Beginning at age 15, Lionel Barrymore was an actor for 61 years, on stage and screen. He won a Best Actor Oscar for his affecting performance in A Free Soul (1931). His distinctive voice gave him a strong presence on radio. His interpretation of Ebenezer Scrooge was heard in a live Christmas Eve radio production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1846) for twenty years (1934-1953); recordings of the program remain popular entertainment at Christmas time.
Early Years
Lionel Barrymore made his stage debut at age 15 when he appeared with his grandmother in a production of Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775). He appeared with actress-manager Nance O’Neil, with his uncle John Drew, and toured with J.A. Herne in Sag Harbor (1900). In 1905-1906, he appeared with his younger brother, John, in the one act play Pantaloon. The presentation also featured John and sister Ethel (but not Lionel) in Alice Sit-by-the-Fire. Both plays by James M. Barrie.
Lionel hoped that he could make a career of painting. He left the stage and lived several years in Paris, studying painting. Unable to support his wife and himself with his art, he returned to New York. He was hired by director D.W. Griffith of the Biograph Company. From 1911 to 1915, he made over 70 short films (one or two reels each), acting at $10.00 a day and writing scripts at $25.00 each. As a member of the Biograph Company, his roles ranged from walk-ons to featured parts. His best known Biograph film is The New York Hat (1912) with Mary Pickford.
New York Career
Silent Films
From 1915 to 1925, as he resumed his stage career, Lionel had roles in more than 30 feature films (5 reels or longer) made by a variety of New York based motion picture companies, including Rolfe Photoplays, Whitman Bennett Productions, and Cosmopolitan Productions. His noteworthy films during this period include The Copperhead (1920, Paramount Pictures), a version of a stage play in which he had starred, and America (1924), D.W. Griffith’s version of events during the Revolutionary War, in which he played the villanous Captain Butler. He went to Germany to star in Decameron Nights (1924), produced by Herbert Wilcox, who also directed, and Erich Pommer for UFA (Universum Film), an important German film company. In the lavish production Barrymore stars as Saladin, the son of a Saracen Sultan.
The TheaterIn 1917 after a twelve year break, Barrymore returned to the stage appearing with brother John in Peter Ibbetson (1917). In 1919, Lionel and John appeared in The Jest, adapted for the brothers from an Italian play with a Renaissance setting. Alexander Woollcott, well known theater critic of the The New York Times, pronounced the Barrymores “the two foremost actors of the English-speaking stage” and praised their “imaginative ane eloquent playing” that “holds spellbound each breathless audience.” In contrast, in 1921 his interpretation of Macbeth was described by Woollcott as monotonous and unimaginative. Shakespeare may not have been his métier. The tearjerking melodrama Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1923) may have been more compatible with his emphatic acting style. Lionel made his final appearances on the Broadway stage in three 1925 plays, The Piker, Taps, and Man or Devil. Each of these plays had a relatively short run of 40 performances or fewer.
Hollywood Career
Silent Pictures
In 1925, Lionel left New York and the stage and moved to Hollywood. He had been making films and appearing on Broadway for eight years. Nearing the age of 50, he gave up the theater to appear in films exclusively. He joined the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Company. He continued with the studio until his death in 1954.
Barrymore played prominent supporting roles, but not the main characters, in his silent films. His ability to look sly and crafty was utilized to cast him as venal, greedy or threacherous characters. His notable silents featuring examples of his villanous characters include The Temptress (1926), Greta Garbo’s second American film, The Show (1927) starring John Gilbert, Sadie Thompson (1928) with Gloria Swanson, and West of Zanzibar (1928) with Lon Chaney.
Talking Pictures
In 1929, MGM was attempting to develop directors for talkies; Barrymore (and Lowell Sherman) volunteered. Barrymore signed a contract to act and direct, then announced that he was quitting acting. His first film, Madame X (1929) was so successful that he was considered for a Best Director Academy Award (there were no nominations at the time.) His other pictures of 1929 met with mixed success. Unholy Night lacked stars in the cast. Although His Glorious Night did not lose money, the film received a tepid reception and was a disaster for its star, John Gilbert. Audiences laughed at Gilbert’s stiff lovemaking. Barrymore does not seem to have done anything to improve either Gilbert’s acting or the content of the script. In 1930, Barrymore, apparently retaining the confidence of MGM executives, directed Rogue Song, the first film of the studio’s expensive new star, operatic baritone Lawrence Tibbett. The critic in Variety noted the slow pace and added that Barrymore had not done much to improve the story. Barrymore’s final film as a director was made on loan out to Columbia Studios; Ten Cents a Dance (1931) stars Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck is excellent, but, as usual with Barrymore’s films, the pace drags.
In 1931, Barrymore’s contract with MGM was renewed for acting and directing, but it was understood that he would not be directing. The studio concluded that his slow and methodical methods extended a shooting schedule too much. Barrymore commented on his experience, “I have been with pictures for 21 years and don’t yet understant what the public wants. I tried but public taste is a riddle to me. It’s easy to fail … Mind you I don’t admit failure as a director, I don’t think I did, but I refuse to assume the burden of production. It wears a man down too fast.”
Actor
As his brief stint as a director was ending, Barrymore gave an Oscar-winning performance as a neglectful, drunken father in A Free Soul (1931). The success of the film and of his performance advanced Barrymore to star status at MGM.
In A Free Soul, Barrymore’s besotted lawyer abandons his daughter (Norma Shearer) into the hands of a gangster client (Clark Gable). Gable demands that Shearer marry him and when she refuses, beats her to enforce his will. To save her, Shearer’s jilted, but still loving, fianceé, Leslie Howard, kills Gable. Howard refuses to explain his reasons for the killing, and his trial is going poorly when Barrymore arrives to defend him. Barrymore’s impassioned defense, based upon his own dereliction of duty to his daughter, saves Howard but causes a fatal heart attack. In this great, over-the-top, pre-code melodrama, Barrymore shows that he had to have his voice to press his art to an emotional apex.
Barrymore never had another role of such a level of theatricality, although his Rasputin, in Rasuptin and the Empress (1932), refusing to die no matter how many ways Prince Paul Chegodieff, played by his brother John Barrymore, tries to kill him, is pretty close.
From 1932-33, Lionel made four other films with John, Arsène Lupin (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933) and Night Flight (1933). Arsène Lupin is based on a play written by Maurice Leblanc about the adventures of a gentleman thief (played by John). Lupin is pursued by a wily police detective (played by Lionel). The other three films are “all star” productions that feature the brothers along with other MGM stars. In Grand Hotel, Lionel has memorable scenes with Joan Crawford, Wallace Berry and John. In Dinner at Eight, Lionel appears with Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, and Wallace Berry, but the brothers do not share the screen.
Lionel was an adept screen stealer and was known for his manuevers to steal scenes from his brother. An amusing aspect of Night Flight is his method of drawing attention to himself, even as John is speaking. His character complains about an annoying skin condition and is continually and vigorously scratching.
Some of Lionel’s best roles during the 1930s were as fathers. In King Vidor's The Stranger’s Return (1933) he plays a grandfather passing to his sophisticated granddaughter (Miriam Hopkins) his commitment to the family farm. He is the father of Eric Linden, poised at the edge of adulthood, in Ah Wilderness! (1935), the disapproving father who convinces Greta Garbo’s courtesan to give up his son in Camille (1936), and the patriarch of an eccentric, independent family in Frank Capra's You Can’t Take It With You (1938).
In 1939, confined to a wheelchair, he began his continuing role of Dr. Leonard Gillespe, a brillant diagnostician, who accepts the young, but similarly brillant, Dr. Kildare as his protégé. Lew Ayres played Kildare through nine films, until 1942, when his status as a conscientious objector took him off the screen for four years during World War II. Barrymore’s Dr. Gillespe continued through six more films, until 1947, four with Van Johnson as Dr. Randall “Red” Adams. For the first three of the four films with Johnson, Barrymore had top billing; for the final film, Johnson, who had become a star, was billed above Barrymore.
After the war, Barrymore had important roles in several major films. He played his
most famous role, the mean, skinflint Mr. Potter, the antagonist to James
Stewart's George Bailey, in Capra's It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). In
the epic western Duel in the Sun (1946), Barrymore plays the father
of estranged brothers Joseph Cotton and Gregory Peck, rivals for the love of
seductive half-breed
Jennifer Jones. Playing Barrymore’s wife in this film
is Lillian Gish, who had been with him at the Biograph Company thirty years
earlier. In John Huston's Key Largo (1948), Barrymore, the
father-in-law of widowed Lauren Bacall, berates gangster Edward G. Robinson from
his wheelchair. Barrymore’s final films were Lone Star (1952)
starring Clark Gable and Main Street to Broadway (1953) in which he
had a guest cameo.
Personal Life
Lionel Barrymore was born into the theater. His maternal grandparents, Louisa Lane Drew (1820-1897) and John Drew Sr. (1827-1862) were actors and theater managers. His mother, Georgiana Drew (1856-1893), had made her stage debut in 1872 at age 16. Georgiana’s brother, John Drew Jr. (1853-1927), starred on Broadway from 1880 to 1927 excelling in both comedy and drama. Although Lionel and his siblings called him Uncle Sidney, the parentage of Sidney Drew (1863-1919), born after the death of John Drew Sr., was unclear. Louisa claimed that he was adopted, but he might have been Louisa’s son with an unknown father. Sidney appeared in films for the Kalem Studio in 1911 and Vitagraph Studio in 1913 as part of the comedy team of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew. Lionel’s father, Maurice Barrymore (1849-1905), was born Herbert Arthur Blythe in India, where Lionel’s grandfather was a surveyor for the British East India Company. Blythe immigrated to the US in 1874, joined the New York acting troupe of noted producer Augustin Daly, and adopted the stage name of Maurice Barrymore. Maurice, a handsome and popular leading man, played with the major actresses of his time, Helena Modjeska, Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Leslie Carter, and Lillian Russell. He married Georgiana Drew in December, 1876. Their children, Lionel, Ethel (1879-1959), and John (1882-1942), achieved significant acting careers.
Georgiana contracted tuberculosis in 1891 and died from the disease at a treatment center in Santa Barbara, California, in 1893. A philandering husband, Maurice had many affairs. In 1901, he had a psychological breakdown due to brain damage caused by untreated syphilis and was committed to Amityville (a New York mental institution) where he died in 1905.
Lionel’s schooling was fairly extensive for a 19th century child born into a family of actors. He attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and graduated from the Seton Preparatory School, class of 1891. Despite the theater background of his family, Lionel was interested in painting and music composition and pursued these interests from an early age. He made an abortive stage debut with his grandmother’s company at age 6 but cried rather than saying his lines and did not act again until his formal debut at age 15. He was active on Broadway from 1900 to 1906.
In 1904, Lionel married Doris Rankin, the younger sister of Uncle Sidney’s wife Gladys Rankin. The newlyweds soon moved to Paris where Lionel, who hoped for a career as a painter, studied painting for several years. Frustrated with his prospects as a painter, the couple returned to New York. Lionel joined the Biograph Company, for which D.W. Griffith was the principal director. He appeared in dozens of Griffith’s two-reel short films and also wrote many scenarios.
In 1917, Barrymore returned to the stage in Peter Ibbetsen, appearing with his brother John. The Jest (1919) in which he co-starred with John, Copperhead (1920), a Civil War melodrama, and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1923), a florid melodrama, were his biggest successes on Broadway. His Macbeth of 1921 received mixed reviews. He made his last stage appearences in three short-lived plays. Lionel tired of the emotional anxieties and daily grind of live theater; moviemaking was easier and allowed more leisure time between films. After his move to California in 1925, he appeared in films exclusively.
In 1923, he divorced Doris Rankin. The childhood deaths of their two daughters, Ethel (1908-1910) and Mary (1916-1917), may have strained the marriage. A few months after divorcing Doris, Lionel married actress Irene Fenwick who had appeared with him in several plays. She retired after their move to Hollywood and died in 1936. Lionel did not remarry.
Barrymore continued acting until the end of his life, in film and on radio. Starting in 1934, his Christmas broadcasts as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol were well-known. He also had a weekly radio program, Mayor of the Town, in the 1940s. His final role was as the voice of Father Time in the educational TV film, Our Mister Sun (1956). This posthumously released, voice-only film was his only performance for television.
In his youth Barrymore had preferred painting and music to acting. He did not achieve a career as a painter or composer, but produced work in both these fields throughout his life. His most notable artisitc works were a series of etchings. An accomplished etcher, he was proud of his membership in the Society of American Etchers. Among his musical compositions were solo piano pieces, tone poems, and orchestral works. “In Memoriaum” was a tone poem dedicated to his brother. He wrote the theme music for his radio program Mayor of the Town.
Barrymore published an autobiography, We Barrymores, in 1951. Near the end of his life, he wrote a novel, Mr. Cantonwine: A Moral Tale (1952).
Due to debilitating arthritis and accidents in which he injured his hips, Barrymore spent the final 15 years of his life in a wheelchair. The necessary accommodations for his disability were incorporated into his Dr. Gillespie character and his other film roles.
Career Consideration
As the oldest child of the third generation of a theatrical family, Lionel was expected to become an actor. He was more interested in pictoral art and composing music and moved to Europe at an early age to pursue his interests. Unable to earn his living in art or music, he returned to New York and went into the family profession. A talented actor, he was soon appearing on stage and screen. His success on Broadway was due to his family connections including his work with brother John and to his own unique talents. In Hollywood, he was a significant character actor in silents, and rose to stardom when the talkies revealed his distinctive voice and personality. An accomplished actor, with a tendency to overplay, he remained popular with the public until his death.
His interpretation of Ebenezer Scrooge heard on the radio for twenty years remains a popular Christmas presentation.
Further Reading