Lionel Barrymore on stage, screen and radio

Lionel Barrymore (born Lionel Herbert Blythe; 1878–1954) was an American actor of stage, screen, and radio. He also directed several films, wrote scripts, created etchings, sketches, and paintings, and composed music. He was the eldest child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore, and his two siblings were John and Ethel; these and other family members were part of an acting dynasty. Although reluctant to follow his parents' career, Barrymore appeared together with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew in a stage production of The Rivals at the age of 15. He soon found success on stage in character roles. Although he took a break from acting in 1906–09 to train in Paris as a painter, he was not successful as an artist and returned to the US and acting. He also joined his family troupe, from 1910, in their vaudeville act.

Barrymore began his film career in 1911, appearing in numerous silent films, many of which have subsequently been lost. In 1912 he signed a contract with D. W. Griffith's Biograph Company and appeared as a character actor in short films before moving into feature-length productions in 1914. He began writing scripts and directing films shortly afterwards, and for the next five years he did not act on the legitimate stage. Although he had several successes on Broadway after the First World War, he encountered strongly negative criticism in a 1921 production of Macbeth and in three productions in a row in 1925. Afterwards, he never again appeared on the New York stage. In 1925 he signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he became a close friend of Louis B. Mayer and for whom he made numerous films. He directed several films from 1929 to 1931 but concentrated on acting after that.

Barrymore became well known in curmudgeonly roles. In 1938 he broke his hip, and, aggravated by arthritis, he lived the remainder of his life in a wheelchair. Mayer made sure that roles were found or written to accommodate Barrymore, who continued to act in films until 1953. During that time he appeared as Dr. Gillespie in the popular Dr. Kildare film series with Lew Ayres in the titular role, and as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life—a role that was highly placed on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Heroes and Villains in a film that the critic Philip French described as "a complex inspirational work". Beginning in the 1930s, Barrymore increasingly worked in radio, initially as Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, which was broadcast annually from 1934 to 1953, then in Mayor of the Town beginning in 1942, and also in a radio series spun off from the Dr. Kildare films (playing the same character that he had played in the films), among others.

Two of the films in which Barrymore appeared—Grand Hotel (1932) and You Can't Take It with You (1938)—won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He was considered for the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1929 film, Madame X, and won the Best Actor award for his performance in A Free Soul (1931). He was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960 and is, along with his two siblings, included in the American Theater Hall of Fame.