The first extended analysis of the work of an acclaimed actor, Spaltro's biography of Lionel Barrymore is an extensively researched and well-written contribution to the field.
~Gwenda Young, author of Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master
Clear, concise, and refreshingly no-nonsense, Spaltro's Lionel Barrymore is an invaluable addition not just to film scholarship, but to the larger, epic story of the Barrymores, America's 'royal family' of stage and screen.
~Terry Chester Shulman, author of Film's First Family: The Untold Story of the Costellos
Kathleen Spaltro shines a deserved spotlight on the magnificent Lionel Barrymore, bringing him out from the shadows cast by his younger and more famous siblings, Ethel and John. During a life characterized by physical frailties and precarious finances, Lionel Barrymore soldiered on and created timeless performances for radio and film.
~Ray Kelly, Wellesnet.com
This masterful, thorough study examines Lionel Barrymore's career and personality. An actor's actor of incomparable ability, he was also a gentle and lovable soul. The reader will feel respect and admiration and then regret not having known him. I cannot give this writer and her book any higher praise.
~Joseph Egan, The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s
Pain and disability are considered character-building. Told with wholehearted empathy, this is a tale about the great character actor Lionel Barrymore's tenacity in the face of chronic existential and physical pain.
~Nancy D. Campbell, author of OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose and co-author of The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America's First Prison for Drug Addicts (with JP Olsen and Luke Walden)
A vital portrait of a towering talent who understood the heart of George Bailey as much as he did Mr. Potter, and could've played either role brilliantly. Kathleen Spaltro has given Lionel Barrymore's extraordinary life the richly etched and meticulously researched tribute it deserves.
~Matt Fagerholm, former editor at RogerEbert.com
Behind his enigmatic mask as a mean or lovable curmudgeon, who really was Lionel Barrymore? Kathleen Spaltro explores as well as respects the many contradictions of this consummate actor who claimed to have little respect for his craft. The result is as exhilaratingly challenging as a postmodern mystery novel.
~Joseph McBride, biographer of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg
Kathleen Spaltro's biography takes us inside the rarefied family air that produced this reluctant Barrymore, and shows us how he managed to bond with audiences and embody real life in ways his grander siblings couldn't. It's an eyeopening look at a star whose life has been largely overlooked until now.
~Michael Gebert, NitrateVille
Kathleen Spaltro's crisp prose and impeccable research illuminate Barrymore's life and times as none before, giving us good reason to reexamine his films within the context of his remarkable and storied career. Spaltro digs and brings us gold.
~William Furry, Executive Director, Illinois State Historical Society
A towering biography of a towering figure of stage and screen. Kathleen Spaltro's engaging, deeply-researched biography helps re-establish Lionel Barrymore's rightful place in Hollywood history.
~Robert K. Elder, author of The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark
Not just an actor and director—on both stage and screen—Lionel Barrymore was also a painter, a composer, a novelist, a radio personality and the only Barrymore with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This deeply researched biography is the first to tell the whole incredible story.
~Richard Koszarski, Museum Curator, Barrymore Film Center
Kathleen Spaltro has written a moving biography, providing delicate, wistful evocations of Barrymore's marriages and of the daughters who died before they reached maturity.... Lionel Barrymore's biography, in Spaltro's well-told narrative, is about the longevity of greatness and its impact on a world that can still be liberated by his get up and go.
~Carl Rollyson, The New York Sun
Exceptional.... This biography about one of classic Hollywood's greatest actors is not to be missed.
~Hometowns to Hollywood
In this expertly researched, pleasantly written biography, Ms. Spaltro largely succeeds in making a case for Barrymore's greatness.... This most noted of acting clans has found its most able chronicler.
~The Wall Street Journal