Biography of John Barrymore

Great classic of classics

14 February 1882 29 May 1942 one of the greatest film of all time, and actors John Barrymore had a decidedly extraordinary charm and magnetism, not to mention its considerable dramatic temperament, imbued with an overwhelming emotional charge. In private life he was eccentric, humorous and inconstant, inveterate conqueror (had affairs with beautiful young women, as the poet Michael Strange, which later became his second wife, and with his partner Mary Astor, Carmel Myers, Camilla Horn and Dolores Costello Barrymore, third Mistress), mistress of vices, alcohol or any other type of recklessness. John Barrymore was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 14 February 1882; comes from a famous family of actors however, violating the family tradition he began working as a cartoonist for a newspaper in New York. In 1903 he debuted on Broadway and, thanks to its charm, his deep voice and seductive, and his magnetism, soon became the greatest Idol of Sunday audiences of the time. Among his theatrical successes there are "Peter Ibbetson" and "Svengali" by George du Maurier. The way he recites Shakespeare will remain legendary, particularly regarding "Hamlet", which in 1924 the actor brings to London with triumphal outcome. From the early years ' 20 Barrymore goes almost permanently at the cinema, alternating, in dumb as in sound, interpretations of great histrionics and refinement, both in genre drama that brilliant or sentimental, using mainly their own charm at the same time reassuring and enigmatic (his "profile" is still famous), his natural elegance and deep sensitivity of interpreter. Among his memorable roles include that of the scientist from split personality in somberly "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1920) by John s. Robertson, of the fascinating and renowned amateur in "Don Giovanni and Lucrezia Borgia" (Don Juan, 1926) by Alan Crosland, the Baron thief who falls in love with his victim in "Grand Hotel" (Grand Hotel , 1932) by Edmund Goulding, where it flashes the screen making out passionately with the "divine" Greta Garbo, schizophrenic man whose daughter (first-time Director Katharine Hepburn) renunciation of love to be lovingly next in the intense "eager to live" (A Bill of Divorcement, 1932) by George Cukor, alcoholic actor rides into the sunset in the rugged comedy "dinner at eight" (Dinner at Eight, 1933) by George Cukor , the Jewish lawyer choked by thousands of problems in the bitter "back to life" (Counsellor at Law, 193) by William Wyler, the eccentric theater director struggling with his temperamental actress-lover in the bubbly "twentieth century" (Twentieth Century, 1934) by Howard Hawks, alongside the great Carole Lombard, the eccentric Mercutio in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (Romeo and Juliet, 1936) by George Cukor, and the man whose legal wrangling ends when it turns out that it is the only voter in a section of New York in tasty "The Great Man Votes "(1939) by Garson Kanin. In recent years his health worsen considerably, because of a life lived under the sign of alcohol and excesses. When it became chronic alcoholic and he don't care nothing of the career, the actor is selling off in films like "The Great Profile" (1940), and, finally, "The Playmates" (1941), in which the caricature of her pathetic state, playing characters of old actors lost in memory of their glorious past. On May 29, 1942, after one last theatrical tour to the United States, when he only sixty years, the unforgettable "great profile" is her last day forever from his beloved audience. So his daughter Diana, born from his marriage to Michael Strange, as his son John junior (father of current famous and glamorous Hollywood stars, Drew Barrymore), born from his marriage to the beautiful silent film star Dolores Costello, will have short careers and lives quite loose, sealed by unhappy disappeared (Diana would have killed herself just thirty-eight years). John Barrymore in forty year career has reached levels of sublime skill and given to the history of the masterworks of enchanting perfection, forming together with his brother Lionel and his sister Ethel the more memorable artistic family in the history of theater and film, call to reason "the Royal family" on Broadway and in Hollywood.
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