Lionel Barrymore Net Worth

Lionel Barrymore's Quotes

• This is the age of insincerity. The movies had the misfortune to come along in the twentieth century, and because they appeal to the masses there can be no sincerity in them. Hollywood is tied hand and foot to the demands for artificiality of the masses all over the world.
• I've got a lot of ham in me.
• I can remember when nobody believed an actor and didn't care what he believed. Why, the fact that he was an actor made everything he said open to question, because acting was thought to be a vocation embraced exclusively by scatter-brains, wastrels and scamps. I don't believed that's true today and I don't think that it ever was.
• [1943 comment on Margaret O'Brien] If that child had been born in the middle ages, she'd have been burned as a witch.
• You can't retire in Hollywood. Nobody gives up a job, even if he's ninety, or sick, or has money like Midas. Everybody works until his last breath, and when one day they die, they die like Napoleon/s grenadiers, who died with the words "Vive l'Empereur!" Just so, the last words of a director or producer are "Make another take!"

Interesting Facts about Lionel Barrymore

1. He was buried a Roman Catholic next to his second wife and his brother, John Barrymore, in Calvary Cemetery, Hollywood.
2. He played Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" on the radio annually for 20 years between 1934 and 1953. He missed only twice, In 1936 brother John replaced him because of the Christmas Eve death of his wife and in 1938 by Reginald Owen, whose MGM version was then in theatrical release.
3. The three Barrymore siblings appeared in only one film together: Rasputin the Mad Monk (1932). Lionel and John appeared without Ethel in Arsène Lupin (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Night Flight (1933) and Dinner at Eight (1933). A decade after John's demise, Lionel and Ethel appeared in Main Street to Broadway (1953), Lionel's last film.
4. Screen, stage, radio, vaudeville actor, film producer, and screenwriter.
5. Acted from wheelchair from 1938 due to the effects of arthritis and hip injury.
6. Interred at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Main Mausoleum, Block 352.
7. Son of Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Barrymore; grandson of Louisa Drew and stage actor John Drew (1827-1862); nephew of Sidney Drew; cousin of S. Rankin Drew. Fathered two daughters: Ethel (1909-1910) and Mary (1916- 1917).
8. Reared Roman Catholic by their mother, the three Barrymore siblings all had suffered the stigma of divorce (doubtless connected to the family business) and only Ethel Barrymore was a practicing Catholic in adulthood.
9. Great uncle of Drew Barrymore.
10. Portrayed Dr. Gillespie on the syndicated radio show "The Story of Dr. Kildare" (1950-1951), and in the late 30s/40s movie series.
11. His name appeared in the Looney Toons Cartoon One Froggy Evening (1955) (directed by Chuck Jones) in a newspaper on a park bench before the distraught man was sent to a psychiatric ward because the frog would not sing in front of anyone else.
12. Uncle of John Drew Barrymore, Diana Barrymore, Samuel Colt, Ethel Colt, and John Drew Colt.
13. In the 1960s cartoon series Underdog (1964), Underdog's nemesis, Simon Bar Sinister, has a voice reminiscent of Barrymore.
14. He and his sister Ethel Barrymore were the first Oscar-winning brother and sister in acting categories.
15. Invented the boom microphone.
16. He was one of the very few screen actors in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s who had a prolific career despite being in a wheelchair. From 1938, his screen roles were written to accommodate his disability.
17. Started as a stock player at the Biograph Company.
18. In 1930, he lived at 802 N. Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills.
19. In Rasputin the Mad Monk (1932), he played Rasputin, allegedly the lover of Czar Nicholas II's wife Alexandra, played by Barrymore's real life sister Ethel Barrymore. Their brother, John Barrymore played the role of Prince Chegodieff in the same film.
20. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - for motion pictures at 1724 Vine Street and for radio at 1651 Vine Street.