Plot

Lilli Palmer portrays Sarah Bernhardt in the 1981 production "Sarah in America," with Georgia Southcotte as her loyal companion. Introduced by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ''Sarah in America,'' is part of the ''Kennedy Center Tonight'' series on public television, stars Lilli Palmer as the French actress Sarah Bernhardt. The Divine Sarah was, according to all accounts, tempestuous, exotic, vibrant, irresistible and thoroughly impossible. he writer of the stage play is Ruth Wolff, whose past credits have been solid. But this is only an adaptation of Miss Wolff's ''Sarah in America.'' Excerpts are edited into a larger profile that includes a fuzzy recording of Miss Bernhardt's voice, numerous photographs, a clip from a silent movie and narrative patter from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This is the portrait of Sarah the trouper, indefatigably traveling to some 90 cities on a few tours, playing in tents when theater owners demanded too much of her gross receipts, refusing to change her dated style even when the audiences began to dwindle and coming back for a personal triumph at New York's Palace Theater. If, as estimated, she made $9 million during her career, she deserved it. In France, her love affair with the United States caused her to be dubbed ''the great American actress.''—Robert M Rinck