Talk:John Barrymore

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It was either John barrymore or Lionel Barrymore who starred in a movie about the angel of death. Barrymore played an old man who trapped the angel of death up a tree and would not let him down . He had a grandson Named Pud. tobrien933@yahoo.com

Barrymore appeared in many films and was a major star in the silent and early sound era. Unfortunately, in the early 1930s, his physical health was very much in decline and thus the last decade of his life onscreen was spent doing character roles.

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[edit] Birthday

John's birthday is listed both as February 14th and 15th on different pages of Wikipedia. Which one is correct and are there any sources with proof?

IMDB has Feburary 14th while Wikipedia has the 15th. I'd also like to know which is correct. Hotwine8 02:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daughters

daughters it was Diana not Delores who wrote Too much too soon, and the movie was based on her autobiography.

[edit] Birthday

I have confirmed through Gene Fowler's excellent biography that John Barrymore was born on St. Valentine's Day in 1882. It would seem this page needs correction, and that IMDB had it correct. --BradGoddard 04:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The confusion stems from a variance in Barrymore's birth records. Both the 14th and the 15th are recorded in various acceptable places, but the 15th seems most likely to be true. This is covered in detail in Damned in Paradise and The House of Barrymore. Monkeyzpop 16:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evelyn Nesbit: "showgirl" or "chorus girl"?

This article says that Evelyn Nesbit was a "showgirl", but her wikipedia bio page says that she was a "chorus girl" (which does NOT have a wikipedia article.)

So is this article being precise when it calls Evelyn Nesbit a "showgirl"? Or is a "chorus girl" the same as a "showgirl"?

[edit] "soul searching"

you and the other poster Monkeyzpop have an obvious problem with the term "soul searching". The response and editing seem to come from a religious stance on the term on your parts. I was not referring to anything religious. The use of "soul searching" here is as a matter-of-fact to Barrymore's trip to India. The other poster Monkeyzpop didn't even believe he made the trip to India which shows he has not researched the information he promptly deleted. Nobody can prove if somebody soul searches or not. A person can soul search every day of their lives and nobody can know about it. I referenced this because it is 'implied' in "Damned in Paradise" c.1977 by John Kobler. This is a biography of John Barrymore and I agree with Kobler's implication. For anybody who knows Barrymore history, he and his brother & sister had been told about India as a child by their father Maurice who had been born and bred there(ref: "Great Times Good Times: The Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore" by J. Kotsilibas-Davis c.1977). Furthermore Barrymore himself referenced the adventures told to him, Lionel & Ethel by their dad Maurice. Thank you for helping to build the John Barrymore page by keeping the trip to India text intact. Please Talk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.100.208 (talk) 13:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason we have a problem with "soul searching" is that it's speculation on your part, which is against the rules. But you're starting in the right direction. You have a book that apparently (1) states that he went to India and (2) suggests some reasons for the trip. You should provide specific citations (i.e. book title, author, publisher and page numbers) to support the above. If the books says it was "soul searching", it's quotable. If not, then you can't use that. But you can present the information that is actually stated in the book and let the reader draw whatever conclusions he wants. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 13:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Keep the discussion here. It's strictly about this article. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 13:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
FYI, the article is now protected. Let's get a consensus on whatever this is about. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm absolutely in agreement with Baseball Bugs on this. (And it's ludicrous to suggest that I opposed the entry on grounds of religious belief or on a belief that the trip never occurred. I never said -- or believed -- anything of the kind.) The point I hoped to make is three-fold. 1. Without a citation PLACED IN THE ARTICLE, an assertion as to the mental processes of John Barrymore is unacceptable under WP guidelines. Without a citation, we have only the submitter's word that Barrymore went to India for soul-searching, and that just doesn't cut it in WP. 2. "Soul-searching" is an ambiguous and amorphous term, and an intangible. It cannot be inferred from the subject's actions without something (a citation) to back it up. 3. I concluded that, without the citation to back up the soul-searching part, the soul-searching part needed to be deleted, which left only a statement that Barrymore went to India where his father had been born. In the context of the surrounding material, this now seemed a sort of meaningless triviality without point. Barrymore went many, many places around the world in his life, yet none of them are noted, and anything suggesting in the article that he went to India BECAUSE it was the land of his father's birth would fall under the same rules as the soul-searching, i.e., speculation, if no citation is provided. So I deleted the entire reference, but suggested to the OP that a citation would probably make all well. Instead, the OP tried to cite, after a fashion, in the Edit Summary or in the Talk pages. We're all willing to listen in those places, but the only place a citation counts is IN the article, and it's quite an easy thing to do, especially to one as determined as this person seems to be. (I'm leaving aside the fact that we don't have a cite yet for the trip itself. But that's just me being nice. ;-) Monkeyzpop 16:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

an assertion to his mental process? He's been dead for 65 years. How the hell are you going to get an assertion to his mental process. You're agreeing with Baseball because he deleted the correct info just like you did, though he kept the India info. You had a problem with the whole text I entered even after I whittled down the Kamasutra reference. hey, you might not like it, Barrymore may be your hero & he's mine as well, but he went into a bordello over there and got a good lesson in love. It's just the truth about him and if he were here he'd probably relish in telling us, nothing to take away from a man you & I admire. This really is well known information about John Barrymore. And you're gonna look silly when you do the research and the info is staring you in your face. LOL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.100.208 (talk) 16:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Monkey you don't even make sense. Maybe it's my own fault because obviously Im a lot more researched than both you & BaseBall which is why I have a problem with the earthquake paragraph. But I left that alone as it's another story. Monkey you don't make sense, and you don't have the right to speak for Wikipedia, in that you say "it cannot be inferred from the subject's actions without something( a citation) to back it up." You don't have to, and really can't prove anybody was soul searching as it is more or less a popular phrase. People can soul search just by reading Wikipedia. You might say they need proof and they'll tell you to go to hell. Let's be hypothetical and say I was an author & wrote the same information in a book on JB and I used the term 'soul searching'. Now if you read that and you didn't like the term I used, "soul searching", how would you deal with it? Answer is probably that you wouldn't because if you wrote me in dispute about it, I'd tell you to go "...jump in the lake" and I would never acquiesce to change it in future editions of the book. The usage of the term is not to say he was or he wasn't soul searching. Neither me, Baseball or you can't prove or disprove it. It's to say he COULD'VE been soul searching, hence my change to the text with the word 'perhaps'. He was coming off a divorce, was experiencing a career decline, many a reason why people make far off trips like that. True he went all over the world and the trip to India was the furthest he went from the United States.

I believe every one of the things you say about Barrymore's experiences. You however choose not to submit those statements in the manner WP prescribes. If you did so, your submissions would be accepted, end of argument. But you'd rather argue, apparently. I won't argue further. You may persist in doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results and calling it sanity, but the rest of us have a different definition. Monkeyzpop 17:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Dude I've entered countless batches of information in years past to Wikipedia in the manner I did here and it was graciously accepted by others here on this entry and on other entries. Certainly if info is proven wrong, Im humble enough to swallow my pride and admit but I also call others out when they're in error. And it usually works without a hitch all of us working together. Thus my info here has not been proven wrong which is why Baseball decided to stop deleting the India text. I encountered no problems until I ran into you & Baseball fooling with information. So don't go stating "..in the manner Wikipedia prescribes". You can't citation everything, much less someone soul searching, to prove if it is true or false. If so then you have a lifetime's amount of work cut out for you citating everything on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.100.208 (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)