Sidney Drew (August 28, 1863 – April 9, 1919) was an actor of stage and screen. With his wife, Gladys Rankin, the couple introduced legitimate drama to the vaudeville stage. He also found success in silent films with one-reel comedies. He was billed as “Mr. Sidney Drew.”
He was a Life Member of The Lambs, elected in 1887.
Sidney White Drew was the younger brother of actor John Drew Jr. and Georgie Drew Barrymore, making him an uncle of actors Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore.
Drew’s birth in Pennsylvania has been the subject of speculation. His mother Mrs. Louisa Drew said she adopted him not long after the death of her husband John Drew Sr. in 1862. Researchers have speculated that Sidney was Mrs. Drew’s biological child either from her late husband or from a love affair.
In his stage career, Drew was a light-hearted leading man along with his wife, Gladys Rankin (1870-1914), aka the first Mrs. Sidney Drew. She was the daughter of actors McKee Rankin and Kitty Blanchard. The couple had a son who followed them into the family business, Sidney Rankin Drew, billed as S. Rankin Drew. He was tragically killed in WWI when his plane was shot down over France. He was 26.
In 1896, the pair introduced legitimate drama to the vaudeville stage. They entered films as a team with the old Kalem Company in 1911, but achieved greater success after their switch to Vitagraph in 1913. Gladys Rankin Drew died later that year from undisclosed causes. Drew was briefly paired with Clara Kimball Young, with whom Drew starred in the two-reel melodrama satire Goodness Gracious; or, Movies as they Shouldn’t Be (1914) directed by Clara’s husband, James Young.
He remarried to Lucille McVey, a Vitagraph scriptwriter who briefly went under the name Jane Morrow. Drew added his new wife to his one-reel comedies, acknowledging McVey as both a writer and co-director. As a comedy team, known as Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew, the team perfected the situation comedy style that the team of John Bunny and Flora Finch started. Their style of comedy was usually gentle satire on married life, but also poked fun at the world of show business.
Drew took sole credit as director for two five-reel features at Vitagraph, the groundbreaking cross-gender comedy A Florida Enchantment (1914), in which Edith Storey played the leading female role, and the drama Playing Dead (1915), the Drews’ only attempt at a “serious” film.
Sidney Drew died suddenly of uremia on April 9, 1919, at his Manhattan apartment. He was 55 years old. He is interred in Mount Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia, the location of his parents and relatives. His son’s remains were removed from France and interred next to him.
In 1960, Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.
Researched and written by Lambs’ historian/librarian Kevin C. Fitzpatrick.