Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore was the second of three children seemingly destined for the actor's life of their parents Maurice and Georgiana. Maurice Barrymore had emigrated from England in 1875, and after graduating from Cambridge in law had shocked his family by becoming an actor. Georgiana Drew of Philadelphia acted in her parents' stage company. The two met and married as members of Augustin Daly's company in New York. They both acted with some of the great stage personalities of the mid Victorian theater of America and England. The Barrymore children were born and grew up in Philadelphia. Though older brother Lionel Barrymore began acting early with his mother's relatives in the Drew theater company, Ethel, after a traditional girl's schooling, planned on becoming a concert pianist. The lure of the stage was perhaps congenital, however. She made her debut as a stage actress during the New York City season of 1894. Her youthful stage presence was at once a pleasure, a strikingly pretty and winsome face and large dark eyes that seemed to look out from her very soul. Her natural talent and distinctive voice only reinforced the physical presence of someone destined to command any role set before her. After the opportunity to appear on the London stage with English great Henry Irving in "The Bells" (1897) and later in "Peter the Great" (1898), she returned to New York to star in the Clyde Fitch play "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" (1901) (produced by her friend and benefactor Charles Frohman), which brought her initial American acclaim. Lead roles, such as Nora in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" (1905) and starring in "Alice By the Fire" (also 1905), "Mid-Channel" (1910) and "Trelawney of the Wells" (1911) proved her popularity as a warm and charismatic star of American stage. In the meantime she married stockbroker Russell Griswold Colt in 1909 and gave birth to three children while continuing her acting career. Although the stage was her first love, she did heed the call of the silver screen, and though not achieving the matinée idol image that younger brother John Barrymore garnered in silent movies after similar chemistry on stage, she won over audiences from her first film appearance in The Nightingale (1914). However, her early film roles, steady through 1919, took a back seat to continued stage triumphs: "Declassee" (1919), her impassioned Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" (1922), "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" (1924) and, especially, "The Constant Wife" (1926). She harnessed her considerable talents in the role of an activist as well, being a bedrock supporter of the Actors Equity Association and, in fact, had been a prominent figure in the actors strike of 1919. By 1930 she was entering middle age and her movie roles reflected this. Except for Rasputin and the Empress (1932) with her brothers, the roles were elderly mothers and grandmothers, dowager ladies and spinster aunts. Perhaps wisely she put off Hollywood for over a decade, with stage work that included her most endearing role in "The Corn is Green" (a tour that lasted from 1940 to 1942). She finally moved to Southern California in 1940. When she passed away in 1959, she was interred near her brothers at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.

Known For: Acting

Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 1879-08-12

Died: 1959-06-18

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1914	The Nightingale	Isola Franti - 'The Nightingale'	0
2	1915	The Final Judgment	Jane Carleson - Mrs. Murray Campbell	0
3	1916	The Kiss of Hate	Nadia Turgeneff	0
4	1916	The Awakening of Helena Ritchie	Helena Richie	0
5	1917	The White Raven	Nan Baldwin	60
6	1917	The Call of Her People	Egypt	0
7	1917	The Greatest Power	Miriam Monroe	0
8	1917	The Lifted Veil	Clorinda Gildersleeve	10
9	1917	Life's Whirlpool	Esther Carey	0
10	1917	The Eternal Mother	Maris	0
11	1917	National Red Cross Pageant	Flanders / Belgium - Flemish & Final episodes	0
12	1917	An American Widow	Elizabeth Carter	0
13	1918	Our Mrs. McChesney	Emma McChesney	0
14	1919	The Divorcee	Lady Frederick Berolles	0
15	1926	Camille: The Fate of a Coquette	Olympe	40
16	1932	Rasputin and the Empress	Czarina Alexandra	53
17	1943	Show-Business at War	Self	70
18	1944	None But the Lonely Heart	Ma Mott	63
19	1946	The Spiral Staircase	Mrs. Warren	71
20	1947	The Farmer's Daughter	Agatha Morley	69
21	1947	Moss Rose	Lady Margaret Drego	64
22	1947	The Paradine Case	Lady Sophie Horfield	62
23	1948	Night Song	Miss Willey	62
24	1948	Moonrise	Grandma	63
25	1948	Portrait of Jennie	Miss Spinney	71
26	1949	The Great Sinner	Grandmother Ostrovsky	66
27	1949	That Midnight Kiss	Abigail Trent Budell	50
28	1949	Pinky	Miss Em	71
29	1949	The Red Danube	Mother Superior ('Mother Auxilia')	63
30	1951	Daphni: Virgin of the Golden Laurels		0
31	1951	Kind Lady	Mary Herries	70
32	1951	The Secret of Convict Lake	Granny	66
33	1951	It's a Big Country	Mrs. Brian Patrick Riordan	53
34	1952	Deadline - U.S.A.	Margaret Garrison	68
35	1952	Just for You	Alida De Bronkhart	48
36	1953	The Story of Three Loves	Mrs. Hazel Pennicott	56
37	1953	Main Street to Broadway	Self	65
38	1954	Young at Heart	Aunt Jessie Tuttle	60
39	1956	Eloise	Herself	0
40	1957	Johnny Trouble	Katherine Chandler	47
41	1974	That's Entertainment!	(archive footage) (uncredited)	73
42	2014	And the Oscar Goes To...	Self (archive footage)	70

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1950	What's My Line?	Self	69
2	1952	Omnibus		60
3	1953	General Electric Theater	Mother	63
4	1954	Climax!	Mme. Rosalie La Grange	33
5	1956	Playhouse 90	Herself	76
6	2006	Legends	Aunt Jessie Tuttle (archive footage) (uncredited)	50

Ethel Barrymore

Film

Television