Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) was an Academy Award-winning American actress and a member of the famous Barrymore family.
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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, Pennsylvania, and attended Catholic schools while there.
She was the sister of actors John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore, and the grand-aunt of actress/producer Drew Barrymore.
Career
Ethel Barrymore was highly regarded as a charming and charismatic stage actress in New York City and a major Broadway performer. Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1901, in a play called Captain Jinks of the Horses Marines. She was a great Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and a passionate Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).
She was also a strong supporter of the Actors' Equity Association and had a high-profile role in the 1919 strike. In 1926, she scored one of her greatest successes as the sophisticated spouse of a philandering husband in W. Somerset Maugham's comedy, The Constant Wife.
She made her first motion picture in 1914 and in the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California and started working in motion pictures.
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. She made such other classic films as The Spiral Staircase (1946), a wonderful thriller directed by Robert Siodmak, Pinky (1949), and Kind Lady (1951).
Private life
Winston Churchill proposed to her but she turned him down. Ethel married Russell Griswold Colt on March 14, 1909; they divorced in 1923.
Being a devout Roman Catholic, she was prohibited from remarrying by the Church. She was involved romantically with men from time to time, but never remarried.
She had 3 children by Colt, including Ethel Barrymore Miglietta, who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies". Both of Ethel's sons, Samuel and John Drew Colt, also tried their hand at acting.
Ethel died from heart disease in 1959 at her home in Hollywood, California two months shy of her 80th birthday. She is interred in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre ([1]) in New York City is named after her.
| Preceded by: Katina Paxinou for For Whom the Bell Tolls | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1944 for None But the Lonely Heart | Succeeded by: Anne Revere for National Velvet |
External links
- Ethel Barrymore at the Internet Broadway Database
- Ethel Barrymore at the Internet Movie Database
- Find-A-Grave profile for Ethel Barrymore
Categories
1879 births | 1959 deaths | American film actors | American silent film actors | American stage actors | Barrymore family | Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners | Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominees | Deaths from cardiovascular disease | Hollywood Walk of Fame | People from Pennsylvania | Converts to Roman Catholicism | Roman Catholic entertainers