Jacques Damala - Illegitimate Daughter

Illegitimate Daughter

On early 1889, Damala had also fathered a child with one of his mistresses, a theatre extra, who used to inject him with heroin, during intermissions. After his mistress gave birth to a baby girl, she placed the baby, in a basket, on Bernhardt's doorstep, together with a note. Bernhardt was furious to discover that Damala's illegitimate daughter was placed in her care and contemplated having the infant drowned on the river Seine. Bernhardt's servants attempted to notify Damala of his child, however, he was unable to contemplate the situation, due to severely reduced clarity (a result of his deep addiction). Thankfully, his daughter's life was saved by a friend of both Bernhardt and Damala, gun dealer and future tycoon Sir Basil Zaharoff, who proposed to take the child so that he could find a surrogate family for her. Eventually, the girl was baptised Teresa (1889–1967) and was raised in Adrianople, in Easter Thrace.

The adventures of Damala's daughter (who had brief affairs with Ernest Hemingway and Gabriele D'Annunzio and posed as a model for Picasso in the early 1920s) were documented by Fredy Germanos in his historical novel Teresa (Greek: Tερέζα, pronounced Tereza), published in 1997. The book also makes reference to Damala's Parisian life and mentions that Bernhardt remained in love with him until the end of her life. In fact, Bernhardt and Teresa Damala also met each other, years later.