Lionel Belmore

Lionel Belmore (12 May 1867, Wimbledon, Surrey, England - 30 January 1953, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California) was an English character actor and director on stage for more than a quarter of a century.

Onstage, Belmore appeared with Wilson Barrett, Sir Henry Irving, William Faversham, Lily Langtry, and other famous actors. He entered in films from 1911. In total, he had some 200 titles to his film credit. He was notable as the huffy-puffy Herr Vogel the Burgomaster in Frankenstein (1931). Belmore played bit parts in several 1930s film classics. Unusually, he was a director before he became a prolific actor. He directed from 1914 to 1920, only acting in a limited number of films, until concentrating as an actor from then on.

He was the brother of the actress Daisy Belmore (Mrs. Samuel Waxman) (1874-1954) and the actor Paul Belmore. He was married to stage actress Emmeline Florence Carder and they had two daughters. Their daughter Violet had decided to follow in her father's footsteps and go into acting.