“For each man carries within his own memory a special golden age. Then, when he becomes old enough to seem secure against rebuttal, he tends to make a shining legend of that time. He feels ordained to go up and down like some tireless evangelist seeking to enforce the gospels and the virtues of his own mental treasure upon younger men properly occupied with enjoying their present youth, which in its own ripening will have become a golden age for them one palsied day. Perhaps old men should be denied their clocks and calendars, their mirrors, and their writing tools.”

This poetically insightful passage is from Gene Fowler’s biography of his friend John Barrymore, Good Night, Sweet Prince. A few months ago, I found a copy of this 1944 biography in a used bookstore, and it has become my new favorite celebrity bio. As indicated by the accompanying photo, this copy of Good Night, Sweet Prince has seen better days. The pages are yellowed, the jacket is in pieces, and it looks as though the previous owner’s pet chewed off the corner of the cover. You could say the book has a lot of charm and character—much like the author and the subject.

During their Hollywood years, Barrymore and screenwriter Fowler (The Call of the Wild; Billy the Kid (1941); Beau James) were members of the notorious Bundy Drive Boys, a group of Hollywood actors, artists, and assorted bohemians who drank themselves into the grave under the guise of camaraderie and friendship. The ringleader was the secretive artist and Hollywood hanger-on John Decker, whose house on Bundy Drive gave the gang its name. Members also included W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn, Thomas Mitchell, and art critic-aesthete Sadakichi Hartmann. The gang’s activities included practical jokes, epic drinking bouts, and late-night impromptu stagings of Shakespeare. Fowler wrote in his 1954 memoir of the group, Minutes of the Last Meeting, “These men lived intensely, as do children and poets and jaguars.” However, judging from Good Night, Sweet Prince, Fowler and Barrymore must have been close friends outside the Bundy Drive gang, because the book is filled with anecdotes that paint the carousing actor as a talented man with a troubled soul, a sense of loyalty to family and friends, and a soft spot for animals.

JOHN BARRYMORE AS HAMLET--FOUR YEARS AFTER MEETING WRITER GENE FOWLER

I am sure Fowler glossed over Barrymore’s more disgraceful behavior just as he painted his scandalous deeds as the actions of a temperamental, sensitive artist. But, I really don’t care if Fowler’s chronicle of his friend’s life was accurate, or not. Two things stood out for me as I was reading Good Night, Sweet Prince. I was most intrigued with the attention paid to the Barrymore family tree, and the way family members interacted with historical figures as though it were a common occurrence. But, I also fell under the spell of Fowler’s prose—such as the sample noted above. I am generally not a fan of flowery writing in nonfiction, but this book proved an exception for me. Either Fowler was particularly good at it, or I was just suckered in from the opening paragraph in the “Overture,” where he wrote: “A strange thing happened to me shortly before I decided to undertake this work. . . .if I lacked witnesses to certain of these happenings, I should not care to risk my liberty during a time of bovine opinions and slaughterhouse verdicts.”

Fowler’s writing style definitely takes the sting out of Barrymore’s bursts of temperament and displays of bad-boy behavior. For example, the actor often used the dulcet tones of his famous voice to swear with great verve, which Fowler describes as “. . .the actor [could] revive oaths and threats unused since cutthroats sailed the Spanish Main,” but in the next sentence, he smoothes over such behavior by describing the impact of Barrymore’s voice during a stage performance of Mignon, “The audience sat like lotus-eaters, happy and anaesthetized.”

THE INSIDE COVER OF FOWLER'S BIO SHOWS SKETCHES BY BARRYMORE, WHO WANTED TO BE AN ARTIST AT ONE TIME.

There is an undercurrent of melancholy is some of Fowler’s prose, and I think this is what appeals to me most about his writing style. In discussing the death of the critic Alexander Woollcott (a friend of both Fowler and Barrymore’s), he writes, “. . .my personal opinion is that Death is a great whore. She sleeps with everyone, promiscuously and obscenely, and everyone must sleep with her without willing it.” Or, later, when describing Barrymore’s memory loss around the time of his second divorce from actress Michael Strange (aka Blanche Oelrichs), “. . .it is believed that this was a foreshadowing circumstance of the time when his power to recollect the newer yesterdays would become an unsilvered mirror.” No one writes like that anymore.

LOUISA LANE DREW AS MRS. MALAPROP FROM "THE RIVALS"

My favorite part of the book was the way Fowler delved into the Barrymore family history, narrating it in an anecdotal style in which the famous and infamous drop in and out of the narrative. Also, he chronicles John Barrymore’s remarkable theater career, almost play by play, offering a personal but detailed account of a period most movie fans only vaguely know. There are so many extraordinary anecdotes, incredible encounters with celebrities and historical figures, and astonishing stories that I could not fit them all into one post. This week, I will cover or summarize the Barrymore family history and John’s theatrical career; next week, I will delve into Fowler’s version of the actor’s years as a movie star.

John Barrymore was descended from a long line of theater actors, the Lanes and the Drews, on his mother side, and he was the son of actor Maurice Barrymore. His grandmother, Louisa Lane Drew, the daughter of London actors, had come to America in 1827 where she became a notable actress at age seven. She liked to tell a story about how a Revolutionary War soldier came to see her in a play and was so taken with her that he came backstage to meet her, and she vividly recalled how the Liberty Bell tolled in 1834 for the death of Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution. It wasn’t till the next year that the bell cracked.

In her seven-decade career, Mrs. Drew costarred with every actor of note, enjoying great success opposite Joseph Jefferson, who was also from a respected theatrical family. She played Ophelia in Junius Brutus Booth’s traveling company of Hamlet. The eccentric Booth was the father of Lincoln’s assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth. After her third marriage—to actor John Drew—Louisa managed stage productions in Philadelphia, where she often appeared in plays as well as managed the Arch Theater. John Wilkes had been a star at one of her playhouses and had even stayed in her home on North Twelfth Street. Eerily, Abraham Lincoln had also visited her playhouse and personally complemented her on her acting. When informed that John Wilkes had assassinated Lincoln, she pulled out a letter from the 16^th president in which he thanked her for providing his presidential party with seats at the Arch Street Theater in 1862. She noted to her son, John Drew, “Will our profession ever atone?” Traveling in a professional circle that included both the President and his assassin seemed utterly uncanny to me.

EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET.

Edwin Booth, who despite being John Wilkes’s brother managed to become a legend of the theater, also intersected with the Drews and Barrymores. Maurice Barrymore, whose real name was Herbert Blythe, played Laertes in Edwin Booth’s Hamlet in 1875. Booth’s legend was built on his interpretation of Hamlet, which he played many times, most notably on Broadway. He set a Broadway record by playing Hamlet for 100 consecutive nights—a record broke by John Barrymore in 1922-23 when he played the role for 101 consecutive nights. According to Fowler, when John had been in the role about two-and-a-half months, a group of old-school theater people came to see him to ask him to stop his run at 99 appearances. When he asked why, the group noted that he should do it out of respect for the great Edwin Booth. Barrymore scoffed at the aged group and told them that it was time to move on from the past; he purposefully broke Booth’s record by one performance, and then left the production for other opportunities.

Barrymore’s mother Georgianna Drew met her husband, Maurice, through her actor brother John, Jr. The two hit it off immediately and were married in the centennial year, 1876. Louisa showed little respect for the talents of handsome Maurice, because he was only a first-generation actor, but she tolerated him for her daughter’s sake. Georgianna continued to perform onstage after her marriage, and she and her husband occasionally acted together in plays. However, just as often, they toured in different theatrical companies, going their separate ways. Maurice once toured with the great Lillie Langtry across Canada, returning home with a banged-up head after defending Ms. Langtry’s honor from a ruffian hockey player hell-bent on visiting the actress in her room uninvited. Georgianna established herself as a comedienne and became a member of the well-respected Palmer Stock Company. Apparently, it never crossed the minds of any of the Drew actresses to give up the stage for marriage and children. Like Louisa before them, Maurice and Georgianna crossed paths with other notables of the day, giving me the impression that legitimate-theater actors were greatly admired. For example, according to Fowler, Robert Peary, the man credited with discovering the North Pole, once gave Maurice two “Arctic” dogs (probably huskies) out of admiration.

GEORGIANNA BARRYMORE WITH HER TALENTED CHILDREN, ETHEL, LIONEL, AND JOHN (IN HER LAP)

As children, John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore met any number of historical figures, including General Nelson A. Miles, who had battled the Apaches out west. He retired to Long Island and was a neighbor to their uncle, John Drew, Jr. According to Fowler, John and Lionel played cowboys and Indians with Miles. And, once, Lionel barged into the home of family friends (also actors) only to discover President Grover Cleveland secretly recuperating from an ailment of the palette.

John and his siblings all claimed that they had no aspirations to become actors, though Lionel and Ethel didn’t waste much time preparing to do anything else. Lionel made his stage debut around 1893 in a play with his grandmother, while Ethel made her New York stage debut at age 14 in The Rivals. John held out the longest, with serious intentions of becoming an artist. He attended art classes at the Slade School in London and then enrolled in the famed Art Students League in New York. He even found a job painting murals at Murray’s Restaurant in New York, where architect Stanford White saw his work and admired it. The two became acquaintances, and White ended up giving him several objets d’art. Coincidentally, a couple of years later, John took up with chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit for a brief time—just before she began a scandalous affair with White. Later, Nesbit’s lover, millionaire Harry K. Thaw, murdered White. Reading about the Barrymores is akin to chasing across history with a who’s who of the noted and the notorious.

John Barrymore finally succumbed to the family legacy, more to pay the bills than anything else. At first, he toyed with acting, gaining little attention until 1909 when he appeared in The Fortune Hunter, which catapulted him to Broadway stardom. During his run in The Fortune Hunter, Barrymore developed a crush on vaudeville singer Nora Baye, but sister Ethel discouraged him from pursuing her because “she’s the romantic ideal of W.C. Fields.” When Barrymore wanted to know more about Fields, Ethel took him to the Ziegfeld Follies, where W.C. was the featured comedian. This marked Barrymore’s first encounter with the great Fields, who later became a close friend and drinking companion in Hollywood. Supposedly, after seeing the comedian juggle and deliver lines in his trademark style, Barrymore remarked, “I’m not in love with Miss Baye now. Hell! I’m in love with W.C. Fields.”

JOHN BARRYMORE AS PETER IBBETSON

Fowler’s biography does an excellent job of detailing New York’s theater scene during the 1910s, which was populated by eccentric people with strange names like A. Toxin Worm, a press agent. Fowler offers an insider’s view of the respected theatrical troupes of the day, the important playwrights and critics, the ins and outs of staging a production, and the night life that was part of this world. Fowler met Barrymore in 1918 after the actor had earned acclaim as a tragedian in such productions as Justice by playwright John Galsworthy and Peter Ibbetson, which was mounted at the dogged insistence of actress Constance Collier. When it looked like the production might fall through for lack of money, Florenz Ziegfeld stepped in to donate electrical equipment from his Follies, while famed actress Maude Adams volunteered to supervise the lighting for no fee.

In Peter Ibbetson, John costarred with his brother Lionel, who played the wicked Colonel Ibbetson. Lionel had left the theater in the mid-1910s to appear in motion pictures, including those of D.W. Griffith. Sadly, the oldest Barrymore sibling had become withdrawn after his two infant daughters died. He preferred to be at home and escape into a private world where he created etchings and paintings. Performing in movies churned out at the Metro Studios on 61^st Street in New York meant his work day ended in the afternoon, so he could go home to paint and etch. After much prodding by John and playwright Edward Sheldon, Lionel agreed to appear in Peter Ibbetson and by all accounts, he nailed the part. In 1904, Lionel was quoted regarding what constitutes the “Great Actor.” He noted, “The Great Actor always must act. He must make a ceremony of waking up in the morning. He must sit in his room and act so that his whole body vibrates to the thrill of it. . . He must live in roles and love them. . .Let the most profound, the most classic line fall from his lips, he must be unconscious of the fact that he is not the author of it.” In his grief over his baby daughters, Lionel had forgotten this credo; his role in Peter Ibbetson with his brother John helped him find it again.

THE ALCHEMIST'S CORNER TODAY

During this time period, Barrymore lived on the top floor of a building on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. He called his apartment the “Alchemist’s Corner.” He charmed the matronly landlord into allowing him to make significant changes to his apartment, including adding an intentionally crooked staircase that wound its way to the roof, where he added a rooftop cottage and garden with exotic plants. He painted the baseboard and moldings black and covered the bathroom walls with mirrors. He added stained glass, a white marble fireplace, and lots of Victorian furniture. Barrymore may have been most happy in this very private space, which he rarely shared with anyone. Years later, when he returned to New York from Hollywood, he walked passed his old digs and recalled his younger bohemian days with fondness and melancholy, not realizing that the weight from the dirt from his garden, plus years of leaking water, had collapsed the roof.

BARRYMORE'S HAMLET: YOUNG, REBELLIOUS, AND HOT

The high point of John Barrymore’s stage career was his interpretation of two Shakespeare roles for theatrical producer-director Arthur Hopkins, Richard III in 1920 and Hamlet in 1922-23. The production of the former was critically acclaimed, but it was the latter that made him a legend in the theater. His interpretation of Hamlet updated the character from the 19^th-century tradition of idealizing him into a genteel, introspective figure. Barrymore infused Hamlet with youthful rebellion, darkness, danger, and sexuality. After his record-breaking 101 Broadway performances, he revived the play on tour the following year and then took it to London. When he returned to New York in 1925, he quit the theater.

At this point in the biography, which is halfway through the 468-page book, Fowler mentions Barrymore’s film career for the first time. He begins this phase of JB’s life by intoning: “We hitherto have avoided extensive references to Jack’s cinematic experiments, out of respect for Shakespeare and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The picture upon which we shall now drape a hasty festoon was undertaken at the close of [the play] Clair de Lune, after the birth of Jack’s daughter.” Next week, I will cover John Barrymore’s adventures in Hollywood as told by his good friend Gene Fowler.