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 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. 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 1906–1909 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 1911, he signed a contract with the Biograph Company and appeared as a character actor in short films, many of them directed by D. W. Griffith, 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, for whom he made numerous films. He directed several films from 1929 to 1931, but concentrated on acting afterwards. 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