Legacy
He has been portrayed by three actors in film and television biopics of Sarah Bernhardt. He was portrayed by John Castle in the film The Incredible Sarah (opposite Glenda Jackson) on 1976, by Canadian actor Jean LeClerc in the TV movie Sarah (also 1976) and by Gonzalo Vega in the Mexican TV series La Divina Sarah (1980).
His younger sister, Eirene (ca 1857–?) had a brief affair with notorious American author and journalist Frank Harris, as recounted by the latter in his scandalous autobiography My Life and Loves. Harris had met the Damala family in the summer of 1880, when they were all residents at the Hotel d'Athènes, in Athens. Harris and Eirene Damala (referred to in the book as "Mme M.") had a brief romantic/sexual affair, which Harris describes very graphically in his book. Eirene was estranged from her Scottish husband, who had left her and returned to England. Harris also befriended Aristides Damala and the two became even closer friends when they met again in Paris, some time later. Harris also recounts an incident, in Trieste, when Bernhardt publicly lashed out against her husband for his infidelities, to which Damala responded "Madame, you will never again have the opportunity of calling me names". He then returned to Paris. A disconsolate Bernhardt broke off the tour and also returned to the French capital and begged Harris to intervene so as for the reconciliation to come. Damala is cited as telling Harris of Bernhardt: "A great talent, but a small nature and a foul tongue".
Read more about this topic: Jacques Damala
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)