John Drew Barrymore, son of acting legend John "The Great Profile" Barrymore and father of the popular actress/movie producer Drew Barrymore, died on November 29 in Los Angeles of undisclosed causes. He was 72.

He was born in Beverly Hills on June 4, 1932. It was not just his father, John Sr., who was a noted thespian, but a series of relatives that made up an acting dynasty of American theater and film in the early part of this century: His uncle Lionel, aunt Ethel and his mother, Dolores Costello. His parents separated when he was only 18 months old, and John Jr. rarely saw his father after their breakup.

He was educated in private educational academies, and following his graduation from high school, he gave acting a try under the name John Barrymore Jr.. He was only 18 when he made his screen debut in The Sundowners (1950). He followed that up with supporting roles in a few more quality pictures, High Lonesome (1950) and Quebec (1951).

Film critics were largely indifferent to John Jr., who felt his presence was a little stiff on camera, and his acting overly mannered. It took a few years, but he finally registered a good performance as a psychopathic killer in Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956). Soon after, he changed his name to John Drew Barrymore and starred in a couple of cult classics: Jack Arnolds' feverishly campy, High School Confidential (1958), and Hugo Haas' lurid melodrama, Night of the Quarter Moon (1959).

Sadly, whatever momentum he was building in his career was undermined by his embarrassing antics off-screen. He was arrested several times in the late '50s for drunken and disorderly conduct, reckless driving, and domestic violence with his then wife, the actress Cara Williams.

By the early '60s he left Hollywood and headed to Italy to work in some low-budget movies. The quality of these pictures can be best summed up by their titles: Giant Monster (1960), Daggers of Blood (1962), and Curse of the Haunted Forest (1963). Not surprisingly, these films made very little impression outside of Italy, and Barrymore returned to Hollywood in 1964.

For a brief period, it looked as if he was resurrecting his career in earnest. He found some good guest shots in television westerns like Gunsmoke, The Wild, Wild, West and Jericho, but soon, his bouts with alcohol and drugs began to take their toll, and he found himself unemployable. By '70s, with the exception of one cameo role in the series Kung Fu and a small part of a hippie in the dreadful sci-fi thriller, The Clones (1974), he got out of acting completely. Apart from his daughter Drew, he is survived by a son, John Barrymore III.

by Michael T. Toole