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Toward the end of his life, master actor John Barrymore became an embarrassment: he was a classic drunken has-been who could neither pull it together nor pack it in. But this unusual biography spends most of its pages on Barrymore's golden age in the 1920s and 1930s, describing in amazing pre-videotape detail his performances at the height of his powers, playing what may be the 20th century's definitive
Hamlet, along with
Macbeth and other classical roles. Michael Morrison draws on books, memories, reviews, and other material to present painstaking line-by-line recreations of Barrymore's most shining performances.
Review
"This young artist, profiting by the lessons of tradition...casts it boldly aside and emerges into the rarefied atmosphere of a new art, greater because it is new, stronger because it is built upon an old foundation." Brooklyn Times, March 9, 1920
"Morrison gives a well-researched and detailed look at how Barrymore prepared for, staged and delivered Shakespearean performances that amazed and thrilled critics and theatergoers." Ed Will, Denver Post
"Michael Morrison's most readable study vividly recreates act by act the Shakespearean art of one of America's most charismatic and influential modern stage actors." Margot Peters, author of The House of Barrymore
"Michael Morrison's most readable study vividly recreates act by act the Shakespearean art of one of America's most charismatic and influential modern stage actors." Margot Peters, author of The House of Barrymore
"Morrison gives a well-researched and detailed look at how Barrymore prepared for, staged and delivered Shakespearean performances that amazed and thrilled critics and theatergoers." Ed Will, Denver Post
"Michael A. Morrison, a theatre historian and collector of theatrical memorabilia, attempts to put the record straight, and in doing so gives us the best book about a bygone era I have read in many years, immensely detailed, magnificently illustrated and hugely readable, his researches incorporates eye-witness accounts, critical reaction and personal letters." Peter Hepple, The Stage
"Michael A. Morrison, a theatre historian and collector of theatrical memorabilia, attempts to put the record straight, and in doing so gives us the best book about a bygone era I have read in many years, immensely detailed, magnificently illustrated and hugely readable, his researches incorporates eye-witness accounts, critical reaction and personal letters." Peter Hepple, The Stage
"John Barrymore's image is that of a hard-drinking matinee idol and movie star, but as Michael Morrison shows, during the 1920's he was America's and perhaps the world's-greatest Shakespearean actor." Book World
"Morrison's meticulously researched and well-written book takes the reader through the before and after of Barrymore's brief but memorable Shakespearean career and brilliantly re-creates his development as an interpreter of Richard and Hamlet." Mary C. Henderson, Stagebill-The Fox Theater
"...a delightful read.... A perfect gift for anyone who loved Chrisopher Plummer's `Barrymore'". San Francisco Examiner
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