Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 ? June 18, 1959) was an Academy Award-winning American actress and a member of the famous Barrymore family.

Early life

Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew. She spent her childhood in Philadelphia, and attended Roman Catholic schools there.

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.

Career

Ethel Barrymore was a highly regarded stage actress in New York City 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. She portrayed Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).

Barrymore playing the male character Carrots in a play of the same name, 1902

Ethel Barrymore in 1896

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.

She made her first motion picture in 1914 and in the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California and started working in motion pictures. The only two films that featured all three siblings, Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore, were National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and Rasputin and the Empress (1932).

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 made such other classic films as The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak, The Paradine Case (1947) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Portrait of Jennie (1948), Pinky (1949), and Kind Lady (1951). Her last film appearance was in Johnny Trouble (1957). She also made a number of television appearances in the 1950s.

Private life

Ethel Barrymore by Carl Van Vechten (December 12, 1937)

Death

Ethel Barrymore died of cardiovascular disease in 1959, at her home in Hollywood, California, following a long battle with a heart condition. She was two months shy of her 80th birthday. She is interred in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City is named after her.

External links

• Ethel Barrymore photo gallery NYP Library

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