Barry, Philip

Barry, Philip (Jerome Quinn)

(1896–1949) playwright; born in Rochester, N.Y. After serving with the U.S. State Department in World War I, he attended George Pierce Baker's "47 Workshop" at Harvard. He spent the rest of his life as a playwright. His greatest success was with light social comedies, including Holiday (1928) and The Philadelphia Story (1939). But his ambitions toward serious psychological and philosophical theater could be seen in his plays Hotel Universe (1930), Bright Star (1935), and Here Come the Clowns (1938). These more somber pieces, however, did not appeal to his public and he returned to comedy.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.