John Barrymore

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This article is about John Barrymore, Sr. For his son John Barrymore, Jr., see John Drew Barrymore.
John Barrymore

John Barrymore (aged 40) in 1922
Born John Sidney Blyth
(1882-02-15)February 15, 1882
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died May 29, 1942(1942-05-29) (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death
 Pneumonia and cirrhosis
Resting place
 Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia, ashes are at his father's grave
Education Georgetown Preparatory School
Occupation Actor
Years active 1903-1941
Height 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m)
Spouse(s) Katherine Corri Harris (m. 1910; div. 1917)
Blanche Oelrichs (m. 1920; div. 1925)
Dolores Costello (m. 1928; div. 1934)
Elaine Barrie (m. 1936; div. 1940)
Children Diana Barrymore
Dolores Ethel Blyth Barrymore
John Drew Barrymore
Parents Maurice Barrymore
Georgiana Drew
Relatives Lionel Barrymore (brother)
Ethel Barrymore (sister)

Drew Barrymore (granddaughter)

John Sidney Blyth (February 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942),[1] better known as John Barrymore, was an American actor of stage and screen.[2][3] He first gained attention as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in his portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III. His success continued with motion pictures in various genres in both the silent and sound eras. Barrymore's personal life has been the subject of much writing before and since his death in 1942. The most prominent member of a multi-generation theatrical dynasty, he was the brother of Lionel and Ethel, and was the paternal grandfather of actress Drew.

Today, John Barrymore is known mostly for his portrayal of Hamlet and for his roles in movies like Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1920), Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Twentieth Century (1934), Midnight (1939) and Don Juan (1926), the first feature length movie to use a Vitaphone soundtrack.

Early life

Barrymore was born in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandmother.[4] His parents were Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe, a British actor who performed under the stage name Maurice Barrymore, and American actress Georgie Drew Barrymore. His maternal grandmother was Louisa Lane Drew (aka Mrs Drew), a prominent and well-respected 19th-century actress and theater manager, who instructed him and his siblings in the ways of acting and theatre life. His maternal uncles were John Drew, Jr. and Sidney Drew. As a result of growing up in a theatrical family, Barrymore and his siblings knew personally some of the many greats of Victorian era theatre such as Edwin Booth and Richard Mansfield.

Barrymore fondly remembered the summer of 1896 in his youth, spent on his father's rambling estate on Long Island. He and brother Lionel lived a Robinson Crusoe-like existence, attended by a black servant named Edward. Barrymore was expelled from Georgetown Preparatory School in 1898 after being caught entering a bordello.[5]

Barrymore (left, with pencil) with his brother Lionel and sister Ethel in 1904

While still a teenager, he courted showgirl Evelyn Nesbit in 1901 and 1902. For years, rumors swirled that Nesbit had become pregnant and that Barrymore had arranged an abortion, disguised as an operation for appendicitis. In 1906, another Nesbit lover, architect Stanford White, was murdered by Nesbit's husband, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry K. Thaw. A testimony of questions was prepared for Barrymore to testify at Thaw's murder trial on the issue of Nesbit's morality. Barrymore was never called in as the Thaw trial was decided based on insanity plea and Nesbit's morality being irrelevant to Thaw's murdering Stanford White. Barrymore and Nesbit were never questioned under oath about her "immorality," or, as stated in the prepared deposition, that he had taken her to a doctor for an "appendectomy".[6]

Career

Early stage career and silent films

left to right: Mary Young, Barrymore and Frank Campeau in Believe Me, Xantippe, Broadway 1913. The play was filmed in 1918 with Wallace Reid

Barrymore sought to escape the heritage of the theater by trying to be a cartoonist and reporter. He studied to be an artist and worked on New York newspapers before deciding to go into the family business as an actor. He made his stage debut in October 1903 playing a part in Magda at the Cleveland Theater, Chicago. Soon after he was on Broadway and after two seasons there, he made his first appearance in London with William Collier as Charles Hines in The Dictator.

Barrymore in the play Clair de Lune (1921) with Violet Kemble-Cooper.

Barrymore was staying at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco when the 1906 earthquake occurred. He had starred in a production of The Dictator and was soon to tour Australia in the play. As he loathed this prospect, he hid, spending the next few days drinking at the home of a friend on Van Ness Avenue. During this drinking jag, he worked out a plan to exploit the earthquake for his own ends. He decided to present himself as an on-the-scene "reporter", making up virtually everything he claimed to have witnessed. Twenty years later, Barrymore finally confessed to his deception, but by then, he was so well-known that the world merely smiled indulgently at his confession.[7] His account was written as a "letter to my sister Ethel." He was sure the letter would be "worth at least a hundred dollars." In terms of publicity it earned Barrymore a thousand times that amount.[7]

At the peak of his triumph on the legitimate stage, Barrymore decided to embark on a career in films. He first appeared in motion pictures in 1912, but only took film roles when Broadway was darkened. However, he finally left the legit stage to devote his full-time to films. Barrymore entered films around 1913 with the feature An American Citizen. He or someone using the name "Jack Barrymore" is given credit for four short films made in 1912 and 1913, but this has not been proven to be John Barrymore. Barrymore was most likely convinced into giving films a try out of economic necessity and the fact that he hated touring a play all over the United States. He could make a couple of movies in the off-season theater months or shoot a film in one part of a day while doing a play in another part. He also may have been goaded into films by his brother Lionel and his uncle Sidney, who had both been successfully making movies for a couple of years. Barrymore and his brother, Lionel, established a record for "brother acts".

He specialized in light comedies; he first starred in Are You a Mason and Half a Husband until convinced by his friend, playwright Edward Sheldon, to try serious drama. Critics declared that his portrayal of Falder in John Galsworthy's Justice was artistic and self-effacing, (1916) co-starring Cathleen Nesbitt and directed by Ben Iden Payne. It was Nesbitt who would introduce him to Blanche Oelrichs who became his second wife.

Barrymore as Hamlet (1922)

When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917 Barrymore at thirty-five tried enlisting but a physical revealed he had varicose veins. He was invalided from military service.[8] Also in 1917, Barrymore returned to Broadway in Du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson (1917), a role his father Maurice had wanted to play, Tolstoy's Redemption (1918) and Selm Benelli's The Jest (1919), co-starring his brother Lionel, reaching what seemed to be the zenith of his stage career as Shakespeare's Richard III in 1920. Barrymore suffered a conspicuous failure in his wife Michael Strange's play Clair de Lune (1921), but followed it with the greatest success of his theatrical career with Hamlet in 1922, which he played on Broadway for 101 performances as the melancholy Dane, breaking Edwin Booth's record. In February, 1925 he successfully presented his production in London despite the so-called apathy extended toward American Shakespearean actors in Britain.

Barrymore in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Barrymore's other silent film roles included A. J. Raffles in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Sherlock Holmes (1922), Beau Brummel (1924), Captain Ahab in The Sea Beast (1926), and Don Juan (1926).

Transition to sound films

When talking pictures arrived, Barrymore's stage-trained voice added a new dimension to his screen work. He made his talkie debut with a dramatic reading of the big Duke of Gloucester speech from Henry VI, part 3 in Warner Brothers' musical revue The Show of Shows ("Would they were wasted: marrow, bones and all"), and reprised his Captain Ahab role in Moby Dick (1930). His other leads included The Man from Blankley's (1930), Svengali (1931); and being cast as a suave jewel thief opposite Lionel in Arsène Lupin (1932); with both siblings in The Mad Genius (1931); Grand Hotel (1932) with Ethel in which he displays an affectionate chemistry with his brother Lionel); Rasputin and the Empress (also 1932), with Lionel in the lead; and Dinner at Eight (1933) with Ethel.

In Topaze (1933), Barrymore was cast with Myrna Loy and in Twentieth Century (1934) with Carole Lombard. He worked opposite many of the screen's other foremost leading ladies, including Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, and Joan Crawford. In 1933, Barrymore appeared as a Jewish attorney in the title role of Counsellor at Law based on Elmer Rice's 1931 play. As critic Pauline Kael later wrote, he "seems an unlikely choice for the ghetto-born lawyer . . . but this is one of the few screen roles that reveal his measure as an actor. His 'presence' is apparent in every scene; so are his restraint, his humor, and his zest."

Later years

With Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel (1932)

In the 1930s, Barrymore returned to the stage with tremendous success. His escapades inspired several plays, The Royal Family and My Dear Children, both later filmed, and two movies, Sing, Baby, Sing and The Great Profile. Playgoers would come back time and again to see him because of his famous adlibbing.

He gave a bravura Shakespeare performance, as an overage Mercutio, in the MGM film Romeo and Juliet (1936), and the following year put in a first class performance as a Svengali-type character in MGM's Maytime with Jeanette MacDonald, the top-grossing film worldwide of that year and regarded as one of the best film musicals of the 1930s: "Altogether, it's possible that this is one of the best and most competently handled operettas that Hollywood has turned out."[9]

In the late 1930s, Barrymore began to lose his ability to remember his lines. From then on, he insisted on reading his dialogue from cue cards. He continued to give creditable performances in lesser pictures, for example as Inspector Nielson in some of Paramount Pictures' Bulldog Drummond mysteries, and offered one last bravura dramatic turn in RKO's The Great Man Votes, as well as a notable featured comedic performance in Midnight (both 1939). However, his pictures started losing money and he — along with Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Fred Astaire, Katharine Hepburn, and others — was labeled "Box Office Poison" in 1938.

After that, his remaining screen roles were broad caricatures of himself, as in The Great Profile (with "Oh, Johnny, How You Can Love" as his theme music) and World Premiere. In the otherwise undistinguished Playmates, with band leader Kay Kyser, Barrymore recited the "To Be, or Not to Be" soliloquy from Hamlet. In 1935, Barrymore visited India, the land where his father had been born. In his private life, during his last years, he was married to his fourth and last wife, Elaine Barrie, a union that turned out to be disastrous. His brother Lionel tried to help him find a small place near Lionel's house and to convince him to stay away from impetuous marriages, which usually ended in divorce and put a strain on his once large income.

Personal life

Marriages and children

John Barrymore was married four times, each marriage ending in divorce. He had three children: he had one child, daughter Diana Blanche, with his second wife and two children, Dolores Ethel Mae and John Drew.

  1. Katherine Corri Harris (1890–1927), an actress who starred in the 1918 film The House of Mirth, on September 1, 1910 and divorced in 1917.
  2. Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs (1890–1950), aka "Michael Strange," who was a poetess, on August 5, 1920 and divorced her in 1925 and became Mrs. Harrison Tweed. They had one child:
  3. Dolores Costello (1903–1979), actress and model best known for Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1941); they married on November 24, 1928 and divorced in 1935. They had two children:
  4. Elaine Barrie (née Elaine Jacobs), (1916–2003), an actress; married November 9, 1936 and divorced 1940

Death

Barrymore collapsed while appearing on Rudy Vallee's radio show and died in his hospital room, shortly after 10 pm, May 29, 1942. A compulsive smoker his adult life, he also had been suffering from the effects of chronic alcoholism, heart problems and pneumonia. His dying words were "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." Gene Fowler attributes different dying words to Barrymore in his biography Good Night, Sweet Prince. According to Fowler, John Barrymore roused as if to say something to his brother Lionel; Lionel asked him to repeat himself, and he simply replied, "You heard me, Mike." "The Great Profile met death with a smile as if anxious for the new adventure."[10] With him at his bedside were his brother, Lionel. Daughter Diana was in the hospital at the time and sister Ethel had remained in Boston to finish her play at Barrymore's request.

Barrymore died of cirrhosis complicated by pneumonia,[11] came after an 11-day illness during which Dr. Hugo Kersten had alternately despaired and had been optimistic for his recovery. Shortly before Barrymore lapsed into his final coma, Kersten announced that the end was very near. Before his death Barrymore re-embraced the Catholic faith in which he was born, receiving the final rites of the church from Father O'Donnell.[10]

According to Errol Flynn's memoirs, film director Raoul Walsh "borrowed" Barrymore's body before burial, and left his corpse propped in a chair for a drunken Flynn to discover when he returned home from The Cock and Bull Bar. This was re-created in the movie W.C. Fields and Me. Other accounts of this classic Hollywood tale substitute actor Peter Lorre in the place of Walsh, but Walsh himself tells the story in Richard Schickel's 1973 documentary The Men Who Made the Movies. However, Barrymore's friend Gene Fowler denied the story, stating that he and his son held vigil over the body at the funeral home until the funeral and burial.[12]

He was buried in East Los Angeles, at Calvary Cemetery, on June 2. Surviving family members in attendance were his brother Lionel and his daughter Diana. Ex-wife Elaine also attended. Among his active pallbearers were Gene Fowler, John Decker, W.C. Fields, Herbert Marshall, Eddie Mannix, Louis B. Mayer, and David O. Selznick.[12] In 1980, Barrymore's son had his father's body reinterred at Philadelphia's Mount Vernon Cemetery.[11]

Legacy

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, John Barrymore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard.

Though both his brother and sister won Academy Awards, the only award Barrymore ever received for his screen work was from Rudolph Valentino in 1925 for Beau Brummel. Valentino created an award in his own name and felt that his fellow actors should receive accolades for their screen work.

John, Ethel and Lionel Barrymore are all members of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.[13]

In popular culture

Barrymore had been a friend and contemporary (and drinking companion) of his fellow Philadelphian W. C. Fields. In the 1976 film W.C. Fields and Me, Barrymore was played by Jack Cassidy. Cassidy, like Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. idolized Barrymore. Barrymore was also portrayed by Christopher Plummer (who was a friend of Diana Barrymore) in the 1996 two-man show Barrymore, later filmed in 2012 and by Errol Flynn in the 1958 biographical film about Diana entitled Too Much, Too Soon.

He is mentioned in the lyrics of the song "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)" by Harry Sullivan and Harry Ruskin, written in 1929, which became the theme song of the Apollo Theater in New York, and which was recorded by many artists including Doris Day in 1950.

In 1953, the comic book artist Graham Ingels (signing his name "Ghastly") used stills from Barrymore's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde silent film as reference for a homicidal maniac in the comic book story "Horror We? How's Bayou?" which appeared as the cover story for The Haunt of Fear #17, published by E.C. Comics, and introduced by The Old Witch.

In addition, his ghost is a major character in Paul Rudnik's comedy I Hate Hamlet.

A character based on Barrymore, an unnamed dog, appears in three Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons alongside the Goofy Gophers: The Goofy Gophers, A Ham in a Role, and Two Gophers from Texas.

He is featured in Queen's hit music video Under Pressure as Mr. Hyde in his silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Barrymore is a two-person play by William Luce, which first opened in 1996 and which depicts John Barrymore a few months before his death in 1942 as he is rehearsing a revival of his 1920 Broadway triumph as Richard III.

The Fort Lee Film Commission of Fort Lee, New Jersey, successfully petitioned the Borough to change the name of the intersection of Main Street and Central Road to John Barrymore Way on February 15 (Barrymore's birthday) in 2010. This was the site of the old Buckheister's Hotel where in 1900 the then 18-year-old John Barrymore made his stage debut in the play A Man of the World, directed by his father Maurice Barrymore for a Fort Lee Fire House fundraiser.[14][15] Both of his siblings have historic sites named after them, Ethel the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York which she opened in 1928 and Lionel a college theatre in Wisconsin.

Stage appearances

Barrymore in 1920
  • A Man of the World (1900) (Cincinnati)
  • Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (1901) (Philadelphia)
  • Madga (1903) (Chicago)
  • Leah the Forsaken (1903)
  • Glad of It (December 28, 1903 - January 1904) (Broadway)
  • The Dictator (April 4 - May 30, 1904; return engagement August 24 - September 1904) (Broadway and San Francisco)
  • Yvette (1904) (benefit performance for Actors Fund)
  • Pantaloon / Alice Sit-by-the-Fire (December 25, 1905 - March 1906) (Broadway)
  • Sunday (1905) (national tour)
  • His Excellency the Governor (Revival) (April 4 - May 1907) (Broadway)
  • The Boys of Company B (April 8 - July 1907) (replacement for Arnold Daly) (Broadway)
  • Toddles (March 16 - April 1908) (Broadway)
  • The Candy Shop (1908)
  • A Stubborn Cinderella (January 25 - April 10, 1909) (Broadway)
  • The Fortune Hunter (September 4, 1909 - July 1910) (Broadway and national tour)
  • Uncle Sam (October 30 - December 1911) (Broadway)
  • Princess Zim-Zim (1911) (national tour)
  • A Slice of Life (January 29 - March 1912) (Broadway and national tour)
  • Half a Husband/On the Quiet/The Honor of the Family/The Man from Home (1912) (summer repertory; Rochester, New York and Los Angeles)
  • The Affairs of Anatol (Revival) (October 14 - December 1912) (Broadway and national tour)
  • A Thief for a Night (1913) (Chicago)
  • Believe Me Xantippe (August 19 - October 1913) (Broadway)
  • The Yellow Ticket (January 20 - June 1914) (Broadway)
  • Kick In (October 15, 1914 - March 1915) (Broadway)
  • Justice (April 3 - July 1916) (Broadway)
  • Peter Ibbetson (April 17 - June 1917) (Broadway)
  • Redemption (October 3, 1918 - March 1919) (Broadway)
  • The Jest (April 9 - June 14, 1919; return engagement September 19, 1919 - February 28, 1920) (Broadway)
  • King Richard III (Revival) (March 6 - April 1920) (Broadway and London)
  • Clair de Lune (April 18 - June 1921) (Broadway)
  • Hamlet (Revival) (November 16, 1922 - February 1923; return engagement November 26 - December 1923; 1925) (Broadway, national tour, and London)
  • My Dear Children (1939; January 31 - May 18, 1940) (Broadway; national tour, Omaha, Chicago)

Filmography

Features
Year Title Role Notes
1914 An American Citizen Beresford Kruger Lost film
1914 The Man from Mexico Fitzhugh Lost film
1915 Are You a Mason? Frank Perry Lost film
1915 The Dictator Brooke Travers Lost film
1915 The Incorrigible Dukane James Dukane
1916 Nearly a King Jack Merriwell, Prince of Bulwana Lost film
1916 The Lost Bridegroom Bertie Joyce Lost film
1916 The Red Widow Cicero Hannibal Butts Lost film
1917 Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman A. J. Raffles
1917 National Red Cross Pageant The Tyrant (Russian episode) Lost film
1918 On the Quiet Robert Ridgeway Lost film
1919 Here Comes the Bride Frederick Tile Lost film
1919 The Test of Honor Martin Wingrave Lost film
1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Edward Hyde
1921 The Lotus Eater Jacques Leroi Lost film
1922 Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes
1924 Beau Brummel Gordon Bryon "Beau" Brummel
1926 The Sea Beast Captain Ahab Ceeley
1926 Don Juan Don Jose de Marana/Don Juan de Marana
1927 When a Man Loves Chevalier Fabien des Grieux
1927 The Beloved Rogue François Villon
1928 Tempest Sgt. Ivan Markov
1929 Eternal Love Marcus Paltran
1929 The Show of Shows Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) in Henry VI Part III
1930 General Crack Duke of Kurland/Prince Christian
1930 The Man from Blankley's Lord Strathpeffer Lost film
1930 Moby Dick Captain Ahab Ceely
1931 Svengali Svengali
1931 The Mad Genius Vladimar Ivan Tsarakov
1932 Arsène Lupin Arsène Lupin
1932 Grand Hotel The Baron
1932 State's Attorney Tom Cardigan
1932 A Bill of Divorcement Hilary Fairfield
1932 Rasputin and the Empress Prince Paul Chegodieff
1933 Topaze Prof. Auguste A. Topaze
1933 Reunion in Vienna Archduke Rudolf von Habsburg
1933 Dinner at Eight Larry Renault
1933 Night Flight Riviere
1933 Counsellor at Law George Simon
1934 Long Lost Father Carl Bellairs
1934 Twentieth Century Oscar Jaffe
1936 Romeo and Juliet Mercutio
1937 Maytime Nicolai Nazaroff
1937 Bulldog Drummond Comes Back Colonel Neilson
1937 Night Club Scandal Dr. Ernest Tindal
1937 Bulldog Drummond's Revenge Col. J.A. Nielson
1937 True Confession Charles "Charley" Jasper
1938 Bulldog Drummond's Peril Col. Neilson
1938 Romance in the Dark Zoltan Jason
1938 Marie Antoinette King Louis XV
1938 Spawn of the North Windy Turlon
1938 Hold That Co-ed Governor Gabby Harrigan
1939 The Great Man Votes Gregory Vance
1939 Midnight Georges Flammarion
1940 The Great Profile Evans Garrick
1940 The Invisible Woman Professor Gibbs
1941 World Premiere Duncan DeGrasse
1941 Playmates John Barrymore

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kobler, John. Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 24
  2. ↑ Obituary Variety, June 3, 1942.
  3. ↑ North American Theatre Online: John Barrymore site offered free to most colleges & universities
  4. ↑ Kobler, John Nom. Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 25
  5. ↑ Kobler, John. Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 41
  6. ↑ Kobler, John. Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 88
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts: The San Francisco Earthquake, Stein and Day, New York and Souvenir Press, London, 1971; reprinted Dell, 1972, SBN 440-07631, page 212
  8. ↑ Over There: The United States in the Great War, 1917-1918 p.52 c.1999 by Byron Farwell
  9. ↑ Mosher, John, in The New Yorker, March 27, 1937, p.70
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Billboard, June 6, 1942
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Donnelley, Paul (2003). Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries. Music Sales Group. p. 67. ISBN 0-711-99512-5. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Kobler, John. Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore, New York: Atheneum, 1977, p. 364
  13. ↑ "Theater Hall of Fame members". Retrieved February 6, 2014. 
  14. ↑ See the book Great times Good Times The Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore by James Kotsilibas-Davis and The House of Barrymore by Margot Peters, as well as the Fort Lee Film Commission (www.fortleefilm.org). At the time Maurice Barrymore lived in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee with his son John, and was a member of the Coytesville Fire Department.
  15. ↑ John Barrymore Way street sign, the road named after Jack; Fort Lee, New Jersey

Sources

  • Good Night, Sweet Prince (1944) by Gene Fowler
  • The New Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace
  • The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee
  • Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore (1977), by John Kobler

External links

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