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person_profile-Ethel Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore Died at age: 79

Actor | Producer

Fullname:

Ethel Barrymore

Date of Birth:

Aug 13, 1879

Country of birth:

USA

Died:

Jun 18, 1959

Biography of

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.

Photos of

Ethel Barrymore

Photos ( 2 Photos

Filmography of

Ethel Barrymore

Found 39 Movies in total

And the Oscar Goes To...

Self (archive footage) ( Actor )

... 2014

That's Entertainment!

(archive footage) (uncredited) ( Actor )

... 1974

Johnny Trouble

Katherine Chandler ( Actor )

... 1957

Eloise

Herself ( Actor )

... 1956

Young at Heart

Aunt Jessie Tuttle ( Actor )

... 1954

... 1953

The Story of Three Loves

Mrs. Hazel Pennicott ( Actor )

... 1953

Just for You

Alida De Bronkhart ( Actor )

... 1952

Deadline - U.S.A.

Margaret Garrison ( Actor )

... 1952

It's a Big Country

Mrs. Brian Patrick Riordan ( Actor )

... 1951

... 1951

Kind Lady

Mary Herries ( Actor )

... 1951

The Red Danube

Mother Superior ('Mother Auxilia') ( Actor )

... 1949

Pinky

Miss Em ( Actor )

... 1949

That Midnight Kiss

Abigail Trent Budell ( Actor )

... 1949

The Great Sinner

Grandmother Ostrovsky ( Actor )

... 1949

Portrait of Jennie

Miss Spinney ( Actor )

... 1948

Moonrise

Grandma ( Actor )

... 1948

Night Song

Miss Willey ( Actor )

... 1948

The Paradine Case

Lady Sophie Horfield ( Actor )

... 1947

Moss Rose

Margaret Drego ( Actor )

... 1947

The Farmer's Daughter

Agath Morley ( Actor )

... 1947

The Spiral Staircase

Mrs. Warren ( Actor )

... 1946

None But the Lonely Heart

Ma Mott ( Actor )

... 1944

Rasputin and the Empress

Czarina Alexandra ( Actor )

... 1932

The Divorcee

Lady Frederick Berolles ( Actor )

... 1919

Our Mrs. McChesney

Emma McChesney ( Actor )

... 1918

An American Widow

Elizabeth Carter ( Actor )

... 1917

National Red Cross Pageant

Flanders / Belgium - Flemish & Final episodes ( Actor )

... 1917

The Eternal Mother

Maris ( Actor )

... 1917

Life's Whirlpool

Esther Carey ( Actor )

... 1917

The Lifted Veil

Clorinda Gildersleeve ( Actor )

... 1917

The Greatest Power

Miriam Monroe ( Actor )

... 1917

The Call of Her People

Egypt ( Actor )

... 1917

The White Raven

Nan Baldwin ( Actor )

... 1917

The Awakening of Helena Ritchie

Helena Richie ( Actor )

... 1916

The Kiss of Hate

Nadia Turgeneff ( Actor )

... 1916

The Final Judgment

Jane Carleson - Mrs. Murray Campbell ( Actor )

... 1915

The Nightingale

Isola Franti - 'The Nightingale' ( Actor )

... 1914