Oscar Profile #10: Ethel Barrymore

Born in 1879, Ethel Barrymore was generally considered the greatest actress of her generation. The second of three children of actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew, her mother was the daughter of actors John and Louisa Drew, who was known professionally as Mrs. Drew. Her uncles, John Drew Jr. and Sidney Drew, were matinee idols, the former on stage, the latter on screen. Brothers Lionel and John became huge screen stars while Ethel remained faithful to the stage.

The Barrymores (Georgiana, Ethel, John and Ethel’s daughter, Ethel Barrymore Colt) were the source material for the thinly disguised characters in the often revived Broadway play, The Royal Family.

One time paramour Winston Churchill proposed to her in 1900, but she turned him down because she didn’t think he had much of a future. She married instead Russell Griswald Colt, nephew of arms manufacturer Samuel Colt in 1909 and divorced him in 1923.

Though she made a handful of silent films, all but one of them lost, her early sound film career was limited to one film, 1932’s Rasputin and the Empress. A bout with pneumonia during the run of The Corn Is Green forced her to retire from the stage and move to sunny California.

She began her new career in Hollywood at the age of 65 and immediately won an Oscar for her portrayal of Cary Grant’s dying mother in None But the Lonely Heart. Her subsequent screen performances were equally distinguished and she, in fact, was nominated for an Oscar three more times within the decade.

She died in 1959 at 79, the last survivor of her generation of acting Barrymores. Her brother John’s granddaughter, Drew Barrymore, carries on the family tradition in today’s movies.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART (1944), directed by Clifford Odets

Eschewing director Odets’ insistence that she use glycerine drops to force her eyes to tear during a pivotal emotional scene, Barrymore played the scene straight, allowing her natural emotions to drive the tears.

The film itself doesn’t hold up particularly well. Author Richard Llewelyn, whose How Green Was My Valley produced far happier results, was opposed to the casting of 40-year-old Cary Grant to play his 19-year-old protagonist. The film skirts the issue by making Grant’s character of indeterminate age. While Grant, playing against type as a petty thief, was nominated for an Oscar, only Barrymore’s winning performance as his dying mother really holds up. Barrymore herself disagreed. She didn’t think she was very good in it.

The film was also nominated for its editing and score.

THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER (1947), directed by H.C. Potter

Portraying a warm, wise character very close to her own persona, Barrymore was much more at home and much more relaxed than she had yet been on screen as the aristocratic political operative in The Farmer’s Daughter. Whether sparring with son Joseph Cotton, or butler Charles Bickford, or supporting housekeeper Loretta Young in her run for Congress, Barrymore was at the top of her game in this hugely popular comedy.

Bickford was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Young won as Best Actress, but Barrymore, who is even better than both of them, through some quirk, managed to be nominated for her miniscule role in the box-office flop The Paradine Case instead.

PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948), directed by William Dieterle

Once again using her very real natural charm, Barrymore plays the kindly spinster art museum owner, Miss Spinney, in this fantasy romance starring Joseph Cotton as an artist and Jennifer Jones as his muse.

Cecil Kellaway, Lillian Gish, David Wayne and Albert Sharpe also provide interesting support, but aside from the stars, it’s Barrymore’s performance that stays with you. Is she or isn’t she Jennie as an old lady?

KIND LADY (1951), directed by John Sturges

This was a rare on-screen starring role for Barrymore who once again plays a woman with a passion for art and artists. The results this time are quite different as her instincts to support a struggling artist take a deadly turn in this gothic thriller, the remake of a 1935 film.

Action director Sturges ramps up the terror to a fever pitch as Barrymore is held captive by a con artist and his entourage. Sturges gets excellent supporting performances from Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury, Betsy Blair, Keenan Wynn, John Williams and others, but the film belongs to Barrymore.

JUST FOR YOU (1952), directed by Elliott Nugent

An underrated gem, this is a delightful musical pairing Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman as middle-aged lovers with Robert Arthur and Natalie Wood as Crosby’s problem children. Barrymore’s warmth and humanity as the head of a girls’ school all but steals the film from Crosby and Wyman, who are also at their best.

The film’s hit song, “Zing a Little Zong” was nominated for an Oscar.