John Barrymore relished the challenge of a strong character part. He got involved in his part, making suggestions along the way to play-up his character, such as having him misquote famous writers and botch his own suicide. George Cukor was pleased that an actor of such prominence was confident and committed enough that he would be willing to sacrifice vanity for the greater success of the film. He later said, "Although (Barrymore) was playing a second-rate actor, he had no vanity as such. He even put things in to make himself hammier, more ignorant." Bravely, it seems, John Barrymore--who notably struggled with chronic alcoholism that would lead to his death at age 60 in 1942--plays the has-been actor Larry Renault, who was also addicted to the bottle. And just like his character Renault, he was in the death throes of a third marriage, one that would end within a year.