Ethel Barrymore

Barrymore, Ethel (1879–1959), actress. Born in Philadelphia, daughter of Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew Barrymore, she made her stage debut in 1894 playing opposite her grandmother Mrs. Drew in The Rivals. After performing with her uncle, John Drew, in The Bauble Shop later the same year, she assumed a number of other minor roles before sailing for London to play with William Gillette in Secret Service and to act with Sir Henry Irving's great company at the Lyceum. Back in America, Charles Frohman recognized her growing talent and awarded her star billing as Madame Trentoni in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (1901) and she, indeed, became a star. Barrymore attempted Nora in A Doll's House (1905) and Mrs. Grey in Alice Sit‐by‐the‐Fire (1905), but most of her assignments were in the polite, well‐made importations that Frohman favored. More substantial roles in English works came her way when she played the falsely accused servant Mrs. Jones in The Silver Box (1907); the title part in Lady Frederick (1908); Zoe Blundell, whose marriage is destroyed by illness in Mid‐Channel (1910); and Rose in Trelawny of the Wells. About this time she began filling in periods between plays with vaudeville tours in which she starred in short or abbreviated dramas, the most famous of which was Barrie's The Twelve‐Pound Look. She enjoyed one of her longest runs as the motherly business woman of Our Mrs. McChesney (1915), then turned to her own favorite role, Marguerite Gautier in Edward Sheldon's redaction of The Lady of the Camellias (1917). Barrymore scored a major success as the self‐destructive Lady Helen Haden in Déclassée (1919), only to come a cropper with her interpretation of Juliet (1922). Further revivals saw her play Paula in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1924), Ophelia, and Portia (1925). In 1926 she created one of her most memorable parts as Maugham's The Constant Wife, which she played until she assumed the role of Sister Gracia in The Kingdom of God (1928) at the opening of a New York theatre named in her honor. For the next decade success eluded her, albeit she gained some attention playing a 101‐year‐old grandmother in Whiteoaks (1938). Her finest achievement may well have been the compassionate schoolmarm, Miss Moffat, in The Corn Is Green (1940). Her last two shows, Embezzled Heaven (1944) and The Joyous Season (1945), the latter offered only on tour, were failures. John Mason Brown remembered “the fluttering eyes, the throaty voice, and the imperious beauty, lending her special alchemy to Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife,” but many playgoers will recall her most fondly for the famous line she always delivered at the end of her curtain calls: “That's all there is, there isn't any more!” Autobiography: Memories, 1955; biography: The House of Barrymore, Margot Peters, 1990.

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The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: United States actress; daughter of Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Barrymore (1879-1959)
  Synonym: Barrymore

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Quotes:

"The best time to make friends is before you need them."

"You grow up on the day you have your first real laugh at, yourself."

"For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros."

"I never let them cough. They wouldn't dare."

"You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in."

• Born: Aug 15, 1879 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Died: Jun 18, 1959 in Hollywood, California
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: teens, '40s-'50s
• Major Genres: Drama, Romance
• Career Highlights: The Spiral Staircase, The Story of Three Loves, None But the Lonely Heart
• First Major Screen Credit: Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

Biography

Born into a long-established American theatrical family, Ethel Barrymore dreamed of being a concert pianist, but found that acting was virtually the only profession for which she was truly qualified -- and which ensured a livable income. Like all her forebears, she worked her way up the theatrical ladder from bits to full leads. Though she was quite popular on the road and in Europe, her first full-fledged Broadway hit was Clyde Fitch's 1901 play Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, in the virtuoso role of a supercilious woman of wealth. Her later attempts to excel in the Classics were to no avail; from Captain Jinks on, she was confined to glamorous roles, usually comic in nature, specially written for her. Disdaining movies for the most part (several silent films notwithstanding) Ethel was intrigued at the notion of working with her celebrated brothers John and Lionel Barrymore, but the film vehicle chosen by MGM, Rasputin and the Empress (1932), showed only Lionel to advantage. After ten years of unsuccessful plays -- excepting a "comeback" in the 1940 hit The Corn is Green -- and a brief retirement, she was more open to films, accepting Cary Grant's personal invitation to play Grant's mother in None But the Lonely Heart (1944), for which she won an Oscar. A few encore stage appearances later, Ethel "went Hollywood" full force with strong character roles in such films as The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Farmer's Daughter (1947) and Pinky (1949), her trademarked aristocratic features and crisp enunciation becoming even more pronounced with the advancing years. One of her last efforts was a syndicated anthology, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, in which she hosted and occasionally acted. Even so, Ethel Barrymore was as uncompromising in her assessment of TV as she was of other persons and things that displeased her: Her two-word assessment of The Tube was "It's hell." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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