1. Lionel Barrymore won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul and is known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
49 Facts About Lionel Barrymore
1. 2.
Lionel Barrymore is particularly remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades.
3.
Lionel Barrymore was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family.
4.
Lionel Barrymore was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore and the great-uncle of Drew Barrymore, among other members of the Barrymore family.
5.
Lionel Barrymore attended private schools as a child, including the Art Students League of New York.
6.
Lionel Barrymore graduated from Seton Hall Preparatory School, the Roman Catholic college prep school, in the class of 1891.
7.
Lionel Barrymore was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother, John.
8.
Years later Lionel Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, who was born about the same time as his daughters.
9.
Reluctant to follow his parents' career, Lionel Barrymore appeared together with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew on tour and in a stage production of The Rivals at the age of 15.
10.
Lionel Barrymore appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr.
11.
Lionel Barrymore did not achieve success as a painter and in 1909 he returned to the US.
12.
Lionel Barrymore joined his family troupe, from 1910, in their vaudeville act, where he was happy not to worry as much about memorizing lines.
13.
From 1912 to 1917 Lionel Barrymore was away from the stage again while he established his film career, but after the First World War he had several successes on Broadway, where he established his reputation as a dramatic and character actor, often performing with his wife.
14.
Lionel Barrymore returned to the stage in Peter Ibbetson with his brother, John, and achieved star billing in The Copperhead.
15.
Lionel Barrymore retained star billing for the next 6 years in plays such as The Jest and The Letter of the Law.
16.
Lionel Barrymore gave a short-lived performance as MacBeth in 1921 opposite veteran actress Julia Arthur as Lady MacBeth, but the production encountered strongly negative criticism.
17.
Lionel Barrymore received negative notices in three productions in a row in 1925.
18.
Lionel Barrymore made The Battle, The New York Hat, Friends, and Three Friends.
19.
Lionel Barrymore was involved in writing and directing at Biograph.
20.
Lionel Barrymore acted in more than 60 silent films with Griffith.
21.
In 1920, Lionel Barrymore reprised his stage role in the film adaptation of The Copperhead.
22.
Lionel Barrymore made several silent features for Metro, some of which are now lost.
23.
Lionel Barrymore occasionally freelanced, returning to Griffith in 1924 to film America.
24.
Lionel Barrymore signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1926 and his first picture there was The Barrier.
25.
Lionel Barrymore's first talking picture was The Lion and the Mouse; his stage experience allowed him to excel in delivering the dialogue in sound films.
26.
Lionel Barrymore was credited with being the first director to move a microphone on a sound stage.
27.
Lionel Barrymore returned to acting in front of the camera in 1931.
28.
Lionel Barrymore played Professor Zelen, the Occultist expert, in the classic horror Mark of the Vampire.
29.
Lionel Barrymore had broken his hip in an accident, hence he played Gillespie in a wheelchair.
30.
The injury precluded his playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1938 MGM film version of A Christmas Carol, a role Lionel Barrymore played every year but two on the radio from 1934 through 1953.
31.
Lionel Barrymore played the title role in the 1940s radio series Mayor of the Town.
32.
Lionel Barrymore is well known for his role as Mr Potter, the miserly and mean-spirited banker in It's a Wonderful Life opposite James Stewart.
33.
Lionel Barrymore had a role with Clark Gable in Lone Star in 1952.
34.
Lionel Barrymore's final film appearance was a cameo in Main Street to Broadway, an MGM musical comedy released in 1953.
35.
Lionel Barrymore registered for the draft during World War II, despite his age and disability, to encourage others to enlist in the military.
36.
Marie Dressler biographer Matthew Kennedy notes that when Lionel Barrymore won his Best Actor Oscar award in 1931, the arthritis was still so minor that it only made him limp a little as he went on stage to accept the honor.
37.
Lionel Barrymore can be seen being quite physical in late silent films like The Thirteenth Hour and West of Zanzibar, where he can be seen climbing out of a window.
38.
Lionel Barrymore tripped over a cable while filming Saratoga in 1937 and broke his hip again.
39.
Lionel Barrymore himself said in 1951, that it was breaking his hip twice that kept him in the wheelchair.
40.
Lionel Barrymore said he had no other problems, and that the hip healed well, but it made walking exceptionally difficult.
41.
On his next picture, Saratoga, Lionel Barrymore tripped over a cable on set, breaking his hip for the second time in two years and reportedly breaking his knee cap.
42.
Lionel Barrymore could stand for short periods of time such as at his brother's funeral in 1942.
43.
Lionel Barrymore's works ranged from solo piano pieces to large-scale orchestral works, such as "Tableau Russe," which was performed twice in Dr Kildare's Wedding Day as Cornelia's Symphony, first on piano by Nils Asther's character and later by a full symphony orchestra.
44.
Lionel Barrymore had attended art school in New York and Paris and was a skillful illustrator, creating etchings and drawings and was a member of the Society of American Etchers, now known as the Society of American Graphic Artists.
45.
Lionel Barrymore wrote a historical novel, Mr Cantonwine: A Moral Tale.
46.
Lionel Barrymore was a horticulturalist, growing roses on his Chatsworth Ranch.
47.
Lionel Barrymore died on November 15,1954, from a heart attack in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles.
48.
Lionel Barrymore was entombed in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.
49.
Lionel Barrymore was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, along with his siblings, Ethel and John.