played opposite many of the reigning female stars of the time including Helena Modjeska, Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Olga Nethersole, Lillian Russell, and Lily Langtry. In the 1895 theater season on Broadway he co-starred with Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Heart of Maryland. In the 1899 season on Broadway he had a success playing opposite Mrs. Fiske in the part of Rawdon Crawley in Becky Sharp. This play was based on a character from William Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair. Becky Sharp was Barrymore's last Broadway success. In 1900, Barrymore toured the U.S. with a play called The Battle of the Strong co-starring a young Holbrook Blinn. In the company of this play was a five-year-old child actress, Blanche Sweet, who grew up to be a silent movie actress and acted with Lionel in his first Biograph film. When the Battle of the Strong company stopped in Louisville, Kentucky Barrymore sat for his last posed photograph. Also during this time he got to spend time with his son John, who was now in his late teens. Lionel and Ethel were on the road in theater companies, having already started their careers. Mental breakdown and death On 28 March 1901, Barrymore was performing at the Lion Palace Theatre in New York when he suddenly departed from his monologue and shocked the audience with what was described as "a blasphemous attack on the Jews" and a rant of "such an emotional pitch that tears rolled down his face." After further erratic behavior, Barrymore was committed to Bellevue Hospital by a court order obtained by his son (John). In reporting his death on 25 March 1905, The New York Times recalled that "He was playing a vaudeville engagement [in 1901] at a Harlem theatre when he suddenly dropped his lines and began to rave." The following day he became violent and was taken to Bellevue insane ward by his son, John, who lured him under the pretense of starring in a new play. At Bellevue and later Amityville he was diagnosed with the lingering effects of syphilis, an incurable disease at the time. During his stay at Bellevue he almost strangled his daughter Ethel during a visit. Ethel, through her early success on the stage, paid for her father's stay in the institutions. A trained boxer, Barrymore's strength remained, as in a scuffle with one of the Bellevue attendants, he picked the man