Diana Barrymore

Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe was born on March 3, 1921, in New York, New York, the daughter of celebrated actor John Barrymore and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs, who published her writing and performed under the name Michael Strange. Her parents divorced when she was four years old, and she grew up with limited contact with her father. Barrymore received her education in both Paris and New York City.

During her teenage years, Barrymore resolved to pursue acting and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. The weight of the Barrymore name in theatrical circles generated considerable attention as she prepared to enter the profession, including a 1939 cover appearance in Life magazine. She made her Broadway debut at age 19, launching a stage career that would span from 1940 to 1946. Her Broadway credits include Happy Days, Hidden Horizon, Rebecca, The Land Is Bright, and Romantic Mr. Dickens.

The year following her Broadway debut, Barrymore made her first film appearance in a small role in a Warner Bros. production. In 1942, she signed a contract with Universal Studios, which mounted a major promotional campaign around her family name, billing her as "1942's Most Sensational New Screen Personality." She completed six significant film roles at Universal before personal difficulties, including alcohol and drug problems, drew damaging media coverage and effectively ended her Hollywood career in under three years. That same year, her father John Barrymore died of cirrhosis of the liver, a consequence of long-term alcoholism.

The years that followed were marked by severe personal instability. Barrymore experienced bouts of deep depression, made several suicide attempts, and spent extended periods in sanitariums. She exhausted both her film earnings and her inheritance from her father's estate. When her mother died in 1950, Barrymore was left with virtually nothing from what had once been a substantial family fortune. In 1949, she had been offered her own television talk show, The Diana Barrymore Show, but she failed to appear for the broadcast and the program was immediately canceled. Had it aired, it would have predated Joe Franklin's program by two years, making it the first talk show in television history.

Barrymore was married three times. Her first husband was actor Bramwell Fletcher, followed by tennis player John Howard. Her third and final marriage was to actor Robert Wilcox, which ended in June 1955 when Wilcox died of a heart attack at age 45 while traveling by train. In the early 1950s, she and her third husband had toured Australia, a continent she later expressed dislike for upon returning to the United States. Following the end of her third marriage, Barrymore voluntarily entered a hospital in 1955 and underwent nearly a full year of treatment.

In 1957, she published her autobiography, Too Much, Too Soon, written with the assistance of ghostwriter Gerold Frank, and featuring a portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker. That July, she appeared on The Mike Wallace Interview to promote the book, stating that she was not drinking at the time and expressing uncertainty about whether she would ever be able to drink moderately. Warner Bros. adapted the autobiography into a film the following year, with Dorothy Malone portraying Barrymore and Errol Flynn playing her father, though the picture was poorly received by critics and audiences alike.

Diana Barrymore died on January 25, 1960. Her death was attributed to a drug overdose, though her autopsy did not establish a definitive cause of death and found no conclusive evidence of overdose. She is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, beside her mother.