Born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe on September 21, 1849, 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.
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.
He began his career in a revival of London Assurance, and then received an engagement at the London Prince of Wales Theatre in Bulwer Lytton's Money. In 1875, with Charles Vandenhoff, he came to America, having previously toured the provinces with that actor. His début was made in Boston in Under the Gaslight. Augustin Daly engaged him for summer stock during 1875, and then for two regular seasons at the New York Fifth Avenue Theatre. There now began a long career of excellent support of famous actors. Barrymore possessed grace of person and keenness of intellect, and these were noticeable as early as 1877, when he supported Jefferson and Fanny Davenport, and was commended by the critics for his Orlando and Orsino. But his many attempts to attain stardom were never successful. In 1878-79, a road company formed by Barrymore included his brother-in-law, John Drew, and his wife. It closed suddenly on March 19, 1879, due to an unfortunate fracas in Texas.
A long list of rôles demanded of Barrymore the exercise of his various abilities when he joined Lester Wallack's stock company in such pieces as Our Girls, Old Heads and Young Hearts, She Stoops to Conquer, and The Shaughraun. In playing parts like George Hastings, or Captain Absolute in The Rivals, Barrymore was in his element. In 1881 he went to England. Here, it is said, he offered to the Court Theatre as an original production of his own, a play named Honour, which, after acceptance, was discovered to be a mere translation of L'Honneur de la Maison by Léon Battu and Maurice Desvignes. Barrymore's work was extensively rewritten by dramatists in the employ of the theatre and was produced with proper acknowledgment to the French authors, on September 24. The play was generally stigmatized by the critics as "dreary" and "repulsive, " but was immensely successful, enjoying a run of 100 nights. Then began a long association with Madame Modjeska, and for her Barrymore wrote the Polish drama, Nadjeska, produced in Baltimore, February 8, 1884. For four seasons he was the ideal Armand, Romeo, and Orlando for Modjeska. And with her, on April 30, 1883, he appeared in Romeo and Juliet, the last performance to be given at the famous Booth Theatre in New York.
He returned to England in November 1884, appearing at the London Haymarket in such plays as Diplomacy, Masks and Faces, Engaged, and Jim the Penman. Once more in 1886 he associated himself with Modjeska, ably supporting her in Mary Stuart and Adrienne Lecouvreur. In rapid succession he supported such players as Mrs. Langtry, Mrs. Bernard Beere, Katharine Clemmons, Olga Nethersole, and Mrs. Fiske, with the latter creating in finished manner the rôle of Rawdon Crawley, in Becky Sharp.
Interspersed between these various engagements were his associations with A. M. Palmer, with his mother-in-law, Mrs. John Drew, in The Rivals (1893), with numberless summer stock companies, and even with vaudeville. It was worry incident upon a theatrical warfare waged between "The White Rats" (a vaudeville organization with which he was identified) and the vaudeville managers that led to a mental breakdown in a New York music hall, during what proved to be his last appearance. From 1901 to the day of his death, he was in confinement in a sanitarium.
Barrymore's personality was attractive, pervasive. He was witty, possessed a rich voice and a magnetic presence. His intellect was keen, though his memory was poor. Augustus Thomas, in several of whose early plays Barrymore appeared, thus describes him (The Print of My Remembrance, 1922): "In romantic costume or in evening dress on the stage, he had the grace of a panther. On the street or in the club, or coffee-house, he was negligent and loungy and deplorably indifferent to his attire. In the theatre, a queen could be proud of his graceful attention. Outside, a prize-fighter or a safe-blower was of absorbing interest to him unless some savant was about to discuss classical literature or French romance.
He was twice married: in 1876, to Georgiana Drew, who died in 1893; and, the year after her death, to Mary Floyd.
