"Hello, Elaine? ... I Am Going to Kill You": The Tale of Elaine Barrie and John Barrymore

The curtain parted swiftly with a clang of rings on rod.

“I repeat, Madam, what would you do if I tried to throw you off the terrace?”

The scene is a twentieth-floor apartment on East 79th Street, Manhattan, the year 1940. “Madam” is Elaine Barrie, aka Elaine Barrymore, and the speaker is her husband, John Barrymore.

And no, he wasn’t rehearsing.

Those are …