Over the last century, with siblings John, Lionel, and
Ethel filming one classic after another—and with John’s granddaughter Drew
making her own contribution to the industry as an actress-producer—the
Barrymores could just as easily be called “The Royal Family of Hollywood.” Now,
with an exhibit about the multi-generational thespians now running in a film
center named for them in northern New Jersey, they could also be labeled “The
Royal Family of Fort Lee.”
In a late January blog post of mine that related my discovery of the Barrymore Film Center, I promised that I would discuss a
first-floor exhibit on the family that runs through the end of March. It really
is must viewing for anyone interested in film and theater history—even, more
broadly, New Jersey and Fort Lee history.
The exhibit curators have scoured far and wide for
photos, posters, sculptures, props, and other materials associated with John,
Lionel, and Ethel Barrymore. Separate walls tell the story of each sibling—all
loaded with talent, looks, and money, but also with more than the normal share
of offstage drama that actors often encounter.
The dynasty started not with this trio but with John
Drew, who became an actor and theater manager after emigrating from Ireland in
the 1830s. In turn, his daughter Georgiana, herself an actress, wed Herbert
Blythe, an Indian-born British stage actor professionally known as Maurice Barrymore. It is he who, in effect, became the patriarch of “The Royal
Family.”
A talented comic actor who became one of the first Broadway
stars to star in vaudeville, Maurice did well enough financially to buy a
summer cottage in what is now the Coytesville section of Fort Lee, several
blocks from the film center. (Despite ardent efforts by film buffs, that house
was demolished 22 years ago.)
As the museum chronicles, Fort Lee, because of its proximity
to Broadway, the Hudson River and Palisades, became the de facto birthplace of
the American film industry. It’s appropriate, then, that three of Maurice’s
acting progeny, all of whom spent much of their youth in the town—Lionel, Ethel,
and John Barrymore—came as close as you can get to being present at the creation
of this narrative art form.
(Oddly enough, though the three had more than 300
screen appearances among them, they only appeared together once on the big
screen—the 1932 film Rasputin and the Empress. A poster for that movie,
part of the exhibit, is the image accompanying this post.)
Moviegoers of the past few decades are likely to be
familiar with the four decade career, as actress, producer, talk-show host, and
gossip-page fixture, of Drew Barrymore. But her triumphs and travails pale in
comparison with the great sibling triumvirate who dominate the Barrymore Center
exhibit.
Still, you’ll likely be in for something of shock when
you first enter the exhibit room to see a photo of a young woman who bears a
startling resemblance to the current best-known member of the family. But it’s
not Drew but Ethel Barrymore—a similarity all the more surprising
because Ethel was Drew’s grandaunt rather than, more directly, her grandmother.
Among the items that depict Ethel here are a photo, a
portrait, a bust of the actress, and a poster from her first movie, The
Nightingale, shot in 1914 right in Fort Lee.
Unlike her brothers, “The First Lady of the American
Theater” worked primarily on the stage, as she followed in the tradition of her
grandfather, John Drew, as star and manager of Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore
Theater, which the Shubert Organization created as a vehicle for her.
A guide at the museum told me that her favorite member
of the family was Lionel Barrymore, and the artifacts on display make a
compelling case for his versatility.
Then in their toddler stage, films in the silent and
early talkies era left Lionel and many other denizens of Hollywood skeptical
about their cultural potential—even when, as in his case, he went behind the
camera to direct, rather than his usual position in front.
(He is best known, of course, for his performance as
miserly Mr. Potter in the Yuletide classic It’s a Wonderful Life—a kind
of American counterpart to his annual radio broadcasts over two decades as
Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.)
The creative instinct that Lionel couldn’t display, even
as a well-compensated contract player for MGM Studio, he satisfied by picking
up a paintbrush or playing the piano and oboe. While walking through the
gallery, you’ll hear his First Piano Concerto and Memoriam on the
Death of John Barrymore.
Although Ethel and Lionel displayed more
self-discipline, John Barrymore has always fascinated me the most of the
trio. His talent was matched by an appearance that gave rise to the nickname “The
Great Profile.”
Unfortunately both were exceeded by a raucous
lifestyle that spawned a million anecdotes—most, remarkably enough, true. (When
asked if the very young Romeo and Juliet had a physical relationship, he
cracked, “They certainly did in the Chicago company.”)
Committing his father to Bellevue in 1901 was a searing
experience for John, but he could not escape the family propensity for
substance abuse—and he seems to have passed this genetic inheritance to
children Diana and John Drew Barrymore and the latter’s daughter, Drew.
By the early 1930s, John was having trouble showing up
on time for studio work and memorizing his lines. Within a decade, as a
has-been Shakespearean actor in the stage comedy My Dear Children, he
verged close to self-parody.
But the exhibit also includes evidence that John at
his best was an electrifying, even pioneering, actor, such as the chair and
dagger he used in a 1920 stage production of Hamlet (proclaimed for years as the best many had seen) and the suit of
armor he donned for Richard III.
If you have a chance, see the Barrymore exhibit before
it closes March 26. Both aficionados of this legendary family and those with only
the slightest inkling of what they once meant to the early film industry will
come away with greater appreciation for this trio who left their unmistakable
marks on American entertainment.
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