“Why if it isn’t Ethel Barrymore,” Gene Kelly snaps upon first glimpsing Debbie Reynolds as she pops out of a cake at a film premiere after party in Singin’ in the Rain. I have a confession to make. Singin’ in the Rain is one of my favorite movies, so I’ve heard the line a hundred, zillion times, but until I started doing research for this article, I didn’t really know what it meant.
Sure, I know Ethel Barrymore was famous. I knew she was iconic, in fact, and not just for being Drew Barrymore‘s Great-Aunt. But I didn’t really know why.
Don’t look at me that way, it’s not like you knew either. And Ethel can hardly blame us. She did her best work on the stage, not the screen, and she hasn’t worked since 1954, if only because she died in 1959.
However, our lack of acquaintance with Ethel Barrymore is most definitely our loss.
It turns out that, by calling his snippy young love interest Ethel Barrymore, dear Gene was insinuating that she thought she was a queen, because that was exactly what Ms. Barrymore was. Well, okay, she wasn’t actually royalty, but she was as close to royalty as stage and screen royalty as, perhaps, has ever lived. I mean, come on, she was even BFF with Winston Churchill.
How much royal-er do you need?
Heck, I’m intimidated just reading about the lady. She’s been dead for almost 60 years, but am I going to run around calling her Ethel, instead of Ms. Barrymore? I think not. It just wouldn’t be right. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Ms. Barrymore’s queenliness was legendary. Whether she was playing for laughs or tears, she commanded attention and respect at every turn. In fact, she was so damn unshakably regal that making her appear to be downtrodden, even when it was necessary for a role, was well nigh impossible.
According to Ms. Barrymore’s New York Times obituary, playwright/screenwriter Clifford Odets used to tell the following story, which just about sums up what made Ms. Barrymore, Ms. Barrymore:
“Clifford Odets has told the story of trying to select a pathetic little hat for her to wear in her role as the poor London charwoman in the movie ‘None But the Lonely Heart.’ After trying on countless hats, Miss Barrymore turned for approval of the latest headgear and Mr. Odets burst into laughter.
‘You still look like a queen,’ he told her.”
Ethel boiled down her regal demeanor, and the secret to her success, a bit differently:
“For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a MaCaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.”
The hide of a rhinoceros. That is, in many ways, the definition of being queenly, am I right? Being able to keep your cool, and your improbably high self-esteem, no matter how many rotten tomatoes are being hurled at the stage.
And comedivas, that is what we learn today from Miss Ethel Barrymore. If you’re going to be a great comedienne, you’re gonna need to start developing that rhinoceros hide. It’s not a gentle business, but if your gorgeous, perfectly tanned rhino skin can survive it, you can be a queen!
