 | ||||||
| ||||||
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.
-- Lionel Barrymore
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.
Lionel Barrymore
| ||||||
Lionel Herbert Blythe
28 April 1878, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
15 November 1954, Van Nuys, California
Lionel Barrymore (April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931). He is well known for the role of the villainous Henry Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
Barrymore was born Lionel Herbert Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of actors Georgiana Drew and Maurice Barrymore (né Blythe). He was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore, and the granduncle (or great-uncle) of Drew Barrymore. Barrymore was raised Roman Catholic. He attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In her autobiography Eleanor Farjeon recalled that she and Barrymore were friends as toddlers; she would take off her shoes and he would kiss her feet.
During World War I Lionel staved off the deadly Spanish Influenza by taking cold alcohol baths as an antiseptic.
He was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother John. Doris's sister Gladys was married to Lionel's uncle Sidney Drew, which made Gladys both his aunt and sister-in-law.
Doris Rankin bore Lionel two daughters, Ethel Barrymore II (b. 1908) and Mary Barrymore. Unfortunately, neither baby girl survived infancy, though Mary lived a few months. Lionel never truly recovered from the deaths of his girls, and their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, which ended in 1923. Years later, Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, who was born around the same time as his two daughters and would have been around their age. When Jean died in 1937, Lionel and Clark Gable mourned her as though she had been family.
| ||||||
Barrymore began his stage career in the mid 1890s acting with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew. He appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as The Second in Command (1901) and The Mummy and the Hummingbird (1902), both produced by Charles Frohman. In 1905 Lionel and his siblings John and Ethel were all being groomed under the tutelage of Frohman. That year Lionel appeared with John in a short play called Pantaloon while John appeared with Ethel in Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire. In 1910, after he and Doris had spent many years in Paris, Lionel came back to Broadway, where he established his reputation as a dramatic and character actor. He and his wife Doris often acted together when in the theater. He proved his talent in many other plays such as Peter Ibbetson (1917) (with brother John), The Copperhead (1918) (with wife Doris) and The Jest (1919) (again with John). Lionel gave a short lived performance on stage as MacBeth in 1921. The play was not successful and more than likely convinced Lionel to return to films permanently. One of Lionel's last plays was Laugh, Clown, Laugh in 1923 with his second wife Irene Fenwick. This play would later be made into a 1928 silent film starring Lionel's friend Lon Chaney.
Barrymore entered films around 1911 with D.W. Griffith. There are claims Lionel entered films in 1908 for Griffith in The Paris Hat but Griffith did not make a movie in 1908 with this title. Lionel and Doris were in Paris in 1908 where Lionel was attending art school and where their first baby Ethel was born. Lionel claims in his autobiography We Barrymores that he and Doris were in France when Bleriot flew the channel on July 25, 1909.
Lionel entered films the same year his uncle Sidney Drew began his film career at Vitagraph, which might have had an influence on Lionel. With Griffith, Lionel made such titles as The Battle (1911), The New York Hat (1912) and Three Friends (1913). In 1915 he co-starred with Lillian Russell in a movie called Wildfire, one of the legendary Russell's few film appearances. He also made a foray into directing at Biograph. The last silent film he directed, Life's Whirlpool (Metro Pictures 1917), starred his sister Ethel. Lionel seemingly forged a good relationship with Louis B. Mayer early on at Metro Pictures and before the formation of MGM in 1924.
Lionel made numerous silent features for Metro, most of them now lost. He was also in a position to freelance occasionally such as returning to Griffith in 1924 to film America. He would make his last film for Griffith in 1928's Drums
After Lionel and Doris divorced in 1923, he married Irene Fenwick. The two of them went to Italy for Metro Pictures to film The Eternal City in Rome, blending work and honeymoon.
Prior to his marriage to Irene he and his brother John came to disharmony on the issue of Irene's chastity as one of John's lovers, after which the brothers didn't speak again for two years. They were next seen together at the premiere of John's film Don Juan in 1926 having patched up their differences. In 1924, he left Broadway for Hollywood permanently. He starred in the role as Frederick Harmon in director Henri Diamant-Berger's drama Fifty-Fifty (1925) opposite Hope Hampton and Louise Glaum. Barrymore made several more freelance motion pictures such as The Bells (Tiffany Pictures 1926) with unknown Boris Karloff. After 1926, however, he worked almost exclusively for MGM appearing opposite such luminaries as John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Sr., Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Greta Garbo and his brother John.
On the occasional loan-out, Barrymore had a big success with Gloria Swanson in 1928's Sadie Thompson and the aforementioned Griffith film Drums of Love. Talkies were now a reality and Barrymore's stage-trained voice recorded well in sound tests. In 1929, he returned to directing films. During this early and imperfect sound film period, he made the controversial His Glorious Night with John Gilbert, Madame X starring Ruth Chatterton and Rogue Song Laurel & Hardy's first color film appearance. Barrymore returned to acting in front of the camera in 1931. In 1931, he won an Academy Award for his role of an alcoholic lawyer in A Free Soul (1931), after having been nominated in 1930 for Best Director for Madame X. He could play many types of characters, such as the evil Rasputin in the 1932 Rasputin and the Empress (in which he co-starred with siblings John and Ethel Barrymore) and the ailing Oliver Jordan in Dinner at Eight (1933 - also with John Barrymore, but they had no scenes together). However, during the 1930s and 1940s, he was stereotyped as grouchy, but usually sweet, elderly men in such films as The Mysterious Island (1929), Grand Hotel (1932, with John), Captains Courageous (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), Duel in the Sun (1946), and Key Largo (1948).
He played the irascible Doctor Gillespie in a series of Doctor Kildare movies in the 1930s and 1940s, repeating the role in the radio series throughout the 1940s. He also played the title role in another 1940s radio series, Mayor of the Town. Barrymore had broken his hip in an accident, hence he played Gillespie in a wheelchair; later, his worsening arthritis kept him in the chair. The injury also precluded his playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1938 MGM film version of A Christmas Carol, a role which Barrymore had played annually on the radio since 1934, and would continue to 1951.
His final film appearance was a cameo in Main Street to Broadway, an MGM musical comedy released in 1953. His sister Ethel also appeared in the film.
Perhaps his best known role, due to perennial Christmas time replays on television, was Mr. Potter, the miserly and mean-spirited banker in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). The role suggested that of the "unreformed" stage of Barrymore's "Scrooge" characterization. Lionel's wife Irene died Christmas Eve 1936 and Lionel did not perform his annual Scrooge that year. John however filled in as Scrooge for his grieving brother in the radio program that year. Lionel loathed the income tax system which kept him working to the end of his life. He expressed an interest to appear on television in the 1950s but felt compelled to remain loyal to his old friend and employer Louis B. Mayer and MGM.
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.
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.
Honorary pallbearer at Lon Chaney's funeral.
Had two daughters by first wife Doris Rankin, both of whom died young. He later left Rankin for Irene Fenwick, a longtime friend and one-time girlfriend of his brother John.
Had extreme problems with his income taxes, and during the last 15 years of his life routinely turned over all of his paycheck to the Internal Revenue Service except for a small sum to maintain his living expenses. The IRS also took the proceeds from a sale of his artwork after his death.
| ||||||
| ||||||
