Lionel Barrymore
Barrymore in 1923
Born	Lionel Herbert Blythe (1878-04-28)April 28, 1878 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	November 15, 1954(1954-11-15) (aged 76) Beverly Hills, California
Cause of death	Heart Attack
Resting place	Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, US
Residence	Beverly Hills, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Episcopal Academy
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1893–1954
Known for	Barrymore Family, Henry Potter
Notable work(s)	A Free Soul, It's a Wonderful Life, Young Dr. Kildare
Home town	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Height	6' 0" (1.83 m)
Religion	Catholic
Spouse	Doris Rankin (m.1904-1923; divorced) Irene Fenwick (m.1923-1936; her death)
Children	Mary Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore
Parents	Georgiana Drew, Maurice Barrymore
Family	Ethel Barrymore (sister), John Barrymore (brother), John Drew Barrymore (Nephew), Diana Barrymore (niece), Drew Barrymore (Great-Niece)
Awards	Academy Award for Best Actor

Lionel Barrymore (April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio.^[1] He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains perhaps best known for the role of the villainous Henry Potter character in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. He was also a member of the illustrious theatrical Barrymore family.

Early life[link]

Lionel Barrymore was born Lionel Herbert Blythe in Philadelphia, the son of actors Georgiana Drew Barrymore and Maurice Barrymore. He was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore, and the great-uncle of Drew Barrymore. Barrymore was raised a Roman Catholic.^[2] He attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[3]

In her autobiography, Eleanor Farjeon recalled that when she and Barrymore were friends as toddlers, she would take off her shoes and he would kiss her feet.^[4]

He was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother John. Doris's sister Gladys was married to Lionel's uncle Sidney Drew, which made Gladys both his aunt and sister-in-law.

Doris Rankin bore Lionel two daughters, Ethel Barrymore II (b. 1908) and Mary Barrymore. Unfortunately, neither baby girl survived infancy, though Mary lived a few months. Lionel never truly recovered from the deaths of his girls, and their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, which ended in 1923. Years later, Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, who was born about the same time as his two daughters and would have been about their age. When Jean died in 1937, Lionel and Clark Gable mourned her as though she had been family.

Stage career[link]

Lionel Barrymore in the trailer for Camille

Barrymore began his stage career in the mid 1890s, acting with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew. He appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as The Second in Command (1901) and The Mummy and the Hummingbird (1902), both produced by Charles Frohman. In 1905 Lionel and his siblings, John and Ethel, were all being groomed under the tutelage of Frohman. That year Lionel appeared with John in a short play called Pantaloon while John appeared with Ethel in Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire.

In 1910, after he and Doris had spent many years in Paris, Lionel came back to Broadway, where he established his reputation as a dramatic and character actor. He and his wife often acted together on stage. He proved his talent in many plays, including Peter Ibbetson (1917) (with brother John), The Copperhead (1918) (with Doris), and The Jest (1919) (again with John). Lionel gave a short-lived performance as MacBeth in 1921. The play was not successful and more than likely convinced Lionel to permanently return to films. One of Lionel's last plays was Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1923) with his second wife, Irene Fenwick. This play would later be made into a 1928 silent film starring Lionel's friend, Lon Chaney, Sr..

Film career[link]

Barrymore began making films about 1911 with D.W. Griffith at the Biograph Studios. There are claims that he made an earlier film with Griffith called The Paris Hat (1908) but no such movie exists. Lionel and Doris were in Paris in 1908, where Lionel attended art school and where their first baby, Ethel, was born. Lionel mentions in his autobiography, We Barrymores, that he and Doris were in France when Bleriot flew the channel on July 25, 1909.

Entering films the same year his uncle Sidney Drew began a film career at Vitagraph, Barrymore made The Battle (1911), The New York Hat (1912), Friends and Three Friends (1913). In 1915 he co-starred with Lillian Russell in a movie called Wildfire, one of the legendary Russell's few film appearances. He also made a foray into directing at Biograph. The last silent film he directed, Life's Whirlpool (Metro Pictures 1917), starred his sister, Ethel.

In early 1920, Barrymore reprised his title role in the stage play, The Copperhead (1920), in a Paramount Artcraft film of the same name. ^[5]

Before the formation of MGM in 1924, Barrymore forged a good relationship with Louis B. Mayer early on at Metro Pictures. He made numerous silent features for Metro, most of them now lost. He occasionally freelanced, returning to Griffith in 1924 to film America. His last film for Griffith was in 1928's Drums of Love.

With wife Irene Fenwick

After Lionel and Doris divorced in 1923, he married Irene Fenwick. The two went to Italy to film The Eternal City for Metro Pictures in Rome, combining work with their honeymoon. In 1924 he went to Germany to star in British producer-director Herbert Wilcox's Anglo-German co-production Decameron Nights, filmed at UFA's Babelsberg studios outside Berlin.

Prior to his marriage to Irene, he and his brother John fell out over the issue of Irene's chastity in the wake of her having been one of John's lovers. The brothers didn't speak again for two years and weren't seen together until the premiere of John's film Don Juan in 1926, having patched up their differences. In 1924, he left Broadway for Hollywood. He starred as Frederick Harmon in director Henri Diamant-Berger's drama Fifty-Fifty (1925) opposite Hope Hampton and Louise Glaum, and made several other freelance motion pictures, including The Bells (Tiffany Pictures 1926) with a then-unknown Boris Karloff. After 1926, however, he worked almost exclusively for MGM, appearing opposite such luminaries as John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Sr., Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and his brother John.

Barrymore in David Copperfield trailer, 1935

On the occasional loan-out, Barrymore had a big success with Gloria Swanson in 1928's Sadie Thompson and the aforementioned Griffith film, Drums of Love. Talkies were now a reality and Barrymore's stage-trained voice recorded well in sound tests. In 1929, he returned to directing films. During this early and imperfect sound film period, he made the controversial His Glorious Night with John Gilbert, Madame X starring Ruth Chatterton, and Rogue Song, Laurel & Hardy's first color film. Barrymore returned to acting in front of the camera in 1931. In that year, he won an Academy Award for his role as an alcoholic lawyer in A Free Soul (1931), after being nominated in 1930 for Best Director for Madame X. He could play many characters, like the evil Rasputin in the 1932 Rasputin and the Empress (in which he co-starred with siblings John Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore) and the ailing Oliver Jordan in Dinner at Eight (1933 – also with John Barrymore, although they had no scenes together).

During the 1930s and 1940s, he became stereotyped as grouchy but sweet elderly men in such films as The Mysterious Island (1929), Grand Hotel (1932, with John Barrymore), Captains Courageous (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), Duel in the Sun (1946), and Key Largo (1948).

AFRS "Concert Hall" Radio Show, circa 1947

In a series of Doctor Kildare movies in the 1930s and 1940s, he played the irascible Doctor Gillespie, repeating the role he'd created in the radio series throughout the 1940s. He also played the title role in another 1940s radio series, Mayor of the Town. Barrymore had broken his hip in an accident, hence he played Gillespie in a wheelchair; later, his worsening arthritis kept him in the chair.^[6] The injury also precluded his playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1938 MGM film version of A Christmas Carol, a role Barrymore played every year but one on the radio from 1934 through 1953.

His final film appearance was a cameo in Main Street to Broadway, an MGM musical comedy released in 1953. His sister Ethel also appeared in the film.

Perhaps his best known role, thanks to perennial Christmastime replays on television, was Mr. Potter, the miserly and mean-spirited banker in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) opposite James Stewart. The role suggested that of the "unreformed" stage of Barrymore's "Scrooge" characterization. Lionel's wife, Irene, died on Christmas Eve of 1936 and Lionel did not perform his annual Scrooge that year. John filled in as Scrooge for his grieving brother.

Barrymore loathed the income tax system which kept him working to the end of his life. He expressed an interest in appearing on television in the 1950s but felt compelled to remain loyal to his old friend and employer Louis B. Mayer and MGM.^[7]

Composer[link]

Barrymore was also a prolific composer. His works ranged from solo piano pieces to large-scale orchestral works, such as "Tableau Russe." His piano compositions, "Scherzo Grotesque" and "Song Without Words", were published by G. Schirmer in 1945.

Graphic artist[link]

Barrymore was also a very skillful graphic artist. For years, he maintained an artist's shop and studio attached to his home in Los Angeles. His etchings and drawings are prized by collectors around the world.

Death[link]

Lionel Barrymore died on November 15, 1954 from a heart attack in Van Nuys, California, and was entombed in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.^[8]

He is honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the motion picture and radio categories.

Popular culture[link]

• In the classic animated series Johnny Quest in the episode Turu the Terrible the villain is a character called 'Deen'. He is elderly and wheelchair bound and is in command of a large pteranodon, an apparent survivor from the prehistoric dinosaur age. While Deen does not look like Lionel Barrymore, he is voiced by actor Everett Sloane whose voice is a deadringer for Barrymore's.

Partial filmography[link]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Barrymore family

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lionel Barrymore

Further reading[link]

• Menefee, David W. The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era.

External links[link]

• Lionel Barrymore at AllRovi
• Lionel Barrymore at the Internet Movie Database
• Photographs of Lionel Barrymore
• Lionel Barrymore at Internet Broadway Database
• Lionel Barrymore photo gallery NYP Library
• NY Times August 29 1908 A NEW ETHEL BARRYMORE; Daughter Born To Lionel in Paris
• Lionel Barrymore and several other actors on Orson Welles Radio Almanac 1944
• Lionel Barrymore in 1902 in "The Mummy and the Hummingbird", portrait by Burr McIntosh for Munseys Magazine
• Lionel with brother John Barrymore, 1917
• Lionel Barrymore as a child (* if photo doesn't load click -> the worthpoint link then return and click)

Look up Lionel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Lionel may refer to:

as a male given name

• Lionel Atwill, English actor
• Lionel Barrymore, American actor
• Lionel Bart, British composer
• Lionel Blair, British dancer and actor
• Lionel Hampton, American jazz musician
• Lionel Jeffries, English actor
• Lionel Jospin, French politician
• Lionel Logue, Australian speech therapist and friend of King George VI
• Lionel Messi, Argentine footballer
• Lionel Richie, American singer
• Lionel Rose, Australian boxer
• Lionel Stander, American actor
• Lionel Shriver, female American author
• Lionel Trilling, American literary critic

other

• Lionel Corporation, an American manufacturer and retailer of toy trains and model railroads
• Lionel, LLC, an American designer and importer of toy trains and model railroads, owns the trademarks and most of the product rights associated with Lionel Corp., but is not directly related
• Lionel (bridge), a bridge defense against 1NT
• Lionel (radio personality), an American radio talk show host
• Sir Lionel, a knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend

as a placename

• Lionel, Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland

See also[link]

• For people and characters with the given name Lionel, see: All pages beginning with "Lionel"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Lew Ayres
1930s
Born	Lewis Frederick Ayres III (1908-12-28)December 28, 1908 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	December 30, 1996(1996-12-30) (aged 88) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1929–1994
Spouse	Lola Lane (m. 1931–1933) «start: (1931)–end+1: (1934)»"Marriage: Lola Lane to Lew Ayres" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Lew_Ayres) (divorced) Ginger Rogers (m. 1934–1940) «start: (1934)–end+1: (1941)»"Marriage: Ginger Rogers to Lew Ayres" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Lew_Ayres) (divorced) Diana Hall (m. 1964–1996) «start: (1964)–end+1: (1997)»"Marriage: Diana Hall to Lew Ayres" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Lew_Ayres) (his death)

Lew Ayres (born Lewis Frederick Ayres III; December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor, best known for starring as Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front and for playing Dr. Kildare in several movies, which was apt since originally he had studied medicine at the University of Arizona.

Life and career[link]

Lew Ayres' grave

Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and reared in San Diego, California.^[1] Ayres began acting in bit player roles in films in 1927. He was discovered that year playing banjo in the Henry Halstead Orchestra as Halstead was recording one of the earliest Vitaphone movie shorts called Carnival Night in Paris (Warner Brothers, 1927). Ayres wrote, "I was a member of Henry Halstead's orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego, California for the summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year's Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion."

Ayres played opposite Greta Garbo in 1929's The Kiss, but it was his leading role in 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front which made him a star. Ayres was Janet Gaynor's leading man in Servants' Entrance (1934), which featured a combination of live action and Walt Disney animation in a musical dream sequence. He played the title role in Young Dr. Kildare in 1938 and became a matinee idol, starring in several Kildare films. During this time, Ayres also co-starred with Joan Crawford and James Stewart in The Ice Follies of 1939.

in Johnny Belinda (1948)

Mirroring his anti-war and medical roles in his film work, Ayres was a pacifist who sought to become a member of the Medical Corps during World War II. The United States armed forces, however, would not guarantee him that position, so he declared himself a conscientious objector, and reported to a CPS camp. But having such a well-known public figure take this stance was poor publicity for the United States armed forces. It led to revisions of the rules, at which point Ayres was then able to join the Medical Corps. He served with distinction in the Pacific theater and in New Guinea.

Ayres made few films after the war, but in 1948 his role in Johnny Belinda earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Co-star Jane Wyman fell in love with Ayres and left her husband Ronald Reagan for him, albeit unsuccessfully.

In the summer of 1958, Ayres hosted eleven original episodes of a CBS Western anthology television series called Frontier Justice, a production of Dick Powell's Four Star Television. He was offered the part of Dr. Kildare in an NBC series. But his prescient request that the show have no cigarette advertising led to the offer being withdrawn, and the part went, in 1961, to Richard Chamberlain.

He played the role of the governor in the pilot episode of the TV CBS series Hawaii Five-O. He chose not to move to Hawaii to do the series, but did appear in the show in other roles from time to time. He also had many guest roles in other television programs.

He played the role of Mandemus in the 1973 "Battle for the Planet of the Apes". His 1976 documentary film Altars of the World brought his Eastern philosophical beliefs to the screen and earned him critical acclaim. Ayres' science-fiction roles included appearances in the second season of The Bionic Woman as a pacifist scientist, Dr. Elijah Cooper, in the 1977 two-part episode "Doomsday Is Tomorrow," and as Adar, the pacifist President of the Council of the Twelve, in the original Battlestar Galactica film in 1978. In 1974, he had appeared in a small role as Dr. Emil Vaslovik, creator of the title android, in The Questor Tapes, written for television by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon and directed by Richard A. Colla, who, almost four years later, again directed him in Battlestar Galactica: "Saga of a Star World".

Ayres played a Vice President of the United States twice, in Advise & Consent (1962) and The Man (1972), as well as the President of the United States in the made-for-TV Earth II (1971).

Late in life, he appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the father of the Murray Slaughter character played by Gavin MacLeod. The episode involved a May–December romance between Mary and Murray's father.

His last role was on the made-for-TV film, "Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Heart" (1994).

Ayres died December 30, 1996 of complications from a coma. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California next to the unmarked grave of Frank Zappa.

Family[link]

Ayres was married three times. He was married to actress Lola Lane from 1931 until 1933 and to actress Ginger Rogers from 1934 until 1940. His third marriage, to Diana Hall, lasted from 1964 until his death from complications while in a coma at the age of 88. They had one son, Justin, born in 1968.

Nominations[link]

In 1949 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Johnny Belinda. In 1975 he was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Series in Kung Fu episode The Vanishing Image. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Blvd.

Selected filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lew Ayres

• Lew Ayres at the Internet Movie Database
• Lew Ayres at Yahoo! Movies
• Lew Ayres at AllRovi
• Lew Ayres at Find a Grave
• Classic Images
• Photographs of Lew Ayres

Carol Dempster
Born	Carol Dempster (1901-12-09)December 9, 1901 Duluth, Minnesota
Died	February 1, 1991(1991-02-01) (aged 89) La Jolla, California
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1916–1926
Spouse	Edwin S. Larsen (1929–1991)

Carol Dempster (December 9, 1901 – February 1, 1991) was an American film actress of the silent film era.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Dempster got her start in films as a protégé of legendary film director D.W. Griffith alongside other Griffith actresses of the mid-1910s Lillian and Dorothy Gish and Mae Marsh. Griffith gave Dempster her first role at age 15 in his colossal 1916 all-star cast Intolerance playing one of the Babylonian harem girls alongside another teenaged newcomer, Mildred Harris. Dempster would eventually become one of Griffiths "favorites" and cast her in nearly every one of his films throughout the 1920s, allegedly to the irritation of Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish. Dempster became romantically involved with the much older Griffith during the early 1920s while Griffith was estranged from his wife, Linda Arvidson.

Dempster's first feature role came in 1919 in the Griffith directed The Girl Who Stayed at Home opposite Robert "Bobby" Harron. Dempster followed this with Griffith's The Love Flower (1920), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924), the latter being generally considered one of Griffith's greatest films and featuring Dempster's finest performance.

Dempster had a notable career in films throughout the 1920s and appear opposite such notable actors as John Barrymore, Richard Barthelmess, William Powell, Ivor Novello, and W.C. Fields. Other memorable films of the period are America (1924) and Sally of the Sawdust (1925), also directed by Griffith.

In 1926 Dempster acted in her final film, another Griffith vehicle entitled The Sorrows of Satan co-starring with Adolphe Menjou, Ricardo Cortez, and the Hungarian vamp Lya De Putti. Dempster then retired from the screen to marry wealthy banker Edwin S. Larson in 1929.

Her critical stock was never very high, as she became Griffith's leading lady after the more popular Lillian Gish had moved on. Her somewhat "ordinary" appearance and animated acting style were frequently criticized. Also, with a few exceptions, the films she appeared in were not among Griffith's more popular works. In recent years, however, viewers and critics alike have slowly begun to appreciate her performances.

Dempster died in La Jolla, California in 1991 at the age of 89 from heart failure and was laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, California.

Filmography[link]

Carol Dempster in The Love Flower (1920)

All features were directed by D. W. Griffith except Sherlock Holmes, which was directed by Albert Parker. The Hope Chest, a product of the New Art Film Company from 1918, was produced by Griffith but directed by Elmer Clifton.

Bibliography[link]

• The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee. Connecticut: Praeger, 2004.
• The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me. By Lillian Gish. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
• Focus on D.W. Griffith. By Harry M. Geduld. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
• Adventures with D. W. Griffith. By Karl Brown. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carol Dempster

• Carol Dempster at the Internet Movie Database
• Carol Dempster at AllRovi
• Carol Dempster at Golden Silents
• Carol Dempster at Silent Ladies & Gents
• Carol Dempster at Find a Grave

Jules Verne
Born	Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-02-08)February 8, 1828 Nantes, France
Died	March 24, 1905(1905-03-24) (aged 77) Amiens, France
Occupation	Author
Language	French
Nationality	French
Genres	Science fiction
Notable work(s)	Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Mysterious Island, Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen
Spouse(s)	Honorine Hebe du Fraysse de Viane (Morel) Verne
Children	Michel Verne and step-daughters Valentine and Suzanne Morel
Influences Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Józef Sękowski, Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Jacques Arago, Daniel Defoe, Johann David Wyss, George Sand, Erckmann-Chatrian, Adolphe d'Ennery
Influenced H.G. Wells, Hugo Gernsback, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Donald G. Payne, Steampunk, Emilio Salgari, Paschal Grousset, Ray Bradbury
Signature

Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]; February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre.^[1] He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the second most translated author in the world (after Agatha Christie).^[2] Some of his books have also been made into live-action and animated films and television shows. Verne is often referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction", a title sometimes shared with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells.^[3]

Early life[link]

Jules Verne was born in Nantes, in France, to Pierre Verne, an attorney, and his wife, Sophie Allote de la Fuÿe.^[4] Jules spent his early years at home with his parents in the bustling harbor city of Nantes. The family spent summers in a country house just outside the city, in Brains on the banks of the Loire River. Here Jules and his brother Paul would often rent a boat for one franc a day. The sight of the many ships navigating the river sparked Jules's imagination, as he describes in the autobiographical short story "Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse". At the age of nine, Jules and Paul, of whom he was very fond, were sent to boarding school at the Saint Donatien College (Petit séminaire de Saint-Donatien). As a child, he developed a great interest in travel and exploration, a passion he showed as a writer of adventure stories and science fiction. His interest in writing often cost him progress in other subjects.

At the boarding school, Verne studied Latin, which he used in his short story "Le Mariage de Monsieur Anselme des Tilleuls" in the mid 1850s. One of his teachers may have been the French inventor Brutus de Villeroi,^{[citation needed]} professor of drawing and mathematics at the college in 1842, and who later became famous for creating the US Navy's first submarine, the USS Alligator. De Villeroi may have inspired Verne's conceptual design for the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, although no direct exchanges between the two men have been recorded.

Verne's second French biographer, his grand-niece Marguerite Allotte de la Fuÿe,^[5] formulated the rumor that Verne was so fascinated with adventure at an early age that he stowed away on a ship bound for the West Indies, but that Jules's voyage was cut short when he found his father waiting for him at the next port.

Literary debut[link]

After completing his studies at the lycée, Verne went to Paris to study law. Around 1848, in conjunction with Michel Carré, he began writing libretti for operettas, five of them for his friend the composer Aristide Hignard, who also set Verne's poems as chansons. For some years, his attentions were divided between the theater and work, but some travelers' stories which he wrote for the Musée des familles revealed to him his true talent: the telling of delightfully extravagant voyages and adventures to which cleverly prepared scientific and geographical details lent an air of verisimilitude.

When Verne's father discovered that his son was writing rather than studying law, he promptly withdrew his financial support. Verne was forced to support himself as a stockbroker, which he hated despite being somewhat successful at it. During this period, he met Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, who offered him writing advice.

Verne also met Honorine de Viane Morel, a widow with two daughters. They were married on January 10, 1857. With her encouragement, he continued to write and actively looked for a publisher. On August 3, 1861, their son, Michel Verne, was born. Michel married an actress over Verne's objections, had two children by an underage mistress, and buried himself in debts. The relationship between father and son improved as Michel grew older.

It was Jules Verne himself who confirmed once having traveled from Stockholm, Sweden, to Christiania^{[clarification needed]} during 1862.^{[clarification needed][6]} Consequently, Swedish publication of Jules Verne began during the very next year.^[7] En luftballongsresa genom Afrika (A Hot Air Balloon trip through Africa), translated into Swedish, actually is dated 1863 – making it the very first dated Jules Verne full-length book on record.^[8]

A typical Hetzel front cover for a Jules Verne book. The edition is Les Aventures du Capitaine Hatteras au Pôle Nord, type "Aux deux éléphants".

Verne's situation improved when he met Pierre-Jules Hetzel, one of the more important French publishers of the 19th century, who also published Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Erckmann-Chatrian, among others. They formed an excellent writer-publisher team until Hetzel's death. Hetzel helped improve Verne's writings, which until then had been repeatedly rejected by other publishers. Hetzel read a draft of Verne's story about the balloon exploration of Africa, which had been rejected by other publishers for being "too scientific". With Hetzel's help, Verne rewrote the story, which was published in 1863 in book form as Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon). Acting on Hetzel's advice, Verne added comical accents to his novels, changed sad endings into happy ones, and toned down various political messages.

Unlike En Luftballongsresa Genom Afrika, dated 1863 and published anonymously, Cinq semaines en ballon was undated (circa 1863), but noted its author. It presently is unknown whether such dating and author attribution practice was done intentionally or by accident. It also is unclear as to which book became first to reach publication despite the fact that both express largely identical story lines.^{[clarification needed][9]}

From that point, Verne published two or more volumes a year. The most successful of these include Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864); De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865); Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 1869); and Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days), which first appeared in Le Temps in 1872. The series is collectively known as "Voyages Extraordinaires" ("extraordinary voyages"). Verne could now live on his writings. But most of his wealth came from the stage adaptations of Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1874) and Michel Strogoff (1876), which he wrote with Adolphe d'Ennery. In 1867, Verne bought a small ship, the Saint-Michel, which he successively replaced with the Saint-Michel II and the Saint-Michel III as his financial situation improved. On board the Saint-Michel III, he sailed around Europe. In 1870, he was appointed as "Chevalier" (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur. After his first novel, most of his stories were first serialised in the Magazine d'Éducation et de Récréation, a Hetzel biweekly publication, before being published in the form of books. His brother Paul contributed to 40th French climbing of the Mont-Blanc and a collection of short stories – Doctor Ox – in 1874. Verne became wealthy and famous. According to the Unesco Index Translationum, Jules Verne regularly places among the top five most translated authors in the world.

Later years[link]

On March 9, 1886, as Verne was coming home, his twenty-five-year-old nephew, Gaston, shot him with a gun. One bullet missed, but the second entered Verne's left leg, giving him a limp that would not be cured. The incident was hushed up by the media, and Gaston spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

After the deaths of Hetzel and his beloved mother Sophie Henriette Allotte de la Fruye in 1887, Jules began writing darker works. This may partly be due to changes in his personality, but an important factor is the fact that Hetzel's son, who took over his father's business, was not as rigorous in his corrections as Hetzel had been. In 1888, Jules Verne entered politics and was elected town councillor of Amiens, where he championed several improvements and served for fifteen years. In 1905, while ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home, 44 Boulevard Longueville (now Boulevard Jules-Verne). Michel oversaw publication of his novels Invasion of the Sea and The Lighthouse at the End of the World. The "Voyages extraordinaires" series continued for several years afterwards in the same rhythm of two volumes a year. It has later been discovered that Michel Verne had made extensive changes in these stories, and the original versions were published at the end of the 20th century.

In 1863, Jules Verne wrote a novel called Paris in the Twentieth Century about a young man who lives in a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness and comes to a tragic end. Hetzel thought the novel's pessimism would damage Verne's then-booming career, and suggested he wait 20 years to publish it. Verne put the manuscript in a safe, where it was discovered by his great-grandson in 1989. It was published in 1994, and around the same time many other Verne novels and short stories were also published for the first time, and these too are gradually appearing in English translation.

Memorials[link]

A restaurant built into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France is named Le Jules Verne.^[10] In June 1989, the Jules Verne Food Court opened at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the West Midlands of England; however, it had closed by the mid 1990s due to disappointing trade.^[11]

Hetzel's influence[link]

Hetzel substantially influenced the writings of Verne, who was so happy to finally find a willing publisher that he agreed to almost all changes that Hetzel suggested. Hetzel rejected at least one novel (Paris in the Twentieth Century) and asked Verne to significantly change his other drafts. One of the most important changes Hetzel enforced on Verne was the adoption of optimism in his novels. Verne was in fact not an enthusiast of technological and human progress, as can be seen in his works created before he met Hetzel and after Hetzel's death. Hetzel's demand for optimistic texts proved correct. For example, Mysterious Island originally ended with the survivors returning to the mainland forever nostalgic about the island. Hetzel decided that the heroes should live happily, so in the revised draft, they use their fortunes to build a replica of the island. Many translations are like this. Also, in order not to offend France's then-ally, Russia, the origin and past of the famous Captain Nemo were changed from those of a Polish refugee avenging the partitions of Poland and the death of his family in the January Uprising repressions to those of an Indian prince fighting the British Empire after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Bibliography[link]

Cover of L'Algerie Magazine, June 15, 1884: A drawing of Jules Verne and some of the creatures from his novels.

Verne wrote numerous works, most famous of which are the 54 novels comprising the Voyages Extraordinaires. He also wrote short stories, essays, plays, and poems.

His first and better known works include:

• A Voyage in a Balloon (Un Voyage en ballon, August 1851 as published in Musée des familles)^[12]
• Five Weeks in a Balloon (Cinq semaines en ballon, 1863)^[13]
• Paris in the Twentieth Century (Paris au XX^e siècle, 1863, not published until 1994)
• A Journey to the Center of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre, 1864)
• From the Earth to the Moon (De la Terre à la Lune, 1865)
• The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras, 1866)
• In Search of the Castaways or Captain Grant's Children (Les Enfants du capitaine Grant, 1867–1868)
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, 1870)
• Around the Moon (Autour de la Lune, a sequel to From the Earth to the Moon, 1870)
• A Floating City (Une ville flottante, 1871)
• Dr. Ox's Experiment (Une fantaisie du Docteur Ox, 1872)
• The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa (Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais, 1872 )
• The Fur Country (Le Pays des fourrures, 1873)
• Around the World in Eighty Days (Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, 1873)
• The Survivors of the Chancellor (Le Chancellor, 1875)
• The Mysterious Island (L'Île mystérieuse, 1875)
• The Blockade Runners (Les Forceurs de blocus, 1876)
• Michael Strogoff (Michel Strogoff, 1876)
• Off on a Comet (Hector Servadac, 1877)
• The Child of the Cavern, also known as Black Diamonds or The Black Indies (Les Indes noires, 1877)
• Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (Un capitaine de quinze ans, 1878)
• The Begum's Fortune (Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum, 1879)
• The Steam House (La Maison à vapeur, 1879)
• Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine), 1879
• Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (La Jangada, 1881)
• The Green Ray (Le Rayon vert, 1882)
• Kéraban the Inflexible (Kéraban-le-têtu, 1883)
• Frritt-Flacc (1884)
• The Vanished Diamond (L’Étoile du Sud, 1884)
• The Archipelago on Fire (L’Archipel en feu, 1884)
• Mathias Sandorf (1885)
• Robur the Conqueror or The Clipper of the Clouds (Robur-le-Conquérant, 1886)
• Ticket No. "9672" (Un billet de loterie, 1886 )
• North Against South (Nord contre Sud, 1887)
• The Flight to France (Le Chemin de France, 1887)
• Family Without a Name (Famille sans nom, 1888)
• Two Years' Vacation (Deux ans de vacances, 1888)
• The Purchase of the North Pole (Sans dessus dessous, the second sequel to From the Earth to the Moon, 1889)
• César Cascabel (1890)
• Mistress Branican (1891)
• The Carpathian Castle (Le Château des Carpathes, 1892)
• Claudius Bombarnac (Claudius Bombarnac, 1893)
• Foundling Mick (P’tit-Bonhomme, 1893)
• Propeller Island (L’Île à hélice, 1895)
• Facing the Flag (Face au drapeau, 1896)
• Clovis Dardentor (1896)
• The Sphinx of the Ice Fields or An Antarctic Mystery (Le Sphinx des glaces, a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1897)
• The Mighty Orinoco (Le Superbe Orénoque, 1897)
• The Village in the Treetops (Le Village aérien, 1901)
• The Kip Brothers (Les Frères Kip,1902)
• Master of the World (Maître du monde, sequel to Robur the Conqueror, 1904)
• Invasion of the Sea (L’Invasion de la mer, 1904)
• A Drama in Livonia (Un drame en Livonie, 1904)
• The Lighthouse at the End of the World (Le Phare du bout du monde, 1905)
• The Chase of the Golden Meteor (La Chasse au météore, 1908)
• The Danube Pilot (Le Pilote du Danube, 1908)
• The Survivors of the "Jonathan" (Les Naufragés du « Jonathan », 1909)