Biography for
Lionel Barrymore More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

28 April 1878, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Date of Death

15 November 1954, Van Nuys, California, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Lionel Herbert Blythe

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography

Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon", "Fugue Fantasia", "In Memorium", "Hallowe'en", "Preludium & Fugue", "Elegie for Oboe, Orch.", "Farewell Symphony (1-act opera)", "Elegie (piano pieces)", "Rondo for Piano" and "Scherzo Grotesque".

IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!

Spouse

Irene Fenwick	(14 June 1923 - 24 December 1936) (her death)
Doris Rankin	(19 June 1904 - 21 December 1922) (divorced) 1 child

Trade Mark

Playing grouchy, but usually lovable, elderly men in films

The role of Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

On radio, the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of "A Christmas Carol". This role led directly to his being cast as Mr. Potter in "It's A Wonderful Life".

Trivia

He was buried a Roman Catholic next to his second wife and his brother, John Barrymore, in Calvary Cemetery, Hollywood.

He played Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" on the radio annually.

The three Barrymore siblings appeared in only one film together: Rasputin and the Empress (1932). Lionel and John appeared without Ethel in Arsène Lupin (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Night Flight (1933) and Dinner at Eight (1933). A decade after John's demise, Lionel and Ethel appeared in Main Street to Broadway (1953), Lionel's last film.

Screen, stage, radio, vaudeville actor, film producer, and screenwriter.

Acted from wheelchair from 1938 due to the effects of arthritis and hip injury.

Interred at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Main Mausoleum, Block 352.

Son of Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Barrymore; grandson of Louisa Drew and stage actor John Drew (1827-62); nephew of Sidney Drew; cousin of S. Rankin Drew. Fathered two daughters: Ethel (1909-1910) and Mary (1916- 1917).

Reared Roman Catholic by their mother, the three Barrymore siblings all had suffered the stigma of divorce (doubtless connected to the family business) and only Ethel Barrymore was a practicing Catholic in adulthood.

Great uncle of Drew Barrymore.

Portrayed Dr. Gillespie on the syndicated radio show "The Story of Dr. Kildare" (1950-1951).

His name appeared in the Looney Toons Cartoon One Froggy Evening (1955) (directed by Chuck Jones) in a newspaper on a park bench before the distraught man was sent to a psychiatric ward because the frog would not sing in front of anyone else.

Uncle of John Drew Barrymore, Diana Barrymore, Samuel Colt, Ethel Colt, and John Drew Colt.

In the 1960s cartoon series "Underdog" (1964), Underdog's nemesis, Simon Bar Sinister, has a voice reminiscent of Barrymore.

He and his sister Ethel Barrymore were the first Oscar-winning brother and sister in acting categories.

Invented the boom microphone.

He was one of the very few screen actors in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s who had a prolific career despite being in a wheelchair. From 1938, his screen roles were written to accommodate his disability.

Started as a stock player at the Biograph Company. His first film was The Paris Hat (1908), which seems to be a lost Biograph film. His second film was Fighting Blood (1911), produced by the Biograph Company in 1911.

In 1930, he lived at 802 N. Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills.

In Rasputin and the Empress (1932), he played Rasputin, allegedly the lover of Czar Nicholas II's wife Alexandra, played by Barrymore's real life sister Ethel Barrymore.

He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1724 Vine Street and for Radio at 1651 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

Personal Quotes

This is the age of insincerity. The movies had the misfortune to come along in the twentieth century, and because they appeal to the masses there can be no sincerity in them. Hollywood is tied hand and foot to the demands for artificiality of the masses all over the world.

I've got a lot of ham in me.

I can remember when nobody believed an actor and didn't care what he believed. Why, the fact that he was an actor made everything he said open to question, because acting was thought to be a vocation embraced exclusively by scatter-brains, wastrels and scamps. I don't believed that's true today and I don't think that it ever was.

[1943 comment on Margaret O'Brien] If that child had been born in the middle ages, she'd have been burned as a witch.

Salary

The Tender Hearted Boy (1913)	$15
Friends (1912)	$10 a day

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