Elaine Barrie

Elaine Jacobs was a 16-year-old high school student in New York in 1931 when she went to see the John Barrymore film Svengali (1931). From that moment, she later said, she fell in love with Barrymore and vowed that one day she would marry him, even going so far as to change her name to Elaine Barrie. A few years later she read in the newspaper that Barrymore was in a New York hospital due to an "illness" (he was actually undergoing one of his periodic "cures" for his severe alcoholism). She sent him an adoring fan letter asking for an interview, and Barrymore wrote back and granted her one. After that first interview she returned to see him every day for more "interviews", and when Barrymore was finally discharged from the hospital he moved into the Jacobs' family apartment in New York City. Barrymore's divorce from actress Dolores Costello was still not final, and Elaine was 30 years younger than Barrymore, and when the press discovered the situation, they had a field day. Barrymore t