Credit: Image donated by Corbis-Bettmann
The patriarch of the Barrymore acting family, Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blyth (1849-1905) scandalized his family by choosing a career in acting rather than the law. Taking the stage name "Maurice Barrymore," to spare his family the shame of having an actor in the family, he fled England in 1874 for New York, then soon met and married Georgiana Drew (1854-1893), the daughter of Louisa Drew. In the years that followed, the Barrymores became one of the nation's most successful theatrical couples.
