AOL: John Barrymore's biographer challenges the Hollywood corpse party legend Drew Barrymore once confirmed
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John Barrymore
John Barrymore was an American actor on stage, screen, and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage and briefly attempted a career as a visual artist, but appeared on stage together with his father, Maurice, in 1900, and then his sister Ethel the following year. He began his career in 1903 and first gained attention as a stage actor in li…
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entertainment · American actor (1882–1942) · stage actor · film actor · actor · screenwriter · writer · also John Barrymore, John Sidney Blyth, Jack Barrymore, Barrymore
Born 15 February 1882 · Died 29 May 1942 · Q95034
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2026· 2 entries
The New Yorker: John Barrymore Is with Us Again—Three Movies—and a Dancer
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2025· 1 entry
insider.si.edu: John Barrymore
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2011· 1 entry
The picture was added to the National Film Registry, where it was described as Barrymore's "last great film role"
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2000· 1 entry
That many of these earlier works are less than reliable
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1997· 1 entry
Which focuses on Barrymore's stage work
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1996· 1 entry
And depicts Barrymore shortly before his death in 1942 as he is rehearsing a revival of his Richard III
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1991· 1 entry
Paul Rudnick's comedy I Hate Hamlet, performed at the Walter Kerr Theatre, was set in Barrymore's former apartment
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1982· 1 entry
On the centenary of Barrymore's birth
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1980· 1 entry
Barrymore's son had his father's body cremated and reinterred in the family plot in Philadelphia's Mount Vernon Cemetery
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1963· 1 entry
Orson Welles said that Barrymore was the best Hamlet he had seen, describing the character as "not so much princely – he was a man of genius who happened to be a prince, and he was tender, and virile, and witty, and dang
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1954· 1 entry
And their sister Ethel died on June 18, 1959
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1942· 4 entries
Died 1942-05-29.
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While recording a line from Romeo and Juliet for the show, Barrymore collapsed
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“The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run.”
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“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”
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1940· 2 entries
Left more than the customary hand and footprints in the theater's forecourt: aided by the owner, Sid Grauman, Barrymore left a cement imprint of his facial profile
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Barrymore appeared in The Great Profile, a spoof of his life in the months prior to My Dear Children
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1938· 1 entry
After encountering financial difficulties
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1937· 2 entries
Was served with divorce papers, and a month later he filed for bankruptcy protection, with debts of $160,000
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And 1938, including as Colonel Nielson in three Bulldog Drummond films, and roles in True Confession and Marie Antoinette
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1935· 1 entry
Citing mental cruelty, habitual intemperance, and desertion
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1934· 2 entries
The drama Long Lost Father and the screwball comedy Twentieth Century
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As Theatre Royal, with Laurence Olivier in the Barrymore role, and adapted as a film in 1930, with March reprising his performance
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1932· 1 entry
Barrymore went to RKO Pictures where he played a borderline-alcoholic lawyer in State's Attorney, and an escaped lunatic in A Bill of Divorcement, opposite Katharine Hepburn in her screen debut
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1931· 1 entry
Played a crippled puppeteer, who tries to fulfill his frustrated ambitions by manipulating the life of a young male ballet dancer and the dancer's lover (also Marsh) in The Mad Genius; the film was a commercial failur
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1927· 2 entries
The Barrymore family was parodied in The Royal Family in which a character based on him was portrayed by Fredric March, whose performance Barrymore admired
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Barrymore planned to revive Hamlet at the Hollywood Bowl, but in August he canceled the production, without explanation, and began filming the third of the UA pictures, Eternal Love, for which he was paid $150,000
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1925· 1 entry
Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and instead focused entirely on films
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1921· 1 entry
Barrymore portrayed a wealthy Frenchman in New York in the film The Lotus Eater, with Colleen Moore
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1919· 1 entry
Barrymore portrayed a struggling lawyer in the film adaptation of the Broadway show Here Comes the Bride, which he followed with The Test of Honor
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1918· 1 entry
Barrymore starred in the romantic comedy film On the Quiet; the Iowa City Press-Citizen considered the film superior to the original Broadway performance
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1906· 1 entry
White was shot and killed by Nesbit's then-husband, the mentally unstable Pittsburgh millionaire heir Harry K
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1903· 1 entry
And first gained attention as a stage actor in light comedy, then high drama, culminating in productions of Justice (1916), Richard III (1920), and Hamlet (1922); his portrayal of Hamlet led to him being called the "grea
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1902· 1 entry
And Barrymore proposed marriage to her
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1901· 1 entry
Had a major impact on Barrymore
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1900· 2 entries
Was persuaded by his father to join him on stage for a few performances of a short play, "A Man of the World" which his father had produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey near his home in town
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And then his sister Ethel the following year
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1898· 1 entry
Where he joined King's College School, Wimbledon
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1895· 1 entry
Barrymore entered Georgetown Preparatory School, then located on Georgetown University Campus, but he was expelled in November 1897, probably after being caught waiting in a brothel
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1892· 1 entry
His grandmother Louisa Drew's business began to suffer, and she lost control of her theater, causing disruption in the family
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1891· 1 entry
And was sent to Seton Hall Preparatory School in New Jersey, where Lionel was already studying
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1884· 1 entry
The family traveled to London as part of Augustin Daly's theatrical company, returning to the US two years later
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1882· 1 entry
Born 1882-02-15.
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