Maurice Barrymore
| Maurice Barrymore | |
|---|---|
Photo by W. M. Morrison
|
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| Born |
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe September 21, 1849 Amritsar, Punjab, British India |
| Died | March 25, 1905 (aged 55) Amityville, New York |
| Occupation | actor playwright |
| Years active | 1874-1901 |
| Spouse(s) |
Georgiana Drew Barrymore (1876-93; her death) 3 children Mamie Floyd (1894 - ;divorced by 1900) |
| Children |
Lionel Barrymore Ethel Barrymore John Barrymore |
| Relatives |
John Drew Barrymore (grandson) Drew Barrymore (great-granddaughter) |
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe (September 21, 1849 – March 25, 1905), known professionally by his stage name Maurice Barrymore, was a British-born stage actor. He was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting family, father of John, Lionel and Ethel, and great-grandfather of actress Drew.
Born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe in Amritsar, 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). 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. Matilda, after a difficult pregnancy, died shortly after giving birth to Herbert on September 21, 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 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 wasn't unusual to see 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. 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 noted photographer Oliver Sarony, an 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), 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".
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Wikipedia