Diana Barrymore

Diana Barrymore
Born	Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe March 3, 1921(1921-03-03) New York City, New York
Died	January 25, 1960(1960-01-25) (aged 38) New York City, New York
Occupation	Film, stage actress
Years active	1939-1959
Spouse	Bramwell Fletcher (1942-1946) John Howard (January 1947-July 1947) Robert Wilcox (1950-1955)

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

Early life

Born Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe in New York City, New York, she was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs. She was stepdaughter of Dolores Costello and half-sister of actor John Drew Barrymore.

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

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 motion pictures 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 with widely read magazines such as Collier's Weekly, writing about her conduct in an October 1942 article titled "The Barrymore Brat". After less than three years in Hollywood, and five significant film roles, Barrymore's personal problems ended her film career.^[1]

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 she was left with virtually nothing from a once-vast family fortune.

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 which included her portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker, and 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, first to actor Bramwell Fletcher, who was seventeen years her senior. Then she married John Howard, a tennis player. Her last marriage was to a handsome but abusive man named Robert Wilcox. Diana might have found Wilcox to be the love of her life, but he nearly beat her to death in one of his assaults. The marriage to Wilcox ended only when he died of a heart attack at 45 in 1955.

Barrymore died from an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills on January 25, 1960 and is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York, next to her mother.^[2]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1941	Manpower	Bit part
1942	Eagle Squadron	Anne Partridge
1942	Between Us Girls	Caroline Bishop
1942	Nightmare	Leslie Stafford
1943	Frontier Badmen	Claire
1943	Fired Wife	Eve
1944	Ladies Courageous	Nadine Shannon
1944	The Adventures of Mark Twain	Undetermined role	Uncredited
1950	D.O.A.	Unconfirmed bit part	Uncredited
1951	The Mob	Bit part	Uncredited

References

1. ^ The Barrymore Brat by Nord Riley, October 3 1942, Collier's Weekly
2. ^ *M.J. Meaker, Sudden Endings, 13 Profiles in Depth of Famous Suicides(Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), p. 168-188: "You'll See, Mr. Atkinson: Diane Barrymore"

External links

Biography portal

• Diana Barrymore at the Internet Movie Database
• Diana Barrymore at the Internet Broadway Database
• Diana Barrymore at AllRovi
• Diana Barrymore at Find a Grave
• The Tragic Life of Diana Barrymore
• Diana Barrymore interviewed on television by Mike Wallace on July 14, 1957
• Diana wearing shades after being beaten by guy
• Diana as an infant portrait with her father
• Blanche Oelrichs and daughter Diana on the RMS Berengaria

Persondata
Name	Barrymore, Diana
Alternative names	Blythe, Diana Blanche Barrymore
Short description	Actress
Date of birth	March 3, 1921
Place of birth	New York City, New York
Date of death	January 25, 1960
Place of death	New York City, New York