Philip Jerome Quinn Barry (June 18, 1896 â€" December 3, 1949) was an
American dramatist best known for his plays Holiday (1928) and The
Philadelphia Story (1939), which were both made into films starring
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.Philip Barry was born on June 18,
1896 in Rochester, New York to James Corbett Barry and Mary Agnes
Quinn Barry. James died from appendicitis a year after Philip's birth,
and the family's marble-and-tile business faltered from then on. His
oldest brother, Edmund, who was sixteen at the time, left school to
take over the business and became a father-figure for Philip.Barry's
play The Youngest, written when he was twenty-eight, is an
autobiographical account of his family history following his father's
death. In 1910, at the age of fourteen, Barry discovered that a New
York State interpretation of his father's will entitled him to a share
of his father's estate that would eventually leave him the entire
business. Family conflicts ensued; he later claimed he had never
intended to keep the money, and he eventually signed over the estate
to his mother and brothers.Because of his poor eyesight, Barry was
rejected for military service during World War I, but he eventually
found a war-time job deciphering cables at the U.S. Embassy in London
and left Yale to assume his duties. At the end of the war, he returned
to college, where he studied writing with Henry Seidel Canby, and
earned his B.A. His mother and two elder brothers strongly demanded
that he return to the family in Rochester after college and take a
place in the family business. He was, however, determined to strike
out on his own and, knowing that he wanted to be a writer, enrolled in
George Pierce Baker's renowned playwriting course, "47 Workshop" at
Harvard University. (Alumni of Baker's course, in addition to Barry,
include Eugene O'Neill, Sidney Howard, S. N. Behrman, and Thomas Wolfe
as well as numerous critics, directors, and designers.)
American dramatist best known for his plays Holiday (1928) and The
Philadelphia Story (1939), which were both made into films starring
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.Philip Barry was born on June 18,
1896 in Rochester, New York to James Corbett Barry and Mary Agnes
Quinn Barry. James died from appendicitis a year after Philip's birth,
and the family's marble-and-tile business faltered from then on. His
oldest brother, Edmund, who was sixteen at the time, left school to
take over the business and became a father-figure for Philip.Barry's
play The Youngest, written when he was twenty-eight, is an
autobiographical account of his family history following his father's
death. In 1910, at the age of fourteen, Barry discovered that a New
York State interpretation of his father's will entitled him to a share
of his father's estate that would eventually leave him the entire
business. Family conflicts ensued; he later claimed he had never
intended to keep the money, and he eventually signed over the estate
to his mother and brothers.Because of his poor eyesight, Barry was
rejected for military service during World War I, but he eventually
found a war-time job deciphering cables at the U.S. Embassy in London
and left Yale to assume his duties. At the end of the war, he returned
to college, where he studied writing with Henry Seidel Canby, and
earned his B.A. His mother and two elder brothers strongly demanded
that he return to the family in Rochester after college and take a
place in the family business. He was, however, determined to strike
out on his own and, knowing that he wanted to be a writer, enrolled in
George Pierce Baker's renowned playwriting course, "47 Workshop" at
Harvard University. (Alumni of Baker's course, in addition to Barry,
include Eugene O'Neill, Sidney Howard, S. N. Behrman, and Thomas Wolfe
as well as numerous critics, directors, and designers.)
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