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{{EngvarB|date=April 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maurice Barrymore
| image = Maurice Barrymore 001.jpg
| caption = Photo by [[William McKenzie Morrison|W. M. Morrison]]
| birth_name = Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1849|09|21}}
| birth_place = [[Amritsar]], [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]], [[British India]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1905|03|25|1849|09|21}}
| death_place = [[Amityville, New York]], U.S.
| restingplace = [[Mount Vernon Cemetery (Philadelphia)|Mount Vernon Cemetery]], [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]]
| occupation = Actor, playwright
| yearsactive = 1874–1901
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Georgiana Drew]]|1876|1893|end=d.}}<br> Mamie Floyd <br>(1894–?; divorced by 1900)
| children = [[Lionel Barrymore]]<br>[[Ethel Barrymore]]<br>[[John Barrymore]]
| family = [[Barrymore family|Barrymore]]
}}

'''Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe''' (21 September 1849<ref name=davis/> – 25 March 1905), known professionally by his stage name '''Maurice Barrymore''', was an Indian-born British stage actor. He was the [[patriarch]] of the [[Barrymore family|Barrymore acting family]], father of [[John Barrymore|John]], [[Lionel Barrymore|Lionel]] and [[Ethel Barrymore|Ethel]], and great-grandfather of actress [[Drew Barrymore|Drew]].<ref name=death>Said that Maurice had died in [[Amityville, New York]], pp. 21–22, 41.</ref>

==Early life==
Born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe in [[Amritsar]], [[British India|India]], he was the son of William Edward Blythe (1818–1873), a surveyor for the [[British East India Company]], and his wife Charlotte Matilda Chamberlayne de Tankerville (1822–1849) who had some French ancestry. Herbert, the youngest of seven, had an older brother named Will and two sisters named Emily and Evelin. Three other siblings had died in infancy.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160517125914/http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/annapizzey/macblyth.htm The Blyth Family, personal reminiscence of Margarita Alice Caroline Blyth(1878-1952), niece of Herbert Blyth (Maurice Barrymore)]...(Wayback Machine)</ref> Matilda, after a difficult pregnancy, died shortly after giving birth to Herbert on 21 September 1849. In his formative years Herbert was raised by his Aunt Amelia Blythe, his mother's sister, and later by other family members. Amelia, a Chamberlayne by birth, had married a brother of Herbert's father and was a Blythe by marriage.

Herbert was sent back to England for education at [[Harrow School]], and studied Law at [[Oxford University]], where he was captain of his class [[Association football|football]] team in 1868. Herbert also became enamored of the sport of [[boxing]]. The [[Marquess of Queensberry Rules]] were firmly established at this time but it was not unusual to see [[Bare-knuckle boxing|bare knuckle]] fights. On 21 March 1872 Herbert won the [[middleweight]] boxing championship of [[England]]. Years later many of Herbert's friends would be sports figures of the day, particularly boxers and wrestlers such as [[William Muldoon]], [[John L. Sullivan]], [[James J. Corbett]] and a young actor named [[Hobart Bosworth]], the latter of whom Herbert would stage in an amateur bout with his son Lionel.<ref name=davis>James Kotsilibas Davis (ca. 1977) ''Great Times Good Times: The Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore''</ref>

Herbert's father expected him to become a [[barrister]], but Herbert fell in with a group of actors, which scandalized the elder Blythe. That same year 1872 Herbert sat for his first posed theatrical photographic portrait by Oliver Sarony, older brother of the better remembered [[Napoleon Sarony]]. In order to spare his father the "shame" of having a son in such a "dissolute" vocation, he took the stage name Maurice Barrymore (though he never legally changed from "Blythe"), inspired by a conversation he had with fellow actor Charles Vandenhoff about William Barrymore (1759–1830),<ref>American and British Theatrical Biography page 74 c.1979 by J.P. Wearing Retrieved 12 August 2015 {{ISBN|0-8108-1201-0}}</ref> an early 19th-century English thespian, after seeing a poster depicting Barrymore in the [[Haymarket Theatre]]. He wanted his first name to be pronounced in the French manner (môr-ĒS) instead of the English (MÔR-is). His friends avoided that altogether by simply calling him "Barry".<ref>[http://americanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blbarrymore2.htm American History From About]{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} at americanhistory.about.com</ref>

==Career and marriage to Georgiana Drew==
[[File:Maurice Barrymore.jpg|thumb|Maurice Barrymore as Wilding in ''Captain Swift'' (1888) by C. Haddon Chambers<ref>[http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft3417ff02;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=4 C. Haddon Chambers (1888) ''Captain Swift'' at Hathi Trust Digital Library]</ref>]]
[[File:Portrait of Maurice Barrymore.jpg|right|thumb|Maurice Barrymore mid 1890s.]]
On 29 December 1874, Barrymore emigrated to the United States, sailing aboard the SS ''[[SS America (1863)|America]]'' to [[Boston]], and joined [[Augustin Daly]]'s troupe, making his début in ''[[Under the Gaslight]]''. He made his [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] début in December 1875 in ''[[Pique (play)|Pique]]'' opposite [[Emily Rigl]]; in the cast was a young actress, [[Georgiana Drew]], known as Georgie. Maurice and Georgiana had been introduced earlier by her brother [[John Drew Jr.]] who had befriended Maurice when he first arrived in America. Drew Jr. and Georgiana later brought Barrymore home to Philadelphia to be introduced to her mother, the formidable Mrs. John Drew, who for some reason wasn't too enthralled by the young man.

After a brief courtship, Barrymore and Georgie married on 31 December 1876, and had three children: [[Lionel Barrymore|Lionel]] (born 1878), [[Ethel Barrymore|Ethel]] (born 1879), and [[John Barrymore|John]] (born 1882). While their parents were on tour, the children lived with Georgiana's mother in Philadelphia. Barrymore had a lifelong love of animals and in the 1890s bought a farm on Staten Island to keep his collection of exotic animals. Georgiana died 2 July 1893, from [[Tuberculosis|consumption]] leaving Maurice a widower with three teenage children. For a summer in 1896, Lionel and John were left on the farm in the care of the man who fed the animals. Exactly one year after Georgie's death Barrymore married Mamie Floyd, much to Ethel's consternation.

==Shooting==
On 19 March 1879, in [[Marshall, Texas|Marshall]], Texas, Barrymore and fellow actor Ben Porter were shot by a notorious [[gunfighter]] and bully named Jim Currie.<ref>[https://old.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=porter&GSfn=benjamin&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GSsr=81&GRid=19443&df=all& Ben Porter, findagrave.com]</ref><ref name="DeArment">{{cite book|last=DeArment|first=Robert K.|title=Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West|volume=2|date=30 March 2012|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=9780806138633|pages=37–46}}</ref> Barrymore and Porter had played cards earlier with Currie, winning some money from him. That evening, while Barrymore, Porter and the actress Ellen Cummins dined at the White House Saloon, an intoxicated Currie began insulting and goading them into a fight. Barrymore challenged Currie to a fistfight. Currie shot him in the chest and then shot Porter in the stomach. John Drew, Jr., also with the company, showed up at the doorway after being alerted by all the commotion but Currie didn't shoot him. Porter was killed, while doctors spent the night operating on Barrymore to save his life. Georgie, then several months pregnant with Ethel, rushed to Texas to be at her husband's side enduring a long train trip. He made a full recovery, and returned to Marshall for the legal procedures that followed. Currie's brother was Andrew Currie, mayor of [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]], Louisiana, from 1878 to 1890 and later a member of the Louisiana state legislature,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dy2G-wG-eoAC|title=Eric Brock's Shreveport|isbn=9781455603862|last1=Brock|first1=Eric J.|date=31 January 2001}}</ref> who apparently used his influence to secure a not guilty verdict (after a 10-minute deliberation).<ref name="DeArment"/> An enraged Barrymore vowed never to return to Texas.

According to a 2004 [[A&E Network|A&E]] ''[[Biography (television program)|Biography]]'' piece, after the Ben Porter tragedy, Barrymore asked Georgiana to tour with him and [[Helena Modjeska]] in a play he had written. Georgiana and the children had converted to Catholicism under Helena's influence. Learning that he and Helena had resumed their romance, Georgiana, who had been given ownership of the play by Barrymore, forced his hand by closing it. Helena's husband, its producer, sued her. The real reason for Georgiana's actions never got into the press. However, Barrymore's many dalliances did make the newspapers.

==''Nadjezda''==
In 1884, Barrymore wrote a play titled ''Nadjezda'' (meaning "hope").<ref>{{cite journal|title=Literary gossip|journal=The Week : A Canadian Journal of Politics, Literature, Science and Arts|date=7 Feb 1884|volume=1|issue=10|page=158|url=https://archive.org/stream/weekcanadianjour01toro#page/n80/mode/1up|access-date=25 April 2013}}</ref> During this period he sailed with his wife Georgiana and their children Lionel, Ethel and John, then respectively 6, 5 and 2, to England to visit relatives he hadn't seen since migrating to America. (He had inherited some money from his aunt Amelia, one of his family members who helped raise him.) During the trip Barrymore met the great French actress and star [[Sarah Bernhardt]]. Without copyrighting his play, he gave her a copy of the manuscript. In 1886, [[Victorien Sardou]], a friend of Bernhardt's, wrote his play ''[[La Tosca]],'' which later achieved great fame as an opera. Barrymore claimed that Bernhardt had given his play to Sardou and that ''La Tosca'' plagiarized it, and sought an injunction to stop [[Fanny Davenport]] from putting on further performances. In affidavits read out in court Bernhardt said that she had never seen the play and knew nothing about it, and Sardou said that preliminary material for the play had been in his desk for fifteen years. In fact, the only resemblance to ''La Tosca'' is the unholy bargain the heroine makes to save her husband's life, similar to that of Tosca and Baron Scarpia. As Sardou pointed out in his affidavit, this plot device is a common one and had been notably used by Shakespeare in ''[[Measure for Measure]].''

==Last years==
[[File:Belasco's The Heart of Maryland.jpg|right|thumb|Lithograph of Barrymore with [[Mrs. Leslie Carter]] in ''[[The Heart of Maryland (play)|The Heart of Maryland]]'', 1895]]
In 1896, Barrymore became the first major Broadway star to headline in [[Vaudeville]]—a brave foray at the time. During his career, Maurice Barrymore played opposite many of the reigning female stars of the time including [[Helena Modjeska]], [[Mrs. Fiske]], [[Mrs. Leslie Carter]], [[Olga Nethersole]], [[Lillian Russell]], and [[Lily Langtry]]. In the 1895 theater season on Broadway he co-starred with Mrs. Leslie Carter in ''[[The Heart of Maryland (play)|The Heart of Maryland]]''. In the 1899 season on Broadway he had a success playing opposite Mrs. Fiske in the part of Rawdon Crawley in ''[[Becky Sharp (film)|Becky Sharp]]''.<ref>''Famous Actors and Actresses On the American Stage: Documents of the American Theater History'' Vol. 1 A-J by William C. Young c.1975; (Maurice Barrymore entry pages75-81 with splendid photo as Rawdon Crawley)</ref> This play was based on a character from [[William Thackeray]]'s novel ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]''. ''Becky Sharp'' was Barrymore's last Broadway success. In 1900, Barrymore toured the U.S. with a play called ''[[The Battle of the Strong]]'' co-starring a young [[Holbrook Blinn]]. In the company of this play was a five-year-old child actress, [[Blanche Sweet]], who grew up to be a silent movie actress and acted with Lionel in his first Biograph film. When the ''Battle of the Strong'' company stopped in [[Louisville, Kentucky]] Barrymore sat for his last posed photograph. Also during this time he got to spend time with his son John, who was now in his late teens. Lionel and Ethel were on the road in theater companies, having already started their careers.

==Mental breakdown and death==
On 28 March 1901, Barrymore was performing at the Lion Palace Theatre in New York when he suddenly departed from his monologue and shocked the audience with what was described as "a blasphemous attack on the Jews" and a rant of "such an emotional pitch that tears rolled down his face." After further erratic behavior, Barrymore was committed to Bellevue Hospital by a court order obtained by his son.<ref>[http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1901/03/30/page/1/article/barry-more-in-an-asylum "Barrymore in an Asylum"], ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', 30 March 1901, p1</ref>
In reporting his death on 25 March 1905, ''[[The New York Times]]'' recalled that "He was playing a [[vaudeville]] engagement [in 1901] at a [[Harlem]] theatre when he suddenly dropped his lines and began to rave." The following day he became violent and was taken to [[Bellevue Hospital|Bellevue]] insane ward by his son, John, who lured him under the pretense of starring in a new play. At Bellevue and later [[Amityville, New York|Amityville]] he was diagnosed with the lingering effects of [[syphilis]], an incurable disease at the time. During his stay at Bellevue he almost strangled his daughter Ethel during a visit. Ethel, through her early success on the stage, paid for her father's stay in the institutions. A trained boxer, Barrymore's strength remained, as in a scuffle with one of the Bellevue attendants, he picked the man up over his head and threw him into a corner.

In 1905, Barrymore's son Lionel visited him at Amityville and the subject of San Francisco came up. Maurice called Lionel a "goddamned liar" and stated that San Francisco had been destroyed by fire and earthquake. Lionel writes in his autobiography that his father had foreseen the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|great 1906 earthquake]] a full year before it took place.<ref>Lionel Barrymore writing in ''We Barrymores'' c.1951</ref>

Barrymore died at Amityville in his sleep, and Ethel had him buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Philadelphia.<ref name=death/> When the cemetery later was closed, his remains were moved to [[Mount Vernon Cemetery (Philadelphia)|Mount Vernon Cemetery]], also in Philadelphia, where his first wife and her family are buried. Barrymore was fondly remembered, and his death was widely reported in the country's newspapers. He had lived long enough to see all three of his children enter the family business of acting.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161019021718/http://nystage1903.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/ssvulcania-mauricebarrymore1.jpg "Tribute to Maurice Barrymore"] by actor/friend [[Henry Miller (actor)|Henry Miller]](Wayback version)</ref>

==In memoriam==
In honor of his life, Michael J. Farrand penned the memorial narrative poem "The Man Who Brought Royalty to America" in 2000, based on the definitive biography ''Great Times, Good Times: The Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore'' by James Kotsilibas Davis (Doubleday, 1977).

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{IBDB name|31144}}
* [http://www.fanpix.net/gallery/maurice-barrymore-pictures.htm photo] galleries of Maurice Barrymore throughout his Broadway & Vaudeville career
* [http://fanpix.famousfix.com/gallery/maurice-barrymore/p15170718 Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew] 1870s or 1880s
* [https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/13/6c/63/136c639b12ea29ea1b53f59649ed0677.jpg Maurice Barrymore] as Marquis de Montauran in ''The Chouans'' whose world premiere occurred 1886-11-10 at the Union Square Theatre in New York.
:(Source: Brown, Thomas Allston (1903) [https://books.google.com/books?id%3D9aoUZnD4UIIC ''A History of the New York Stage, Vol. 3.''] New York: Dodd, Mead and Company; p. 178)
* [http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com/atho/atho.detail.people.aspx?personcode=per0053426 ''Maurice Barrymore'', North American Theater Online biography and photo]
*[http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/86125681/Redferns Maurice Barrymore] in Prussian style costume with Iron Cross circa 1870s
*[https://archive.is/20130713025311/http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/sayre&CISOPTR=12428&CISOBOX=1&REC=3 still from ''The Heart of Maryland'' 1895]
*[https://broadway.cas.sc.edu/content/maurice-barrymore Maurice Barrymore: Broadway Photographs](Univ of South Carolina)
*[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FCV03OroXs0/VrdYXayN2KI/AAAAAAAAbz0/jBlwzmbCzA8/s1600/nypl.digitalcollections.510dd47d9-d7bd-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.001.w.jpg In the play "Alabama" 1891]
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=XCs_AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PP30&lpg=RA2-PP30&dq=maurice+barrymore&source=bl&ots=UjatgqyNy2&sig=gYBHvJIlCTHm7dLxXc5XgsM2XY4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCgtjgyvrTAhUOwWMKHWf9DoU4FBDoAQghMAA#v=onepage&q=maurice%20barrymore&f=false Gallery of Players from the Illustrated American, Volume 1, Issues 1-9]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrymore, Maurice}}
[[Category:1849 births]]
[[Category:1905 deaths]]
[[Category:People educated at Harrow School]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:19th-century British male actors]]
[[Category:Barrymore family|Maurice]]
[[Category:Burials at Mount Vernon Cemetery (Philadelphia)]]
[[Category:Male actors from Amritsar]]
[[Category:British male stage actors]]
[[Category:British emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:American male stage actors]]
[[Category:Vaudeville performers]]
[[Category:American people of English descent]]
[[Category:American shooting survivors]]
[[Category:Male actors from Pennsylvania]]

Maurice Barrymore - Revision history

82.19.100.157: Undid revision 1015233974 by 82.19.100.157 (talk)