Diana Barrymore

Diana Barrymore
Barrymore in 1942
Born	Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe (1921-03-03)March 3, 1921 New York City, U.S.
Died	January 25, 1960(1960-01-25) (aged 38) New York City, U.S.
Cause of death	Alcohol and drug overdose
Resting place	Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Nationality	American
Alma mater	American Academy of Dramatic Arts
Occupation	Stage and film actress
Years active	1939–1959
Spouse(s)	Bramwell Fletcher ​ ​ (m. 1942; div. 1946)​ John Robert Howard II ​ ​ (m. 1947; div. 1948)​ Robert Wilcox ​ ​ (m. 1950; died 1955)​
Parent(s)	John Barrymore Blanche Oelrichs
Family	Barrymore

Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe (March 3, 1921 – January 25, 1960), known professionally as Diana Barrymore, was an American film and stage actress.

Early life[]

Born Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe in New York City, New York, Diana Barrymore was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs. She was a niece of her father's acting siblings Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, and stepdaughter of her father's third wife Dolores Costello, through whom she had two half-siblings, Dolores and actor John Drew Barrymore. She also had two older half brothers, Leonard Jr. and Robin, from her mother's first marriage to Leonard Moorhead Thomas.

Her parents' tumultuous marriage lasted only a few years and they divorced when she was four. Educated in Paris, France and at schools in New York City, she had little contact with her estranged father, a situation exacerbated by her mother's bitterness towards him. Her parenting was left to boarding schools and nannies.

Career[]

Diana Barrymore and Robert Keith in Romantic Mr. Dickens (1940), Barrymore's Broadway debut

While in her teens, Barrymore decided to study acting and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Because of the prominence of the Barrymore name in the world of theatre, her move onto the stage began with much publicity including a 1939 cover of Life. At age 19, Barrymore made her Broadway debut and the following year made her first appearance in movies with a small role in a Warner Bros. production. In 1942, she signed a contract with Universal Studios who capitalized on her Barrymore name with a major promotion campaign billing her as "1942's Most Sensational New Screen Personality." However, alcohol and drug problems soon emerged and negative publicity from major media sources dampened her prospects. After less than three years in Hollywood, and six significant film roles at Universal, Barrymore's personal problems ended her career.^[1]

Diana Barrymore in 1941

Her father died in 1942 from cirrhosis of the liver after years of alcoholism. Barrymore's life became a series of alcohol- and drug-related disasters marked by bouts of severe depression that resulted in several suicide attempts and extended sanitarium stays. She squandered her movie earnings and her inheritance from her father's estate, and when her mother died in 1950, Diana was left with virtually nothing from a once-vast family fortune. In 1949, she was offered her own television talk show titled The Diana Barrymore Show. The show was set to broadcast, but Barrymore didn't show up, and the program was immediately canceled. Had she gone through with the show, it would have been the first talk show in television history, predating Joe Franklin by two years. In the early 1950s, she and third husband toured Australia and upon returning to the United States, she expressed her dislike for the continent.^[2]

After three bad marriages to addicted and sometimes abusive men, in 1955 Barrymore had herself hospitalized for nearly a full year of treatment. In 1957, she published her autobiography, Too Much, Too Soon, with help and encouragement from ghostwriter Gerold Frank, which included her portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker. In July 1957, she promoted the book by appearing on Mike Wallace's TV show The Mike Wallace Interview.^[3] The following year, Warner Bros. made a film with the same title starring Dorothy Malone as Barrymore and Errol Flynn as her father.

Personal life and death[]

Barrymore was married three times. Her first was to actor Bramwell Fletcher, who was 17 years her senior and had appeared with her father in his 1931 classic Svengali. Then she married John Howard, a tennis player. Her last marriage was to actor Robert Wilcox. The marriage to Wilcox ended when he died of a heart attack while traveling by train in June 1955 at the age of 45.^[4]

Barrymore died on January 25, 1960, and she is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York, next to her mother.^[5] Her death has been attributed to a drug overdose, but her autopsy failed to find a cause of death and found no indication of overdose.^[6]

See also[]

• List of unsolved deaths

Filmography[]

Film[]

Television[]

• The Diana Barrymore Show (1949) (*cancelled as she didn't show up)
• The Ed Sullivan Show (1950?)
• The Mike Wallace Interview (1957)
• New York Noir: Entertainment Press Conference (1957)
• The Ben Hecht Show (1958)
• Irv Kupcinet Show (1959)

Bibliography[]

• Too Much, Too Soon, with Gerold Frank. New York: Henry Holt and Company (1957)

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diana Barrymore.

• Diana Barrymore at IMDb
• Diana Barrymore at the Internet Broadway Database
• Diana Barrymore papers, 1865-1959 (bulk 1937-1957), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
• allmovie bio
• Diana Barrymore at Find a Grave
• interviewed on television by Mike Wallace on July 14, 1957 (alternate video link)
• Diana wearing shades after being beaten by guy
• Diana as an infant portrait with her father
• with her father on his 60th birthday, February 1942
• Blanche Oelrichs and daughter Diana on the RMS Berengaria