John Barrymore

John Barrymore, born John Sidney Blyth on February 14 or 15, 1882, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, screen, and radio. The son of Maurice Barrymore, an Indian-born British actor, and Georgie Drew Barrymore, he was the youngest of three children, with siblings Lionel and Ethel. His family background was deeply rooted in the theatrical world: his maternal grandmother, Louisa Lane Drew, was a prominent 19th-century American actress and manager of the Arch Street Theatre, and his maternal uncles John Drew Jr. and Sidney were also actors. Barrymore was known to family, friends, and colleagues as "Jack."

Despite his theatrical lineage, Barrymore initially resisted the stage and pursued work as a visual artist, finding employment as an illustrator for The New York Evening Journal at $50 a week after returning to New York in 1900. His father persuaded him to appear on stage in a short play, "A Man of the World," in Fort Lee, New Jersey that same year, and in October 1901 his sister Ethel arranged for him to take a minor role in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines in Philadelphia when another actor became unavailable. Barrymore's formal Broadway career began in 1903 and would continue through 1940.

His early Broadway work placed him in light comedies, including the musical Stubborn Cinderella and the play Alice Sit-by-the-Fire, as well as Uncle Sam and The Affairs of Anatol, among other productions. Over time he transitioned from comic roles to serious drama, with productions of Justice in 1916, Richard III in 1920, and Hamlet in 1922 marking the peak of his stage career. His portrayal of Hamlet earned him recognition as the greatest living American tragedian. Following a successful run of Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore departed the stage for fourteen years to concentrate on film work, returning to Broadway as late as 1940 with The Jest among his later credits.

In silent films, Barrymore received strong notices for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1920, Sherlock Holmes in 1922, and The Sea Beast in 1926, and during this period acquired the nickname the Great Profile. The arrival of sound film suited his stage-trained voice, and four of his films — Grand Hotel in 1932, Dinner at Eight in 1933, Twentieth Century in 1934, and Midnight in 1939 — were later inducted into the National Film Registry.

Barrymore's personal life attracted considerable public attention throughout his lifetime and after his death. He struggled with alcohol abuse from the age of 14, was married and divorced four times, and declared bankruptcy later in life. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eleven, and he was largely raised by his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew, who died in 1897. His father suffered a mental breakdown in 1901 as a result of tertiary syphilis, an event that, according to close friend Gene Fowler, left Barrymore haunted by fears he would suffer the same fate. Much of his later professional work involved self-parody and the portrayal of drunken has-beens. Barrymore's biographer Martin Norden described him as perhaps the most influential and idolized actor of his day. He died on May 29, 1942.