John Barrymore

Lore & Background

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 adopted Barrymore as a stage name. His mother, Georgie Drew, was born into a prominent theatrical family. Much of Barrymore's early life was unsettled: he attended elementary schools in four states, was expelled from one school in 1891, and later from Georgetown Preparatory School in November 1897, probably after being caught waiting in a brothel or after staff saw him inebriated. By the time he left Georgetown he was, according to biographer Martin Norden, 'already in the early stages of a chronic drinking problem.'

Barrymore traveled with his father to England in 1898, where he joined King's College School, Wimbledon, and later the Slade School of Fine Art to study literature and art. He returned to New York in the summer of 1900 and found work as an illustrator on The New York Evening Journal. He professed a dislike of acting but was persuaded by his father to join him on stage in 1900 for a short play, 'A Man of the World.' In October 1901, he appeared with his sister Ethel in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, but stopped in the middle of his dialogue, unable to remember the text. In March 1901, his father had a mental breakdown from tertiary syphilis, and Barrymore, after a discussion with Ethel, took him to Bellevue Hospital. Barrymore became fascinated with Evelyn Nesbit, a 16- or 17-year-old artists' model and aspiring actress, and had a romantic affair with her in 1902; he proposed marriage, but her mother and Stanford White sent her away to school in November 1902 to break off the relationship.

Reader's Guide

After success as Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and focused entirely on films. In the silent film era, he was well received in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Sherlock Holmes (1922), and The Sea Beast (1926), and gained his nickname, the Great Profile. His stage-trained voice proved an asset when sound films were introduced, and four of his works—Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Twentieth Century (1934), and Midnight (1939)—have been inducted into the National Film Registry. Barrymore's personal life has been the subject of much attention: he struggled with alcohol abuse from age 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, biographer Martin Norden considers him to be 'perhaps the most influential and idolized actor of his day.'

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 November 1897, possibly after being caught in a brothel or seen inebriated.
• His father, Maurice Barrymore, had a mental breakdown from tertiary syphilis in March 1901.
• Four of his sound films—Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, Twentieth Century, and Midnight—have been inducted into the National Film Registry.