FHS to hold tribute to actress Costello with fundraiser

FALLBROOK – Dolores Costello was a famous movie star, the wife of actor John Barrymore, grandmother of Drew Barrymore and a Fallbrook resident. She is the perfect subject for the first quarterly movie fundraiser for the Fallbrook Historical Society taking place March 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the historic Mission Theater, 231 N. Main Ave.

“The evening will include a tribute to her life – she was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood – and a screening of the 1936 film, ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’” said FHS President Roy Moosa.

The film drama, based on the 1886 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, stars Costello, young Freddie Bartholomew and C. Aubrey Smith. It was the first film produced by David O. Selznick’s Selznick International Pictures and was the studio’s most profitable film until the 1939 production of “Gone With the Wind.”

The movie is about a widow and her young son who live frugally in 1880s Brooklyn following the death of her husband, the disowned son of an English earl. The story follows the mother and son, who is called back to England by his heirless grandfather, who still will not accept Costello’s character.

Advance tickets are $10 and may be purchased in advance online at fallbookmissiontheater.com. Tickets also will be sold at the door for $12. Doors will open at 5:15 p.m.

Submitted by Fallbrook Historical Society.