Elaine Barrie
(1915–2003)

Other names: Elaine Jacobs (at birth)

Biographical

A film actress, Barrie gained notoriety through her tempestuous relationship and eventual marriage to John Barrymore, a union that captivated Depression-era audiences with its theatrical spectacle and emotional volatility. Born to a travelling salesman, she became fascinated with Barrymore after watching him in Svengali and, as a teenager, declared she would one day marry him. While studying at Hunter College, she sent Barrymore a letter of admiration while he was hospitalised in Manhattan. His reply, a phone call, led to their first meeting and the start of a highly publicised affair. Their romance quickly became tabloid fodder: they called each other Ariel and Caliban from The Tempest, staged dramatic yacht trips, and endured repeated separations and reconciliations. By then, Barrymore’s once-celebrated Shakespearean career had been undermined by alcoholism, and many suspected Barrie was exploiting his fading fame to advance her own ambitions. She changed her surname to Barrie before their marriage and later performed professionally under the Barrymore name, becoming the first of his wives to do so. Although Barrymore helped secure her stage and film opportunities, her career remained modest, with appearances in productions such as Midnight and notoriety from the short film How to Undress in Front of Your Husband. After the marriage collapsed, she stayed active in Hollywood circles and was linked romantically to figures including Errol Flynn and Ray Milland, but never remarried, later declaring that marrying anyone else would have been ‘anticlimactic’. In later life, she ran an importing business dealing in Haitian straw goods and attended John Barrymore’s funeral as the only former wife present.

Place of birth: New York City
Place of marriage: Yuma, Arizona
Place of death: Manhattan, New York

Daughter of Louis Jacobs and Edna Rosenthal, she married John Barrymore in 1936 (divorced 1940), with no issue.