Lionel Barrymore

Southland Times, Issue 22361, 28 June 1934, Page 5

Lionel Barrymore

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN PICTURES. (By Rene Clare.) (Special to the Southland Times.) Hollywood, May 10. Lionel Barrymore is celebrating a quarter of a century as a movie actor, but he won’t admit the celebrating part! And that about sums up Lionel’s attitude towards his entire career as an actor on both stage and screen—together quite a bit longer than twentyfive years, for he started at the age of 10. It was in April, 1909, when Lionel Barrymore boldly took the subway up to the Bronx and reported at the Biograph Studios for his screen debut. A picture called “The New York Hat,” starring the Biograph Girl, later known as Mary Pickford, held his first movie role. Bold Adventure. “Boldly,” I say, for most stage actors would have slunk into a studio in those days. “Movie actor” was fightin’ words to any one of the legitimate theatre. Motion pictures were an illegitimate offspring of the amusement industry, shunned by most self-respect-ing actors. Lionel, however, never held any illusions about the stage or screen. To him both were businesses, a means to big money the easiest way he knew. He much rather would have preferred a career as an illustrator.

The change in attitude by stage players toward pictures is one of . the least important witnessed by Lionel Barrymore during his 25 years in pictures. That was inevitable. Even before he came to Hollywood nine years ago he saw increasing numbers of stage stars vary their engagements on the theatre with motion picture appearances. Afternoons not confined to matinee performances he spent in studios, even while appearing in plays such as “The Copperhead,” “The Jest” and other big hits. Awe Banished.

The disappearance of the royalty complex on the part of stars and directors was one of the amusing highlights of his career in pictures. Directors who were addressed in hushed voices, attired in puttees and riding breeches, have given way to businesslike men with businesslike methods. The most important change to Barrymore, “naturally” he says, “came with talkies.” “Not only because of the technical and mechanical revolution,” he explains, “but because of what it did for personalities and stories. Formerly every story dealt with the love of some 17-year-old girl for a 20-year-old boy. Adolescent love was the universal theme in pictures. The characters were merely incidental to the background. “Talkies changed that. Audiences couldn’t believe sophisticated dialogue and speeches denoting considerable thought from innocent little ingenues and juveniles. Their appearances didn t indicate mental capacities to create such thoughts. “That was the opportunity for the character actor and the seasoned trouper. Marie Dressier, May Robson,

Charles Laughton, any number of others who would have been types in silents, were given opportunities formerly denied. “Say, in the 25 years Ive been in this business I’ve seen—GO AWAY. You’ve got me reminiscing. And that s a sign of age.”