Lionel Barrymore

LIONEL BARRYMORE d1954. American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), but remains best known to modern audiences for the role of the villainous Mr Potter character in Frank Capra's 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life". He is also particularly remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades. He is also known for playing Dr. Leonard Gillespie in MGM's nine Dr Kildare films, a role he reprised in a further six films focussing solely on Gillespie and in a radio series entitled The Story of Dr Kildare. He died of a heart attck aged 76 in California on November 15th 1954.