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

[5] Barrymore was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother, John.

[8][9] Barrymore never truly recovered from the deaths of his girls and their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, which ended in 1922.

Reluctant to follow his parents' career,[10] Barrymore appeared together with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew on tour and in a stage production of The Rivals at the age of 15.

[12] He appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as The Second in Command (1901) and The Mummy and the Hummingbird (1902), the latter of which won him critical acclaim.

[13] In 1906, after a series of disappointing appearances in plays, Barrymore and his first wife, the actress Doris Rankin, left their stage careers and travelled to Paris, where he trained as an artist.

Lionel confirms in his autobiography, We Barrymores, that he and Doris were in France when Bleriot flew the English Channel on July 25, 1909.

[14][15] In December of that year he returned to the stage in The Fires of Fate, in Chicago, but left the production later that month after suffering an attack of nerves about the forthcoming New York opening.

[1][12] Barrymore joined Biograph Studios in 1909 and began to appear in leading roles by 1911 in films directed by D. W. Griffith.

Before the formation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924, Barrymore forged a good relationship with Louis B. Mayer early on at Metro Pictures.

In 1923, Barrymore and Fenwick went to Italy to film The Eternal City for Metro Pictures in Rome, combining work with their honeymoon.

[1] His first talking picture was The Lion and the Mouse; his stage experience allowed him to excel in delivering the dialogue in sound films.

[2] On the occasional loan-out, Barrymore had a big success with Gloria Swanson in 1928's Sadie Thompson and the aforementioned Griffith film, Drums of Love.

In the following year, he won an Academy Award for his role as an alcoholic lawyer in A Free Soul (1931), after being considered in 1930 for Best Director for Madame X.

[17] During the 1930s and 1940s, he became stereotyped as a grouchy but sweet elderly man in such films as The Mysterious Island (1929), Grand Hotel (1932, with John Barrymore), Little Colonel (1935, with Shirley Temple and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson), Captains Courageous (1937), Saratoga (1937, with Jean Harlow), You Can't Take It with You (1938), On Borrowed Time (1939, with Cedric Hardwicke), Duel in the Sun (1946), Three Wise Fools (1946), and Key Largo (1948).

He is well known for his role as Mr. Potter, the miserly and mean-spirited banker in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) opposite James Stewart.

In 1944, he attended the massive rally organized by David O. Selznick in the Los Angeles Coliseum in support of the Dewey-Bricker ticket as well as Governor Earl Warren of California, who would become Dewey's running mate in 1948 and later the Chief Justice of the United States.

The gathering drew 93,000, with Cecil B. DeMille as the master of ceremonies and with short speeches by Hedda Hopper and Walt Disney.

Among the others in attendance were Ann Sothern, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Adolphe Menjou, Gary Cooper, Edward Arnold, William Bendix, and Walter Pidgeon.

[19][20] Barrymore registered for the draft during World War II, despite his age and disability, to encourage others to enlist in the military.

[21] He loathed the income tax, and by the time he was appearing on Mayor of the Town, MGM withheld a sizable portion of his paychecks, paying back the IRS the amount he owed.

[29] Marie Dressler biographer Matthew Kennedy notes that when Barrymore won his Best Actor Oscar award in 1931, the arthritis was still so minor that it only made him limp a little as he went on stage to accept the honor.

[30] Barrymore can be seen being quite physical in late silent films like The Thirteenth Hour and West of Zanzibar, where he can be seen climbing out of a window.

[31] Author David Schwartz says the hip fracture never healed, which was why Barrymore could not walk,[34] and MGM historian John Douglas Eames describes the injury as "crippling".

[33] During the filming of 1938's You Can't Take It With You, the pain of standing with crutches was so severe that Barrymore required hourly shots of painkillers.