That's the bad news and there isn't much good. The son hardly remembered his father at all. In fact, he said he only recalled seeing him once. That might have been a good thing for the father was a deeply-troubled person, a flawed father, a lousy husband and riddled with substance abuses. That's plural. He was the least engaging among his siblings in the acting arena as well. I hope that's not gasping I heard. In fact, I found him dreadful. Oh yes, that was gasping.
Unfortunately the sins of the father (and the family) were passed down to the son anyway. You know what they say about blood. In most ways, he became the worst of the bunch and the great family talent was not passed along to him.
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| The little tyke with his father |
It's hard to fathom his mother being super Mom either. In her day she was a superstar and a glamorous Beverly Hills personality who likely didn't have a lot of quality time for her two children. She said she was vehemently opposed to her son going into acting (he was at the time attending Hollywood Professional School) and so she sent him off to St. John's Military Academy. Perhaps. It's more likely she sent him off to the school so that someone else could raise him.
By his teenage years, of course, he was wild and unruly and particularly belligerent to anyone in authority. When he and a cousin were 13, they enlisted in the Navy. They were both tall and looked older. However, their shenanigans were uncovered and they were quickly booted out.
At 17 he somehow obtained a contract to make a movie. (Did Mom, who was opposed, get talked into it?) His name was John Barrymore Jr, as he'd always been known. He wasn't interested in training to be an actor... schooling was out. He hated regimentation. One wonders if he'd ever thought about that in the Navy.
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| The Great Profile Jr. |
He had a small role as one of three brothers involved in a range war in The Sundowners (1950) with Robert Preston and Robert Sterling as the two, feuding older brothers. It is not a bad B western. Barrymore was top-billed in his second film, another B western, High Lonesome, also 1950. He is a drifter who is suspected of a series of recent murders.
Quebec (1951) had Barrymore all decked out in fancy period clothes for a revolt in 1930s Canada. Despite some derring-do with swords and pistols and the presence of Barbara Rush and Corinne Calvet, it didn't cause much of a stir.
A noirish piece, The Big Night (1951), gave Barrymore his first chance to play the misunderstood teen, in this case a kid seeking revenge on whoever beat up his father. Poor production values, poor direction (by Joe Losey, no less) and writing kept it from going anywhere.
In 1952 he married actress Cara Williams who would gather some fame in the TV show Pete and Gladys and had the only female role in 1958's The Defiant Ones. Over the years he would be married to and divorced from four actresses, largely unknown, and would have one child by each of them.
Thunderbirds (1952) is a B- war film about a largely Native American National Guard unit from Oklahoma and its introduction to fighting in WWII. Barrymore and John Derek are striking-to-look-at rivals.
He would not make another film for four years, an oddity for someone looking to make a mark in the movie industry. He probably knew at this point that he didn't really want to be an actor and perhaps the truth is he really didn't want to work at all. He did manage a little television and a lot of arguing with Williams. He was jailed a few times during their marriage, the first time for failing to pay traffic tickets.
In my mind there is no question that his best role was as the unhinged serial killer in Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956). I thought he was truly frightening in a few scenes. Can there be any doubt that he understood abhorrent behavior? It is not only his best role but he worked alongside a whole bunch of pros.
After making While the City Sleeps, he changed his name from John Barrymore Jr. to John Drew Barrymore. No doubt he wanted to cause a fuss (small as it may be) and draw some attention to himself. He wanted to say, here I am, a brand new me. Unfortunately that only lasted a few days and he was busted again for public drunkenness. And sadly if the bust weren't for drunkenness (and it often was), then it was marijuana, assault, failing to pay traffic tickets, making a spectacle of himself in restaurants and more. I expect he just didn't give a damn.
I thought he was so dangerous on the screen... scary, too. He reeked of violence. I didn't mind it. I found him chilling. I was always there to be entertained and he most certainly did that. He reminded me of my childhood pal who imitated Barrymore and his tough-guy behavior, ad nauseum. He was especially good at the Barrymore sneer and the scornful eyes. He was the one who kept me abreast of the Barrymore stories and he usually knew when his movies were going to open.
I am going to one day do a piece on High School Confidential (1958). I would call it a guilty pleasure except that I feel no guilt about calling it what it is... plain awful. It stars Russ Tamblyn as an uncover cop, young enough to look like a high schooler to bust the drug ring on campus. Doncha know that Barrymore is the chief bad boy? This is likely his second most famous film and that is just so sad. I'm guessing Aunt Ethel didn't see it.
A very, very low-budget Never Love a Stranger (1958) is more famous for being the movie debut of Steve McQueen and it may hold some interest for that reason. All others are advised to stay away. Barrymore and McQueen are friends who wind up on opposite sides of the law... a overly-hatched scenario in many a gangster flick. Barrymore isn't bad but everything about this one is so trashy.
At the end of 1958 he was sentenced to three weekends in prison for a drunken public assault on his wife. He was back in the news a couple of months later when he was arrested for suspected hit and run drunk driving.
Night of the Quarter Moon (1959) is beyond awful. Barrymore, oddly enough looking his handsomest, is a rich-boy San Franciscan who brings home his mixed-race wife passing for white, played by singer Julie London, to the horror of his racist mother (Agnes Moorehead... migawd what was she thinking?). Nat King Cole, Anna Kashfi and Dean Jones costar. This movie is shameful and grotesque and would never be shown today. Perhaps all copies have been burned.
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| Cole & Kashfi standing & Barrymore & London sitting |
He was probably thinking of his aunt and uncle and their stage triumphs when he accepted a role in the touring company of Look Homeward, Angel although he walked out 10 days into rehearsals.
Like all actors, whether named Barrymore or not, if you ain't tripping the light fantastic in America, try Italy. He had another reason, of course... he just needed a new lease on life. Hell, he just needed to run away. Soon, however, the European press was reporting about a series of street brawls in Rome. I'm not a nice, clean-cut American kid at all. I'm just a human being. Those things happen, he rationalized. It's true that at 30 he wasn't a kid but he still acted like one. He made 16 utterly forgettable films while he was there.
When he returned to Los Angeles, Barrymore grandly announced I am not going to do anything bad anymore. I feel I'm straightened out and down the block. Somewhere around the block I lost half of my ego so I don't work for applause. Promises, promises.
Unsurprisingly it wasn't long at all that he was back in the news for an arrest on public drunkenness or a drug bust and more and more spousal abuse, often in public. We know how this would play out today but even in the mid 60s this and his longtime antisocial, scary, violent behavior saw his career, such as it was, basically taken away from him. His movie career was essentially done by the mid 60s.
He spent a lot of time at Joshua Tree National Monument, a high desert escape that attracted hikers, rock climbers, folks who lived in vans and those who smoked weed and more. It was Barrymore's favorite place to chill out. I'm not sure what he did there but I don't think he hiked or climbed rocks. He tended to stay out of trouble during his JTNM runs although I wouldn't rule out park rangers being aware of him.
In the late 60s he was involved in two car crashes that involved him being on drugs. For the latter one, he did some hard time.
In the mid-70s I was in an L.A. liquor store. I was at the register looking for someone to help me when I heard a racket at the back. Hearing bottles crashing I looked to find a man on the floor thrashing with a couple of male employees. A woman standing next to me said it was Barrymore and she had come in with him when he suddenly freaked out. I didn't see his face nor do I know what happened as a result.
When his young daughter turned in an engaging performance in E.T. in 1982 and became world- famous, I wonder how it effected him. I'm not sure history recorded it. He barely knew her.
He didn't work in film or television for the entire 80s or 90s. I'm not sure that he had a home. There was crashing at friends when he could and there was his van and the high desert nights were, well, high. He allowed his hair to grow gray and he had a full beard the same color. He tended to be very reclusive with drink and drugs his constant companions.
By 2003 a wheelchair-bound Barrymore appeared at an L.A. court hearing to determine who would be his guardian. He was physically a mess and suffering from both physical and mental illness. I recall seeing a picture of him that made me feel sad and an accompanying article said he was a derelict. Likely as a result of that, daughter Drew, despite their estrangement, moved him near her home, watched over him and paid his medical bills.
John Drew Barrymore died of cancer in 2004 at age 72. His ashes were spread at Joshua Tree National Monument. He would have liked that.
He appears to have been broken before he had a chance to grow up. He always felt unloved and unwanted as a child and he physically, emotionally and mentally punished those who tried to love him as he grew older. He and his sister Diana, who died at 38, had the most tragic of the Barrymore clan stories.
Ultimately being the heir to the throne of the Royal Family of Acting was too weighty for him. The truth is... he wasn't a bad actor at all. He put his demons on display on the screen and saturated them with his acting skills. Unfortunately, he was unreliable and let's face it, that doesn't cut it on any job.
He knew his Uncle Lionel and Aunt Ethel were embarrassed by him. They surely knew, too, that he'd become a bully like his father. He seemed to have inherited most of the family's oddball DNA.
Poor John Drew Barrymore.
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