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John Barrymore

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John Sidney Blythe Barrymore (February 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942), better known as just John Barrymore and nicknamed "The Great Profile", became famous as a Shakespearean actor, lauded for his Hamlet, and was frequently regarded as the greatest actor of his generation, playing a wide variety of roles on stage and in films. Barrymore was the grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore and brother of acting legends Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore.

Contents

Background

Barrymore was born John Sidney Blythe in Philadelphia into an illustrious theatrical family. He was expelled from Georgetown Preparatory School in 1898 after being caught attending a bordello.David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace: The New Book of Lists, p.9. Canongate, 2005. ISBN 1841957194.. His classic nose and distinguished features won him the nickname "The Great Profile." His height was 5'9" (1.75m). He was a hard drinking adventurer with a jaunty personality but a troubled personal life that probably cut his life short. Barrymore delivered some of the most critically acclaimed performances in theatre and cinema history. He was regarded by many as the screen's greatest performer during a movie career spanning 25 years as a leading man in more than 60 films. His movie roles included Sherlock Holmes (1922), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Captain Ahab in both The Sea Beast (1926) and Moby Dick (1930), Don Juan (1926), Svengali (1931), Raffles the Amateur Cracksman (1917), and the leading man in the great ensemble classics Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933) and Twentieth Century (1934), among many others. He continuously worked opposite many of the foremost leading ladies, including Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Carole Lombard. In the late 1930s alcoholism and possibly Alzheimer's Disease encroached on his ability to remember his lines. His last movie characters were broad and distasteful caricatures of himself, in movies such as Playmates (1941).

Lionel, Ethel, and Drew Barrymore

Barrymore was the younger brother of actor Lionel ("Mr. Potter" in It's A Wonderful Life) and actress Ethel Barrymore, and the grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore.

Philandering

A notorious ladies' man, he courted the actress Mary Astor and also the showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (as her involvement with married architect Stanford White was waning). When Nesbit became pregnant, Barrymore proposed marriage. But White intervened, and arranged for the still-teenaged Evelyn to undergo an operation for "appendicitis." White was later murdered by Nesbit's vengeful husband, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry K. Thaw.

Marriages

Barrymore married:
  1. Katherine Corri Harris (1891-1927), an actress who starred in the 1918 film The House of Mirth, on September 1, 1910 and divorced in 1916.
  2. Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs (1890-1950), a New York mining heiress who wrote under the pseudonym "Michael Strange," on August 5, 1920 and divorced her in 1925. They had one child:
  3. * Diana Blanche Barrymore (1921-1960), whose tragic life ended at age thirty-eight.
  4. Dolores Costello (1903-1979), an actress and model best known for her role as Dearest in the movie Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936); they married on November 24, 1928 and divorced in 1935. They had two children:
  5. * Dolores Ethel Mae Barrymore (a semi-autobiographical story of her life was depicted in the filmToo Much, Too Soon produced by Warner Brothers in 1958 and starred Errol Flynn as her father).
  6. * John Drew Barrymore (father of Drew Barrymore).
  7. Elaine Barrie (née Elaine Jacobs), (1916-2003), an actress; they married on November 9, 1936 and divorced in 1940.

Dying Words

His dying words were "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." According to Errol Flynn's memoirs, film director Raoul Walsh "borrowed" Barrymore's body after the funeral, and left his corpse propped in a chair for a drunken Flynn to discover when he returned home from The Cock and Bull Bar. Other accounts of this classic Hollywood tale substitute actor Peter Lorre in the place of Walsh.

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

Filmography

  1. Playmates (1941) .... John Barrymore
  2. World Premiere (1941) .... Duncan DeGrasse
  3. The Invisible Woman (1940) .... Prof. Gibbs
  4. The Great Profile (1940) .... Evans Garrick
  5. Midnight (1939) .... Georges Flammarion
  6. The Great Man Votes (1939) .... Gregory Vance
  7. Hold That Co-ed (1938) .... Gov. Gabby Harrington
  8. : ... aka Hold That Girl (UK)
  9. Spawn of the North (1938) .... Windy Turlon
  10. Marie Antoinette (1938) .... King Louis XV
  11. Romance in the Dark (1938) .... Zoltan Jason
  12. Bulldog Drummond's Peril (1938) .... Col. Neilson
  13. True Confession (1937) .... Charley
  14. Bulldog Drummond's Revenge (1937) .... Col. J.A. Nielson
  15. Night Club Scandal (1937) .... Dr. Ernest Tindal
  16. Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937) .... Col. Neilson
  17. Maytime (1937) .... Nicolai Nazaroff
  18. Romeo and Juliet (1936) .... Mercutio (kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo)
  19. Twentieth Century (1934) .... Oscar 'O.J.' Jaffe
  20. : ... aka 20th Century (USA: poster title)
  21. Long Lost Father (1934) .... Carl Bellairs
  22. Counsellor at Law (1933) .... George Simon
  23. Night Flight (1933) .... Riviere
  24. Dinner at Eight (1933) .... Larry Renault
  25. Reunion in Vienna (1933) .... Rudolf
  26. Topaze (1933/I) .... Prof. Auguste A. Topaze
  27. Hamlet - Act I: Scene V (1933) .... Hamlet
  28. Rasputin and the Empress (1932) .... Prince Paul Chegodieff
  29. : ... aka Rasputin the Mad Monk (UK)
  30. A Bill of Divorcement (1932) .... Hilary Fairfield
  31. State's Attorney (1932) .... Tom Cardigan
  32. : ... aka Cardigan's Last Case (UK)
  33. Grand Hotel (1932) .... Baron Felix von Geigern
  34. Arsène Lupin (1932) .... Duke of Chamerace/Arsène Lupin
  35. The Mad Genius (1931) .... Vladimar Ivan Tsarakov
  36. Svengali (1931) .... Maestro Svengali
  37. Moby Dick (1930) .... Captain Ahab Ceely
  38. The Man from Blankley's (1930) .... Lord Strathpeffer
  39. General Crack (1930) .... Duke of Kurland/Prince Christian
  40. The Show of Shows (1929) .... Richard III in 'Henry VI Part III'
  41. Eternal Love (1929) .... Marcus Paltran
  42. Tempest (1928) .... Sgt. Ivan Markov
  43. The Beloved Rogue (1927) .... François Villon
  44. When a Man Loves (1927) .... Chevalier Fabien des Grieux
  45. : ... aka His Lady (UK)
  46. Don Juan (1926) .... Don Jose de Marana/Don Juan de Marana
  47. The Sea Beast (1926) .... Captain Ahab Ceeley
  48. Beau Brummel (1924) .... Gordon Bryon 'Beau' Brummel
  49. Sherlock Holmes (1922) .... Sherlock Holmes
  50. : ... aka Moriarty (UK)
  51. The Lotus Eater (1921) .... Jacques Leroi
  52. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920/I) .... Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde
  53. The Test of Honor (1919) .... Martin Wingrave
  54. Here Comes the Bride (1919) .... Frederick Tile
  55. On the Quiet (1918) .... Robert Ridgeway
  56. National Red Cross Pageant (1917) .... The tyrant
  57. Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917) .... A.J. Raffles
  58. : ... aka Raffles
  59. The Red Widow (1916) .... Cicero Hannibal Butts
  60. The Lost Bridegroom (1916) .... Bertie Joyce
  61. : ... aka His Lost Self
  62. Nearly a King (1916) .... Jack Merriwell, Prince of Bulwana
  63. The Incorrigible Dukane (1915) .... James Dukane
  64. The Dictator (1915) .... Brooke Travers
  65. Are You a Mason? (1915) .... Frank Perry
  66. : ... aka The Joiner
  67. The Man from Mexico (1914) .... Fitzhugh
  68. An American Citizen (1914) .... Beresford Kruger
  69. One on Romance (1913) (unconfirmed)
  70. A Prize Package (1912) (unconfirmed)
  71. The Widow Casey's Return (1912) (unconfirmed)
  72. The Dream of a Moving Picture Director (1912) (unconfirmed)

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