Diana Barrymore
Encyclopedia
Diana Barrymore was an American film and stage actress.
, New York
, she was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore
and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs
. She was stepdaughter of Dolores Costello
and half-sister of actor John Drew Barrymore
.
Her parents' tumultuous marriage lasted only a few years and they divorced when she was four. Educated in Paris, France and at schools in New York City, she had little contact with her estranged father, a situation exacerbated by her mother's bitterness towards him. Her parenting was left to boarding school
s and nannies
.
. Because of the prominence of the Barrymore name in the world of theatre
, her move onto the stage began with much publicity including a 1939 cover of Life. At age 19, Barrymore made her Broadway
debut and the following year made her first appearance in motion pictures with a small role in a Warner Bros.
production. In 1942, she signed a contract with Universal Studios
who capitalized on her Barrymore name with a major promotion campaign billing her as "1942's Most Sensational New Screen Personality." However, alcohol
and drug
problems soon emerged and negative publicity from major media sources dampened her prospects with widely read magazines such as Collier's Weekly
, writing about her conduct in an October 1942 article titled "The Barrymore Brat". After less than three years in Hollywood, and five significant film roles, Barrymore's personal problems ended her film career.
Her father died in 1942 from cirrhosis
of the liver after years of alcoholism
. Barrymore's life became a series of alcohol and drug related disasters marked by bouts of severe depression
that resulted in several suicide
attempts and extended sanitarium
stays. She squandered her movie earnings and her inheritance from her father's estate, and when her mother died in 1950 she was left with virtually nothing from a once-vast family fortune.
After three bad marriages to addicted and sometimes abusive
men, in 1955 Barrymore had herself hospitalized for nearly a full year of treatment. In 1957, she published her autobiography, Too Much, Too Soon which included her portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker
, and the following year Warner Bros.
made a film with the same title
starring Dorothy Malone
as Barrymore and Errol Flynn
as her father.
, who was seventeen years her senior. Then she married John Howard, a tennis player. Her last marriage was to a handsome but abusive man named Robert Wilcox
. Diana might have found Wilcox to be the love of her life, but he nearly beat her to death in one of his assaults. The marriage to Wilcox ended only when he died of a heart attack at 45 in 1955.
Barrymore died from an overdose
of alcohol and sleeping pills on January 25, 1960 and is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery
in The Bronx, New York, next to her mother.
Early life
Born Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, she was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs
Blanche Oelrichs
Blanche Oelrichs was an American poet, playwright, and theatre actress known by the pseudonym, "Michael Strange."-Biography:...
. She was stepdaughter of Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
and half-sister of actor John Drew Barrymore
John Drew Barrymore
John Drew Barrymore was a member of the Barrymore family of actors, which included his father, John Barrymore, and his father's siblings, Lionel and Ethel...
.
Her parents' tumultuous marriage lasted only a few years and they divorced when she was four. Educated in Paris, France and at schools in New York City, she had little contact with her estranged father, a situation exacerbated by her mother's bitterness towards him. Her parenting was left to boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
s and nannies
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
.
Career
While in her teens, Barrymore decided to study acting and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic ArtsAmerican Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
. Because of the prominence of the Barrymore name in the world of theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, her move onto the stage began with much publicity including a 1939 cover of Life. At age 19, Barrymore made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut and the following year made her first appearance in motion pictures with a small role in a Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
production. In 1942, she signed a contract with Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
who capitalized on her Barrymore name with a major promotion campaign billing her as "1942's Most Sensational New Screen Personality." However, alcohol
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and drug
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
problems soon emerged and negative publicity from major media sources dampened her prospects with widely read magazines such as Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
, writing about her conduct in an October 1942 article titled "The Barrymore Brat". After less than three years in Hollywood, and five significant film roles, Barrymore's personal problems ended her film career.
Her father died in 1942 from cirrhosis
Cirrhosis
Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrosis, scar tissue and regenerative nodules , leading to loss of liver function...
of the liver after years of alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Barrymore's life became a series of alcohol and drug related disasters marked by bouts of severe depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
that resulted in several suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
attempts and extended sanitarium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
stays. She squandered her movie earnings and her inheritance from her father's estate, and when her mother died in 1950 she was left with virtually nothing from a once-vast family fortune.
After three bad marriages to addicted and sometimes abusive
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
men, in 1955 Barrymore had herself hospitalized for nearly a full year of treatment. In 1957, she published her autobiography, Too Much, Too Soon which included her portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker
Spurgeon Tucker
Spurgeon Tucker was an accomplished 20th century American painter and successful lithographer. He was primarily known for his portraits of Hollywood celebrities, but many would contend that his finest works were of the things he loved most: his family, everyday items from his Long Island home and...
, and the following year Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
made a film with the same title
Too Much, Too Soon
Too Much, Too Soon is a 1958 biographical film made by Warner Bros.. It was directed by Art Napoleon and produced by Henry Blanke from a screenplay by Art Napoleon and Jo Napoleon, based on the autobiography by Diana Barrymore and Gerold Frank. The music score was by Ernest Gold and the...
starring Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
as Barrymore and Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
as her father.
Personal life and death
Barrymore was married three times, first to actor Bramwell FletcherBramwell Fletcher
Bramwell Fletcher was a British stage, film, and television actor....
, who was seventeen years her senior. Then she married John Howard, a tennis player. Her last marriage was to a handsome but abusive man named Robert Wilcox
Robert Wilcox (actor)
Robert Wilcox , was a U.S. movie actor of the 1930s and 40s. His career began in earnest in 1936 after being discovered doing a summer-stock production of The Petrified Forest...
. Diana might have found Wilcox to be the love of her life, but he nearly beat her to death in one of his assaults. The marriage to Wilcox ended only when he died of a heart attack at 45 in 1955.
Barrymore died from an overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
of alcohol and sleeping pills on January 25, 1960 and is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
in The Bronx, New York, next to her mother.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | Manpower Manpower (1941 film) Manpower is a 1941 film about power company linemen starring Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, and George Raft. The memorable posters for the movie proclaimed, "Robinson - He's mad about Dietrich. Dietrich - She's mad about Raft... |
Bit part | |
| 1942 | Eagle Squadron Eagle squadron The Eagle Squadrons were 3 fighter squadrons of the Royal Air Force formed during World War II with volunteer pilots from the United States... |
Anne Partridge | |
| 1942 | Between Us Girls | Caroline Bishop | |
| 1942 | Nightmare Nightmare (1942 film) Nightmare is a 1942 film starring Diana Barrymore and Brian Donlevy. Diana Barrymore plays Leslie Stafford, a secretary who seeks the help of a home invader to dispose of the body of her murdered husband.... |
Leslie Stafford | |
| 1943 | Frontier Badmen | Claire | |
| 1943 | Fired Wife | Eve | |
| 1944 | Ladies Courageous | Nadine Shannon | |
| 1944 | The Adventures of Mark Twain The Adventures of Mark Twain The Adventures of Mark Twain is a 1944 biographical film starring Fredric March as Samuel Clemens and Alexis Smith as his wife, Olivia... |
Undetermined role | Uncredited |
| 1950 | D.O.A. D.O.A. (1950 film) D.O.A. , a film noir drama film directed by Rudolph Maté, is considered a classic of the genre. The frantically paced plot revolves around a doomed man's quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies.Leo C... |
Unconfirmed bit part | Uncredited |
| 1951 | The Mob | Bit part | Uncredited |
External links
- The Tragic Life of Diana Barrymore
- Diana Barrymore interviewed on television by Mike WallaceMike Wallace (journalist)Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
on July 14, 1957 - Diana wearing shades after being beaten by guy
- Diana as an infant portrait with her father
- Blanche Oelrichs and daughter Diana on the RMS Berengaria
