John Barrymore

Lore & Background

After a success as Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and instead focused entirely on films. In the silent film era, he was well received in such pictures as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Sherlock Holmes (1922), and The Sea Beast (1926). During this period, he gained his nickname, the Great Profile. His stage-trained voice proved an asset when sound films were introduced, and three of his works, Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), and Twentieth Century (1934), have been inducted into the National Film Registry. Barrymore's personal life has been the subject of much attention before and since his death. He struggled with alcohol abuse from the age of 14, was married and divorced four times, and declared bankruptcy later in life. Much of his later work involved self-parody and the portrayal of drunken has-beens. His obituary in The Washington Post observed that 'with the passing of the years – and as his private life became more public – he became, despite his genius in the theater, a tabloid character.' Although film historians have opined that Barrymore's 'contribution to the art of cinematic acting began to fade' after the mid-1930s, Barrymore's biographer, Martin Norden, considers him to be 'perhaps the most influential and idolized actor of his day'.

Reader's Guide

Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandmother Louisa Lane Drew and was known by family, friends and colleagues as 'Jack'. Although the Barrymore family Bible puts his date of birth as February 15, 1882, his birth certificate shows February 14. He was the youngest of three children. His siblings were Lionel (1878–1954), and Ethel (1879–1959). His father was Maurice Barrymore, an Indian-born British actor who had been born Herbert Blyth, and had adopted Barrymore as a stage name after seeing it on a poster in the Haymarket Theatre in London. Barrymore's mother, Georgie Drew, was born into a prominent theatrical family. His maternal grandparents were Louisa Lane Drew, a well-known 19th-century American actress and the manager of the Arch Street Theatre, and John Drew, also an actor whose specialty was comedy. Barrymore's maternal aunt and uncles were more thespians, John Drew Jr., Sidney Drew, and Georgiana Kinlock. Much of Barrymore's early life was unsettled. In October 1882, the family toured in the US for a season with Polish actress Helena Modjeska. The following year his parents toured again with Modjeska but left the children behind. Modjeska was influential in the family, and she insisted that all three children be baptized into the Catholic Church. In 1884 the family traveled to London as part of Augustin Daly's theatrical company, returning to the US two years later. As a child, Barrymore was sometimes badly behaved, and he was sent away to schools in an attempt to instill discipline. The strategy was not always successful, and he attended elementary schools in four states. He was sent first to the boys' annex of the Convent of Notre Dame in Philadelphia. One punishment that he received there was being made to read a copy of Dante's Inferno; he later recounted that, as he looked at the illustrations by Gustave Doré, 'my interest was aroused, and a new urge was born within me. I wanted to be an artist'. He was expelled from the school in 1891 and was sent to Seton Hall Preparatory School in New Jersey, where Lionel was already studying. Barrymore was unhappy at Seton and was soon withdrawn, after which he attended several public schools in New York, including the Mount Pleasant Military Academy. In 1892, his grandmother Louisa Drew's business began to suffer, and she lost control of her theater, causing disru

Did You Know?

• Barrymore's birth certificate shows February 14, 1882, but the family Bible lists February 15.
• He was expelled from Georgetown Preparatory School in 1897, possibly after being caught in a brothel or seen inebriated.
• Barrymore proposed to Evelyn Nesbit in 1902, but her mother opposed the match.
• Three of his sound films—Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, and Twentieth Century—are in the National Film Registry.