Ethel Barrymore - Private Life

Private Life

Winston Churchill was among the closest of many of Barrymore's dear friends. Churchill reportedly proposed to her in 1900; however, Barrymore mentions no such thing in her autobiography, Memories. She had, at the age of 19, while on tour in England, been rumored to be engaged to the Duke of Manchester, actor Gerald Du Maurier, writer Richard Harding Davis and the aforementioned Churchill.

Ethel Barrymore married Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1959), grandnephew of American arms maker Samuel Colt (1814–1862), on March 14, 1909. The couple had been introduced, according to Barrymore's autobiography, when Colt had strolled by the table where she was having lunch with her uncle, actor John (Jack) Drew, in Sherry's Restaurant in New York. A New York Times article of 1911, when Barrymore first took preliminary divorce measures against Colt, states that Colt had been introduced to Barrymore by her brother John Barrymore some years before while Colt was still a student at Yale. The couple had three children: actress/singer Ethel Barrymore Colt (1912–1977), who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's Follies; Samuel Colt (1909–1986) a Hollywood agent; and John Drew Colt (1913–1975) who became an actor.

Barrymore's marriage to Colt was a precarious one from the start, with Barrymore filing divorce papers as early in the marriage as 1911, much to Colt's surprise, and later recanted by Barrymore as a misunderstanding by the press. At least one source, a servant, alleged that Colt abused her and also that he fathered a child with another woman while married to Barrymore. They divorced in 1923 and, quite surprisingly, she did not seek alimony from Colt for herself, which was her right but she demanded that his entailed wealth still provide for their children.

Ethel Barrymore did not remarry. She had platonic relationships with other men, most notably actors Henry Daniell and Louis Calhern.