ABSTRACT
This chapter examines narratives of the actress and addiction, from George Moore’s depiction of an actress’s demise through alcoholism in A Mummer’s Wife (1885), through the impact of morphine addiction on nineteenth-century performers, to the increasing visibility of issues of addiction on Broadway, the West End and Hollywood. The focus then turns to Diana Barrymore, whose beauty, natural aptitude and family connections saw her set for a glittering career on stage or screen. Yet Barrymore struggled to negotiate the legacy of a deeply troubled childhood and the burden of her family name, and turned increasingly to alcohol, a journey she re-told with co-author Gerold Frank in her 1957 memoir, Too Much, Too Soon. The chapter examines how understanding of Barrymore as ‘celebrity alcoholic’ is balanced against evidence of her late-career flourishing in the works of playwright Tennessee Williams, thereby continuing the discussion of career disappointment, ‘failure’ and vulnerability initiated in Chapter 2.
