Hidden faces: A genealogy of Hollywood’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

This article explores a genealogy of men associated with Jekyll/Hyde in the first 50 years of the story’s existence. This leads from the creator, Robert Louis Stevenson to theatre actor Richard Mansfield and then to three film stars who took on the role in Hollywood: John Barrymore, Fredric March and Spencer Tracy. I argue that each of these men has to build on the legend of the one that preceded them, thereby expressing a changing sense of human identity. From Stevenson’s original concept of character as ‘not one but two’ to a final understanding, in the 1942 version of ‘not two but one’, through a focus on contemporary responses and the films and advertising strategies, I explore this shift in perception.