The House of Barrymore: Library Edition

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the most fascinating star biography ever written
Review: Grandmother Louisa Lane was a fabulous person: actress, theater manager, and she held the family together. Once her husband and her sister went on a long, long tour. Then they presented her the baby they "adopted". Louisa was a good sport: she presented them the baby she "adopted". Her daughter Georgie, who married matinee-idol Maurice Barrymore died of tuberculosis when their children Lionel, Ethel and John were very young. Maurice suffered the consequences of syphillis and spent his last years in an asylum.

Lionel was the one with the long MGM career. His Macbeth flopped but he won an oscar in Hollywood. He shocked his family when he left his first wife to marry his brother's ex-mistress. She was wasteful, domineering - but he worshipped her. He was also very secretive: Was he morphine-addicted? involved in John Gilbert's downfall in order to please Louis B. Mayer? Why did he die penniless?

Ethel Barrymore could have become Mrs. Winston Churchill, but she married Russel Colt instead. He was an accomplished wife-beater. She deserved the name "First Lady of the stage" for the length of her career. She financed a big house with many servants and when she reached middle-age and lost her figure she had a problem. She drowned her sorrows in the bottle, but later cured herself and won an oscar for "None but the lonely heart". She too died impoverished.

John nursed his beloved grandmother all alone when she died. His father's mental illness traumatized him. Not that he needed more problems: his stepmother seduced him when he was a teenager and his subsequent alcohol-addiction ruined his life. He had the potential to become America's greatest actor - attractive, charming, well-bred, quick-witted, immensely gifted - and he succeeded - on stage: Justice, Peter Ibbetson, Redemption, the Jest, Richard III and his epoch-making, incestuous Hamlet (Michael Morrison describes these performances in detail in his excellent book: John Barrymore, Shakespearean actor).

John was also unbelievalbly self-destructive: He fell in love with the wrong women. His first wife, a society lady cuckolded him. His second one, a strong-willed, vindictive poetess, misused their daughter in order to hurt him (Diana was allowed to visit her father only when chaperoned by her stepfather!).

He seemed at the height of his career when he left the stage for Hollywood but his downfall had already begun: drinking was considered "manly" then, but his frequent stays in detoxication centers prove how much he suffered under his addiction. He and Dolores Costello (Drew Barrymore is their granddaughter) became Hollywood's dream couple but his film career is uneven: He wasted his talent on insipid scripts, the Hollywood smart set resented his brilliance, his producers resented his mocking performances and he squandered his fortune at a breathtaking rate. Everybody fleeced him...

"Counsellor at Law" (1933) and "Twentieth Century" (1934) were his last hurrahs. Then he could no longer remember his lines: Korsakoff's syndrome - loss of short-term memory. His marriage exploded under dramatic circumstances and he fled to India out of fear that his wife might commit him to a mental institution.

During his stay at a New York hospital, Elaine, a 19 years old aspiring actress visited him. He moved in her one-bedroom apartment where she lived with her parents. They enjoyed the fashionable restaurants. And the publicity! The interest of the yellow press was insatiable. Despite his provocative manners John remained moral at the core: he accepted the most humiliating roles in order to pay his taxes & alimony. Elaine wanted to work on stage with him so they went on tour with "My dear children" (1939-40)- a monstrous hit. Critics wept. Some colleagues tried to help him, others turned their back on him. His last films show a broken man, humiliated by his co-stars in order to squeeze some laughs out of a sadistic audience. His death was surrounded by family wars - then his creditors pounced upon his belongings.

642 pages on which not one word is wasted. Thorough investigation. Margot Peters offers not just a biography but the psychograph of her peerless protagonists. This is not a scandal-mongering book: she writes with deep sympathy even when she describes the most hair-raising events. This is the most touching and absorbing star biography I read in my entire life. Read it, and read also John Kobler: "Damned in Paradise - the life of John Barrymore" - you won't be disappointed.