Ethel Barrymore
Encyclopedia
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family
of actors.
, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore
(whose real name was Herbert Blythe) and Georgiana Drew
. Named after her father’s favorite character—Ethel in William Makepeace Thackeray
’s The Newcomes—she was one of the twentieth century’s most elegant, beautiful and gifted actresses.
She was the sister of actors John Barrymore
and Lionel Barrymore
, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore
, and the great-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore
. She was also the niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew Jr and early Vitagraph movie star Sidney Drew
.
She spent her childhood in Philadelphia, and attended Roman Catholic schools there.
and a major Broadway
performer. Many today consider her to be the greatest actress of her generation.
Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1895, in a play called The Imprudent Young Couple which starred her uncle John Drew, Jr. and Maude Adams
. She appeared with Drew and Adams again in 1896 in Rosemary.
In 1897 Ethel went with William Gillette
to London to play Miss Kittridge in Gillette's Secret Service. The play, Gillette’s greatest work, was a huge success, but Ethel remained pretty much beneath everyone's radar scopes until one night when the leading actress, Odette Taylor, became ill and went home, still dressed in her costume. Ethel was standing in the wings in her nurse’s costume when the theater manager told her she would have to replace Taylor, dressed as she was. Ethel protested that she didn’t know Ms. Taylor’s part, but she went out in her nurse’s uniform and carried the show. It was a splendid performance, and she was noticed.
She was about to return to the States with Gillette's troupe when Henry Irving
and Ellen Terry
offered her the role of Annette in The Bells. A full London tour was on and, before it was over, Ethel created, on New Years Day 1898, Euphrosine in Peter the Great at the Lyceum, the play having been written by Irving's son, Laurence. Men everywhere were smitten with Ethel, most notably young Winston Churchill
, who asked her to marry him. Not wishing to be a politician's wife, she refused. Winston, several years later, married Clementine Hozier, a ravishing beauty who looked very much like Ethel, but Winston and Ethel remained friends until the end of her life. Their “romance” was their own little secret until his son let the cat out of the bag 63 years after it happened.
After her big season in London, Ethel returned to America. Charles Frohman
cast her first in Catherine and then as Stella de Grex in His Excellency the Governor. After that, Frohman finally gave Ethel the role that would make her a star: Madame Trentoni in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which opened at the Garrick Theatre on February 4, 1901. When the tour concluded in Boston in June, she had out-drawn two of the most prominent actresses of her day, Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Minnie Maddern Fiske.
Following her triumph in Captain Jinks, Ethel gave sterling performances in many top-rate productions, and it was in Sunday that she uttered what would be her most famous line, "That's all there is, there isn't any more."
Ethel portrayed Nora in A Doll's House
by Ibsen
(1905), and Juliet
in Romeo and Juliet
by Shakespeare
(1922).
She was also a strong supporter of the Actors' Equity Association
and had a high-profile role in the 1919 strike. In 1926, she scored one of her greatest successes as the sophisticated spouse of a philandering husband in W. Somerset Maugham
's comedy, The Constant Wife
. She starred in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), with John and Lionel Barrymore, playing the Czarina married to Czar Nicholas. In July 1934, she starred in the play Laura Garnett, by Leslie
and Sewell Stokes
, at Dobbs Ferry, New York State.
After she became a stage star, she would often dismiss adoring audiences who kept demanding curtain calls by saying "That's all there is - there isn't any more!" This became a popular catch phrase in the 1920s and 1930s. Many references to it can be found in the media of the period, including the Laurel and Hardy
1933 film Sons of the Desert, and Arthur Train
's 1930 Wall Street Crash novel Paper Profits.
Barrymore was a baseball and boxing fan. Her admiration for boxing ended when she witnessed as a spectator the brutality of the July 4, 1919, Dempsey/Willard
fight in which Dempsey
broke Willard's jaw and knocked out several of his teeth. Ethel vowed never to attend another boxing match though she would later watch boxing on television.
She appeared in her first motion picture, The Nightingale, in 1914. Members of her family were already in pictures; uncle Sidney and Lionel had entered films in 1911 and John made his first feature in 1913. She made 15 silent pictures between 1914 and 1919 most of them for the old Metro
studio. Most of these pictures were made on the East Coast, as her Broadway career and children came first. All of her silent films are lost with the exception of The Awakening of Helena Ritchie (1916) which survives incomplete at the Library of Congress
and The Call of Her People(1917) held at George Eastman House, Rochester. In the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California. The only two films that featured all three siblings—Ethel, John and Lionel—were National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and Rasputin and the Empress
(1932). The former film is now lost.
She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress
for her role in the 1944 film None but the Lonely Heart opposite Cary Grant
, but made plain that she was not overly impressed by it. On March 22, 2007, her Oscar was offered for sale on eBay
.
She appeared in The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak
, The Paradine Case
(1947) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
, and Portrait of Jennie
(1948), among others. Her last film appearance was in Johnny Trouble (1957). She also made a number of television appearances in the 1950s, including one memorable encounter with comedian Jimmy Durante
on NBC
's All Star Revue on December 1, 1951 (preserved on a kinescope
).
In 1949, Barrymore appeared in the Academy Award winning film Pinky for which she was awarded an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Winston Churchill
was among the closest of many of Barrymore's dear friends. Some have claimed Churchill proposed to her in 1900; however, Barrymore mentions no such thing in her autobiography, Memories. She had, at the age of 19, while on tour in England, been rumored to be engaged to the Duke of Manchester
, actor Gerald Du Maurier
, writer Richard Harding Davis
and the aforementioned Churchill.
Ethel Barrymore married Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1959), grandnephew of American arms maker Samuel Colt
(1814–1862), on March 14, 1909. The couple had been introduced, according to Barrymore's autobiography, when Colt had strolled by the table where she was having lunch with her uncle, actor John (Jack) Drew, in Sherry's Restaurant in New York. A New York Times article of 1911, when Barrymore first took preliminary divorce measures against Colt, states that Colt had been introduced to Barrymore by her brother John Barrymore some years before while Colt was still a student at Yale. The couple had three children: actress/singer Ethel Barrymore Colt (1912–1977), who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim
's Follies
; Samuel Colt (1909–1986); and John Drew Colt (1913–1975).
Barrymore's marriage to Colt was a precarious one from the start, with Barrymore filing divorce papers as early in the marriage as 1911, much to Colt's surprise, and later recanted by Barrymore as a misunderstanding by the press. At least one source claims that Colt abused her and also that he fathered a child with another woman while married to Barrymore. They divorced in 1923 and, quite surprisingly, she did not seek alimony from Colt for herself, which was her right but she demanded that his entailed wealth still provide for their children.
Ethel Barrymore did not remarry. She had platonic relationships with other men, most notably actors Henry Daniell
and Louis Calhern
.
. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre
in New York City
is named after her.
talkies
Barrymore family
The Barrymore family is an American acting family.The Barrymores are also the inspiration of a Broadway and West End play called The Royal Family....
of actors.
Early life
Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore
Maurice Barrymore
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe —stage name Maurice Barrymore — was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting family and great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore.-Early life:...
(whose real name was Herbert Blythe) and Georgiana Drew
Georgiana Drew
Georgiana Emma Drew , aka Georgie Drew Barrymore, was an American stage actress and a member of the Barrymore acting family....
. Named after her father’s favorite character—Ethel in William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
’s The Newcomes—she was one of the twentieth century’s most elegant, beautiful and gifted actresses.
She was the sister of actors 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 Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
, the aunt 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...
, and the great-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
. She was also the niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew Jr and early Vitagraph movie star Sidney Drew
Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew
-Biography:Sidney Drew , or Mr. Sidney Drew as he was usually billed, was an uncle of actors Lionel, Ethel & John Barrymore. His origins have been the subject of much speculation. Sidney's mother Mrs. Louisa Drew said she adopted him not long after the death of her husband John Drew, Sr. in 1862....
.
She spent her childhood in Philadelphia, and attended Roman Catholic schools there.
Career
Ethel Barrymore was a highly regarded stage actress 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...
and a major 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...
performer. Many today consider her to be the greatest actress of her generation.
Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1895, in a play called The Imprudent Young Couple which starred her uncle John Drew, Jr. and Maude Adams
Maude Adams
Maude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...
. She appeared with Drew and Adams again in 1896 in Rosemary.
In 1897 Ethel went with William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....
to London to play Miss Kittridge in Gillette's Secret Service. The play, Gillette’s greatest work, was a huge success, but Ethel remained pretty much beneath everyone's radar scopes until one night when the leading actress, Odette Taylor, became ill and went home, still dressed in her costume. Ethel was standing in the wings in her nurse’s costume when the theater manager told her she would have to replace Taylor, dressed as she was. Ethel protested that she didn’t know Ms. Taylor’s part, but she went out in her nurse’s uniform and carried the show. It was a splendid performance, and she was noticed.
She was about to return to the States with Gillette's troupe when Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
and Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
offered her the role of Annette in The Bells. A full London tour was on and, before it was over, Ethel created, on New Years Day 1898, Euphrosine in Peter the Great at the Lyceum, the play having been written by Irving's son, Laurence. Men everywhere were smitten with Ethel, most notably young Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, who asked her to marry him. Not wishing to be a politician's wife, she refused. Winston, several years later, married Clementine Hozier, a ravishing beauty who looked very much like Ethel, but Winston and Ethel remained friends until the end of her life. Their “romance” was their own little secret until his son let the cat out of the bag 63 years after it happened.
After her big season in London, Ethel returned to America. Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
cast her first in Catherine and then as Stella de Grex in His Excellency the Governor. After that, Frohman finally gave Ethel the role that would make her a star: Madame Trentoni in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which opened at the Garrick Theatre on February 4, 1901. When the tour concluded in Boston in June, she had out-drawn two of the most prominent actresses of her day, Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Minnie Maddern Fiske.
Following her triumph in Captain Jinks, Ethel gave sterling performances in many top-rate productions, and it was in Sunday that she uttered what would be her most famous line, "That's all there is, there isn't any more."
Ethel portrayed Nora in A Doll's House
A Doll's House
A Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month....
by Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
(1905), and Juliet
Juliet Capulet
Juliet is one of the title characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the other being Romeo. She is the daughter of old Capulet, head of the house of Capulet. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself....
in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
by Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1922).
Actors' Equity Association
The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...
and had a high-profile role in the 1919 strike. In 1926, she scored one of her greatest successes as the sophisticated spouse of a philandering husband in W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...
's comedy, The Constant Wife
The Constant Wife
The Constant Wife, a comedy of manners, was written by W. Somerset Maugham in 1926 and later published for general sales in April 1927.- Plot :...
. She starred in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), with John and Lionel Barrymore, playing the Czarina married to Czar Nicholas. In July 1934, she starred in the play Laura Garnett, by Leslie
Leslie Stokes
Leslie Stokes was an English playwright and BBC radio producer and director.As a young man Leslie Stokes was an actor and later became a playwright and BBC radio producer and director. Together with his brother, author and playwright Sewell Stokes, he co-wrote a number of plays, including the...
and Sewell Stokes
Sewell Stokes
Francis Martin Sewell Stokes was an English novelist, biographer, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and prison visitor. He collaborated on a number of occasions with his brother, Leslie Stokes, an actor and later in life a BBC radio producer, with whom he shared a flat for many years...
, at Dobbs Ferry, New York State.
After she became a stage star, she would often dismiss adoring audiences who kept demanding curtain calls by saying "That's all there is - there isn't any more!" This became a popular catch phrase in the 1920s and 1930s. Many references to it can be found in the media of the period, including the Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
1933 film Sons of the Desert, and Arthur Train
Arthur Train
Arthur Cheney Train was an American lawyer and legal thriller writer, particularly known for his novels of courtroom intrigue and the creation of the fictional lawyer Mr Ephraim Tutt.-Life:...
's 1930 Wall Street Crash novel Paper Profits.
Barrymore was a baseball and boxing fan. Her admiration for boxing ended when she witnessed as a spectator the brutality of the July 4, 1919, Dempsey/Willard
Jess Willard
Jess Willard was a world heavyweight boxing champion. He won the heavyweight title from Jack Johnson in April 1915 and lost it to Jack Dempsey in July 1919....
fight in which Dempsey
Jack Dempsey
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first...
broke Willard's jaw and knocked out several of his teeth. Ethel vowed never to attend another boxing match though she would later watch boxing on television.
She appeared in her first motion picture, The Nightingale, in 1914. Members of her family were already in pictures; uncle Sidney and Lionel had entered films in 1911 and John made his first feature in 1913. She made 15 silent pictures between 1914 and 1919 most of them for the old Metro
Metro Pictures
Metro Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in late 1915 by Richard A. Rowland . Louis B. Mayer who worked for Metro Pictures Corporation early on. It is not to be confused with MGM which is a much later franchise concerning itself, Goldwyn and Louis B....
studio. Most of these pictures were made on the East Coast, as her Broadway career and children came first. All of her silent films are lost with the exception of The Awakening of Helena Ritchie (1916) which survives incomplete at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and The Call of Her People(1917) held at George Eastman House, Rochester. In the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California. The only two films that featured all three siblings—Ethel, John and Lionel—were National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and Rasputin and the Empress
Rasputin and the Empress
Rasputin and the Empress is a 1932 film about Imperial Russia starring the Barrymore siblings—John , Ethel , and Lionel Barrymore . It is the only film in which all three appeared together...
(1932). The former film is now lost.
She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for her role in the 1944 film None but the Lonely Heart opposite Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, but made plain that she was not overly impressed by it. On March 22, 2007, her Oscar was offered for sale on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
.
She appeared in The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak was a German born American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noirs he made in the 1940s.-Early life:...
, The Paradine Case
The Paradine Case
The Paradine Case is a 1947 American courtroom drama film, set in England, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by David O. Selznick. The screenplay was written by Selznick and an uncredited Ben Hecht, from an adaptation by Alma Reville and James Bridie of the novel by Robert Smythe Hichens...
(1947) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, and Portrait of Jennie
Portrait of Jennie
Portrait of Jennie is a 1948 fantasy film based on the novella by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.-Plot:...
(1948), among others. Her last film appearance was in Johnny Trouble (1957). She also made a number of television appearances in the 1950s, including one memorable encounter with comedian Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's All Star Revue on December 1, 1951 (preserved on a kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
).
In 1949, Barrymore appeared in the Academy Award winning film Pinky for which she was awarded an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Private life
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
was among the closest of many of Barrymore's dear friends. Some have claimed Churchill proposed to her in 1900; however, Barrymore mentions no such thing in her autobiography, Memories. She had, at the age of 19, while on tour in England, been rumored to be engaged to the Duke of Manchester
William Montagu, 9th Duke of Manchester
William Angus Drogo Montagu, 9th Duke of Manchester , styled Lord Kimbolton from 1877 to 1890 and Viscount Mandeville from 1890 to 1892, was a British peer and Liberal politician. He served as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard from 1905 to 1907 under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman...
, actor Gerald Du Maurier
Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was an English actor and manager. He was the son of the writer George du Maurier and brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1902, he married the actress Muriel Beaumont with whom he had three daughters: Angela du Maurier , Daphne du Maurier and Jeanne...
, writer Richard Harding Davis
Richard Harding Davis
Richard Harding Davis was a journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and the First World War. His writing greatly assisted the political career of Theodore Roosevelt and he also played...
and the aforementioned Churchill.
Ethel Barrymore married Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1959), grandnephew of American arms maker Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
(1814–1862), on March 14, 1909. The couple had been introduced, according to Barrymore's autobiography, when Colt had strolled by the table where she was having lunch with her uncle, actor John (Jack) Drew, in Sherry's Restaurant in New York. A New York Times article of 1911, when Barrymore first took preliminary divorce measures against Colt, states that Colt had been introduced to Barrymore by her brother John Barrymore some years before while Colt was still a student at Yale. The couple had three children: actress/singer Ethel Barrymore Colt (1912–1977), who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
's Follies
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...
; Samuel Colt (1909–1986); and John Drew Colt (1913–1975).
Barrymore's marriage to Colt was a precarious one from the start, with Barrymore filing divorce papers as early in the marriage as 1911, much to Colt's surprise, and later recanted by Barrymore as a misunderstanding by the press. At least one source claims that Colt abused her and also that he fathered a child with another woman while married to Barrymore. They divorced in 1923 and, quite surprisingly, she did not seek alimony from Colt for herself, which was her right but she demanded that his entailed wealth still provide for their children.
Ethel Barrymore did not remarry. She had platonic relationships with other men, most notably actors Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
and Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern was an American stage and screen actor.- Early life :Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt on February 19, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up...
.
Death
Ethel Barrymore died of cardiovascular disease in 1959, at her home in Hollywood, California, after having lived for many years with a heart condition. She was two months shy of her 80th birthday. She was entombed at Calvary CemeteryCalvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles
The Calvary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery operated by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, located at 4201 Whittier Boulevard in Los Angeles, California...
. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....
in New York City
New 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...
is named after her.
Filmography
silents- The Nightingale (1914)
- The Final Judgement (1915)
- The Kiss of Hate (1916)
- The Awakening of Helena Ritchie (1916)
- The White Raven (1917)
- The Call of Her People (1917)
- The Greatest Power (1917)
- The Lifted Veil (1917)
- Life's WhirlpoolLife's WhirlpoolLife's Whirlpool a 1917 silent film written and directed by Lionel Barrymore with his sister Ethel Barrymore as the star. This is the brother and sister's only collaboration on a silent film as director and star...
(1917) - The Eternal Mother (1917)
- An American Widow (1917)
- National Red Cross Pageant (1917)
- Our Mrs. McChesney (1918)
- The Divorcee (1919)
- CamilleCamille (Barton film)Camille is a short film by Ralph Barton, the creation of which is described in Bruce Kellner's The Last Dandy, a biography of Barton....
(1926)
talkies
- Rasputin and the EmpressRasputin and the EmpressRasputin and the Empress is a 1932 film about Imperial Russia starring the Barrymore siblings—John , Ethel , and Lionel Barrymore . It is the only film in which all three appeared together...
(1932) - None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
- The Spiral Staircase (1946)
- The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
- Moss Rose (1947)
- Night SongNight Song (film)Night Song is a 1948 American Drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Dana Andrews, Merle Oberon and Ethel Barrymore. A wealthy woman befriends a blind musician....
(1947) - The Paradine CaseThe Paradine CaseThe Paradine Case is a 1947 American courtroom drama film, set in England, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by David O. Selznick. The screenplay was written by Selznick and an uncredited Ben Hecht, from an adaptation by Alma Reville and James Bridie of the novel by Robert Smythe Hichens...
(1947) - MoonriseMoonrise (film)-Plot:Dane Clark plays Danny Hawkins, the son of a murderer who was hanged for his crimes. Haunted by his father's past, the young man is tormented by the young people of the small southern town in which he lives. Hawkins' only friend is Gilly Johnson , a girl who is quickly falling in love with...
(1948) - Portrait of JenniePortrait of JenniePortrait of Jennie is a 1948 fantasy film based on the novella by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.-Plot:...
(1948) - The Great SinnerThe Great SinnerThe Great Sinner is a 1949 American drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. Based on the 1866 short novel The Gambler written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the film stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Frank Morgan, Ethel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead and Melvyn Douglas.-Plot:During the 1860s in...
(1949) - That Midnight KissThat Midnight KissThat Midnight Kiss was the screen debut of tenor Mario Lanza, also starring Kathryn Grayson, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Among the supporting cast were Ethel Barrymore, conductor/pianist Jose Iturbi , Keenan Wynn, J. Carroll Naish, and Jules Munshin...
(1949) - The Red DanubeThe Red DanubeThe Red Danube is a 1949 drama film directed by George Sidney and starring Walter Pidgeon. The film was based on the 1947 novel Vespers in Vienna by Bruce Marshall.-Plot:Shortly after World War II, British Col...
(1949) - Pinky (1949)
- Kind Lady (1951)
- The Secret of Convict LakeThe Secret of Convict LakeThe Secret of Convict Lake is a 1951 black-and-white western film starring Glenn Ford and Gene Tierney. It was directed by Michael Gordon and produced by Frank P. Rosenberg, with music by Sol Kaplan...
(1951) - It's a Big CountryIt's a Big CountryIt's a Big Country is a 1951 anthology film directed by Clarence Brown, Don Hartman, John Sturges, Richard Thorpe, Charles Vidor, Don Weis, and William A. Wellman.-External links:...
(1951) - Deadline – U.S.A. (1952)
- Just for You (1952 film) (1952)
- The Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three Loves, also known as Equilibrium, is a 1953 romantic anthology film made by MGM. It consists of three stories, "The Jealous Lover", "Mademoiselle", and "Equilibrium". The film was produced by Sidney Franklin. "Mademoiselle" was directed by Vincente Minnelli, while Gottfried...
(1953) - Main Street to BroadwayMain Street to BroadwayMain Street to Broadway is a 1953 MGM musical comedy starring Tom Morton and Mary Murphy about an aspiring playwright who hopes to stage a Broadway production starring Tallulah Bankhead...
(1953) - Young at HeartYoung at Heart (1954 film)Young at Heart is a 1954 film, directed by Gordon Douglas. It was a remake of the 1938 film Four Daughters, and it starred Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore, Alan Hale, Jr and Dorothy Malone and was the first of five films that Gordon Douglas directed with Frank...
(1954) - Johnny Trouble (1957)
See also
- List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s – 10 Nov. 1924
External links
- Ethel Barrymore photo gallery NYP Library
- with brother Lionel on his last film, Main Street to Broadway 1953
- Ethel Barrymore; PeriodPaper