born Sept. 5, 1831, Paris, France
died Nov. 8, 1908, Paris
French playwright.
He owed his initial success to the actress Pauline Déjazet, for whom he wrote several of his 70 works, including A Scrap of Paper (1860). Several later works, including Fédora (1882), were written for Sarah Bernhardt . His La Tosca (1887) was adapted by Giacomo Puccini as an opera. His last success was Madame Sans-Gêne (1893). In 1877 he was elected to the Académie Française. His plays rely heavily on theatrical devices and plot contrivances, and he is remembered as a craftsman of the bourgeois drama that George Bernard Shaw belittled as "Sardoodledom."