LIONEL BARRYMORE

Won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931),

Best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

He has two STARS on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - for motion pictures and for radio

(Born Lionel Herbert Blythe)

April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954 (age 76)

Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director.

He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

He is also particularly remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades. He is also known for playing Dr. Leonard Gillespie in MGM's nine Dr. Kildare films, a role he reprised in a further six films focusing solely on Gillespie and a radio series titled The Story of Dr. Kildare.

He was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family. During the 1930s and 1940s, the aging Barrymore played grouchy old men, for MGM and on loan-out (including John Huston's Key Largo (1948) with Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson at Warner Bros.). [His thoughts on acting: “Don't ever forget that acting is the greatest profession ever invented. When you act, you move millions of people, shape their lives, give them a sense of exaltation. No other profession has that power.”

By the time of Doctor Kildare, Barrymore was disabled, having broken his hip twice, with his deteriorating condition exacerbated by arthritis. After Captains Courageous (1938) he was never filmed standing without assistance again, playing his roles in a wheelchair.

(He appeared in Frank Capra's 1938 Best Picture Academy Award winning You Can't Take It with You (1938) on crutches, which caused him a great deal of pain.) About MGM chief Louis B. Mayer: “L.B. gets me $400 worth of cocaine a day to ease my pain. I don't know where he gets it. And I don't care. But I bless him every time it puts me to sleep.”

His last movie was the musical comedy Main Street to Broadway (1953), in which he appeared with his sister Ethel.

Barrymore was married twice. To actress Doris Rankin from 1904 to 1922; then to actress Irene Fenwick from 1923 until her death in 1936. He had two children.

Lionel Barrymore died on November 15, 1954, from a heart attack in Van Nuys, California.

He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - for motion pictures at 1724 Vine Street and for radio at 1651 Vine Street.

Note: Sources from IMDb and Wikipedia.