Lionel Barrymore

April 28, 1878 - November 15, 1954
Born Lionel Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

See Internet Movie Database Filmography

A Few Favorite Memories of Lionel Barrymore

• As the guilt-ridden murderer "Mathias" in the silent melodrama The Bells (1926) — with Boris Karloff in an excellent supporting role as the Caligaresque Mesmerist.
  
  
• As "Mr. Crane," the self-serving Ivory trader who seduces and abandons Lon Chaney's wife, breaks his back and blights his life in West of Zanzibar (1928).
  
  
• As "Count Andre Dakkar" in The Mysterious Island (1929).
  
  
• As "Detective Guerchard," hot on the trail of brother John Barrymore as the slippery thief / hero in Arsène Lupin (1932).
  
  
• As "Otto Kringelein," the timid clerk with a fatal disease who's determined to spend his life savings and his last days living it up in Grand Hotel (1932).
  
  
• As "Grigori Rasputin" in Rasputin and the Empress (1932).
  
  
• As "Oliver Jordan" in Dinner at Eight (1933).
  
  
• As "Captain Billy Bones," the drunken old pirate who gives young Jim Hawkins a treasure map on the night his old shipmates catch up with him in Treasure Island (1934).
  
  
• As "Dan Peggotty" in David Copperfield (1935).
  
  
• As "Colonel Lloyd" in The Little Colonel (1935).
  
  
• As "Professor Zelin," investigating vampires and murder in Tod Browning's Mark of the Vampire (1935).
  
  
• As "Paul Lavond" aka "Madame Mandelip" in Tod Browning's The Devil-Doll (1936).
  
  
• As "Judge James K. Hardy" in the first film of Mickey Rooney's "Andy Hardy" series, A Family Affair (1937).
  
  
• As Nantucket fishing boat captain "Disko," who helps to make a man out of spoiled rich kid Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous (1937).
  
  
• As "Grandpa Martin Vanderhof" in You Can't Take It with You (1938).
  
  
• As wise old "Dr. Leonard Gillespie" in MGM's Young Dr. Kildare (1938) and thirteen other medical adventures, nine starring Lew Ayres as Gillespie's young assistant "Dr. Kildare," and five more with Barrymore taking over the lead as Dr. Gillespie with new assistants.
  
  
• As "Julian Northrup," "Gramps," in On Borrowed Time (1939).
  
  
• As "Uncle Henry Jones" in The Bad Man (1941).
  
  
• As "The General in Heaven" in A Guy Named Joe (1943).
  
  
• As the narrator of Dragon Seed (1944).
  
  
• As "Mr. Potter," out-Scrooging Ebenezer and giving Jimmy Stewart something to fight for in Frank Capra's fabulous It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
  
  
• As "Senator Jackson McCanles" in Duel in the Sun (1946).
  
  
• As "James Temple" in Key Largo (1948).
  
  
• As "Captain Bering Joy" in Down to the Sea in Ships (1949).
  
  
• As the quintessential "Ebenezer Scrooge" on radio shows and recordings for many years.

Last revised May 9 2021 by George "E-gor" Chastain.

Maintained by George "E-gor" Chastain (e-mail: egorschamber@gmail.com)