Maurice Barrymore

Maurice Barrymore, born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blyth on 21 September 1849 in Amritsar, India, was a British stage actor who became one of the most prominent figures on the American stage in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He is the patriarch of the Barrymore acting dynasty and the father of actors Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore. His mother, Charlotte Matilda Chamberlayne de Tankerville, died shortly after his birth, and his father, William Edward Blythe, was a surveyor for the British East India Company. The youngest of seven children, with an older brother named Will and sisters named Emily and Evelin, Barrymore was raised in his early years by his maternal aunt, Amelia Blyth, and later by other family members.

Sent to England for his education, Barrymore attended Harrow School and studied law at Oxford University, where he captained his class football team in 1868. He also developed a passion for boxing and on 21 March 1872 won the middleweight boxing championship of England. His father had expected him to pursue a career as a barrister, but Barrymore fell in with a circle of actors, which his father considered a disgrace. To spare his father embarrassment, he adopted the stage name Maurice Barrymore, a name inspired by a conversation with fellow actor Charles Vandenhoff about the early nineteenth-century English thespian William Barrymore, whose name Barrymore had seen on a poster at the Haymarket Theatre. He preferred his first name to be pronounced in the French manner and was called simply "Barry" by his friends. In 1872 he also sat for his first theatrical photographic portrait, taken by Oliver Sarony.

On 29 December 1874, Barrymore emigrated to the United States, sailing aboard the SS America to Boston, and joined Augustin Daly's troupe, making his debut in Under the Gaslight. His Broadway debut followed in December 1875 in Pique, opposite Emily Rigl, a production in which he first appeared alongside the actress Georgiana Drew. The two had been introduced earlier by her brother John Drew Jr., who had befriended Barrymore upon his arrival in America. After a brief courtship, Barrymore and Georgiana married on 31 December 1876. They had three children: Lionel, born in 1878; Ethel, born in 1879; and John, born in 1882. While their parents toured, the children lived with Georgiana's mother in Philadelphia.

On 19 March 1879, in Marshall, Texas, Barrymore and fellow actor Ben Porter were shot by a gunfighter named Jim Currie. The incident began after Barrymore, Porter, and actress Ellen Cummins dined at the White House Saloon, where an intoxicated Currie, who had earlier lost money to them at cards, began insulting and provoking them. When Barrymore challenged Currie to a fistfight, Currie shot him in the chest and shot Porter in the stomach. Porter died from his wound, while doctors operated through the night to save Barrymore's life. Georgiana, then several months pregnant with Ethel, traveled to Texas to be at her husband's side. Barrymore recovered fully and returned to Marshall for the legal proceedings that followed. Currie was acquitted after a ten-minute deliberation, an outcome Barrymore attributed to the influence of Currie's brother Andrew, who served as mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, from 1878 to 1890 and later as a member of the Louisiana state legislature. Barrymore vowed never to return to Texas.

In 1884, Barrymore wrote a play titled Nadjezda, meaning "hope." During this period he traveled with Georgiana and their children to England, where he met the French actress Sarah Bernhardt and gave her a copy of the manuscript without having copyrighted the work. When Victorien Sardou, a friend of Bernhardt's, published his play La Tosca in 1886, Barrymore claimed that Bernhardt had shared his manuscript with Sardou and that La Tosca plagiarized Nadjezda. He sought an injunction to halt further performances of the play by Fanny Davenport. In affidavits submitted to the court, Bernhardt denied ever having seen the play, and Sardou stated that preliminary material for La Tosca had been in his possession for fifteen years.

Georgiana died on 2 July 1893 from consumption, leaving Barrymore a widower with three teenage children. Exactly one year after her death, he married Mamie Floyd. Barrymore had a lifelong love of animals and in the 1890s purchased a farm on Staten Island to house his collection of exotic animals. In 1896, he became the first major Broadway star to headline in vaudeville. Throughout his career he performed opposite many leading actresses of the era, including Helena Modjeska, Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Olga Nethersole, Lillian Russell, and Lily Langtry.

His Broadway credits included Roaring Dick & Co., A Woman of No Importance, New Blood, and the play The Heart of Maryland, in which he co-starred with Mrs. Leslie Carter during the 1895 theater season. In the 1899 season he appeared opposite Mrs. Fiske in Becky Sharp, playing the role of Rawdon Crawley, a character drawn from William Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair. Becky Sharp proved to be his last Broadway success. In 1900, Barrymore toured the United States in The Battle of the Strong, co-starring a young Holbrook Blinn.

Maurice Barrymore died on 25 March 1905. Originally from Fort Agra, India, he had built a Broadway career spanning from 1875 and left behind a theatrical legacy carried forward by three of the most celebrated actors of the twentieth century.