously and love fate, as famously advocated by Nietzsche.
And, whilst we're on the subject, let me further add that I admire Bernhardt for her defiant Jewishness in the face of violent antisemitism. For although she was raised as a Catholic (receiving her first communion in 1856), Bernhardt never denied her Jewish heritage; even when crowds threw stones at her whilst on tour in Russia, or when the right-wing French press attacked her for her passionate defence of Alfred Dreyfus.
But, to return, briefly, to the subject of coffin sleeping ...
When, in 1880, she allowed herself to be photographed stretched out in a coffin with her eyes closed and covered in flowers - a coffin in which she would also relax when learning her lines (perhaps fearful that she might one day die on stage) - Bernhardt undoubtedly knew this would add to her reputation [1].
And one suspects that - almost a hundred years later - the English singer and actress Toyah Willcox was also very aware that she'd be able to grab some headlines by claiming to sleep in a coffin, although, in her case, one suspects she genuinely did so in order to keep warm at a time when her restricted financial means meant she had no bed to sleep in at the South London warehouse she was squatting [2].
For sleeping in a coffin is certainly preferable to sleeping on a cold concrete floor and poverty, rather than a desire for publicity, is more often the reason why people resort to this practice. Indeed, one is reminded of the fact that the first homeless shelters which opened in 19th-century London were known as coffin houses ...
II.
Operated by the Salvation Army, these institutions were established primarily to provide food and assistance. But, uniquely, the poor and destitute would also be allowed to sleep in a coffin-shaped wooden box and generously provided with a tarpaulin with which to cover themselves.
Although such places sound grim and, indeed, were grim - they proved to be very popular and remained in operation into the early 20th-century. Supporters of coffin houses argued that not only were the homeless able to find rest, but they were also afforded the chance to find God - provided they had the fourpence admission fee ...
Men preparing for another night's kip
in a coffin house (c. 1900)
Notes
[1] Having said that, however, Bernhardt did seem to have a taste for the
morbid and macabre, even once visiting the Paris morgue in order to
learn how better to feign the signs of death.
[2] See the interview with Titbits (Nov 1981) in which Miss Willcox discusses why she slept in a coffin: click here.
