film roles. Born into a theatrical dynasty, he initially tried to avoid
the stage, briefly attempting a career as an artist, but he soon
followed his father Maurice and siblings Ethel and Lionel into acting.
After beginning in light comedy, he moved to high stage drama,
culminating in productions of Justice (1916), Richard III (1920), and
especially Hamlet (1922), a role critics lavishly praised him for. After
his stage career peaked, he turned entirely to cinema for the next 14
years, initially in silent films. His stage-trained voice proved an
asset when sound films were introduced, and three of his works have been
inducted into the National Film Registry. His personal life has been the
subject of much attention before and since his death. He struggled with
alcohol abuse from the age of 14, was married and divorced four times,
and declared bankruptcy in his fifties. Much of his later work involved
self-parody and the portrayal of drunken has-beens. A hugely influential
actor whose talent still shapes Shakespearean acting today, his later
career and private life were seen by the obituarists as a waste of a
once-great talent.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrymore>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1898:
The United States Navy battleship USS Maine exploded and sank
in Havana, Cuba (wreckage pictured), killing more than 260 people and
precipitating the Spanish–American War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)>
1900:
Second Boer War: British cavalry under Major-General John
French defeated Boer forces to end a 124-day siege of Kimberley,
present-day South Africa.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kimberley>
1949:
Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations
at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank region of Jordan, the
location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_Caves>
1965:
Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag, replacing the Canadian Red
Ensign.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Canada>
1999:
Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant
organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish
security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
skysill:
Horizon.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skysill>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Life feels both sad and dark and confusing and more than hopeful
— it feels like something totally incredible could happen at any
moment and with no explanation.
--Miranda July
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miranda_July>
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