Lillian Gish, 99, a Movie Star Since Movies Began, is Dead

Lillian Gish, the last of the great silent film stars, who performed for more than 85 years in movies, theater and television, died in her sleep on Saturday evening at her home in Manhattan. She was 99 years old. 

Her personal manager, James E. Frasher, said the cause was heart failure. 

"She was the same age as film," Mr. Frasher said. "They both came into the world in 1893." 

Miss Gish was still performing as recently as the late 1980's. In 1986, she appeared as Alan Alda's hilariously addled mother in "Sweet Liberty," and in 1987 she was widely praised for her sensitive portrayal of an indomitable old woman in "The Whales of August," which co-starred another movie legend, Bette Davis. Advocate of an Early Start 

"To become an actress, one cannot begin too soon," said Miss Gish, and she meant it, for she had made her acting debut at the age of 5. 

Under the guidance of the director D. W. Griffith, Miss Gish became the pre-eminent actress in silent films, appearing in classics like "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," "Broken Blossoms" and "Way Down East." 

After performing in dozens of one- and two-reel silent movies (with running times of 10 or 20 minutes) and then in the longer Griffith epics, Miss Gish made a successful transition to the "talkies," and later into television. 

Between film and television roles, she also worked on the stage. In 1930 she starred as Helena in Jed Harris's Broadway production of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," and in 1973 she appeared as the nurse in Mike Nichols's revival of the play. She made her last Broadway appearance in 1975, in "A Musical Jubilee." 

Especially in her youth, Miss Gish evoked an aura of fragility, and hers was a vulnerable waiflike beauty. The renowned theatrical impresario David Belasco pronounced her "the most beautiful blonde I have ever seen." George Jean Nathan, the Broadway critic who courted Miss Gish without success for more than a decade, compared her to Eleonora Duse. 

Miss Gish, though not always in excellent health, was accustomed to hard work and took a no-nonsense view of her physical attributes. 

"I didn't care about being a beauty," she said in an interview in 1975. "I wanted to be an actress. When I was in the movies, I didn't care what I looked like, except for that image up there on the screen. I wanted to create beauty when it was necessary; that's an inner thing. But if all you have is a facade, it isn't interesting." 

Throughout her life Miss Gish remained singularly devoted to her mother and to her sister, Dorothy, who was younger, but who became an actress at about the same time Lillian did. Mrs. Gish died in 1948 after a long invalidism, and Dorothy Gish died in 1968. 

Miss Gish, who never married and who leaves no survivors, finally rejected Mr. Nathan's long series of marriage proposals, and said that a primary reason was his "seeming resentment" of her devotion to her family. She gave another reason for staying single: "Actresses have no business marrying. I always felt that being a successful wife was a 24-hour-a-day job. Besides, I knew such charming men: perhaps I didn't want to disillusion any of them." 

Lillian Diana Gish, a daughter of the former Mary Robinson McConnell and James Gish, was born on Oct. 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. The family moved to Baltimore, where Mr. Gish became a partner in a candy store. Before the turn of the century, he abandoned his wife and two daughters. He died in 1911. 

Mrs. Gish took her daughters to New York City, rented an apartment on West 34th Street that was large enough to include two boarders, and began working in a department store. When Lillian was 5, a Gish boarder, an actress named Alice Niles, persuaded Mrs. Gish to let her take the child with her to act in a production of "In Convict's Stripes," which played one-night stands across the country. Lillian's salary was $10 a week. 

At the age of 4, Dorothy joined another touring troupe; so did Mrs. Gish. The Gishes were separated at least half of each year, and life was lonely for Lillian as she traveled constantly and shared squalid hotel rooms with other company members to save money. More than once, she nearly fell into the hands of Elbridge Gerry's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was dedicated to protecting children who worked in sweatshop factories as well as on the stage. 

When the Gishes were together in New York, they shared quarters with Charlotte Smith, whose daughter Gladys was a bit player on Broadway. Lillian won the role of a dancer, a part that Gladys had hoped for, in Sarah Bernhardt's 1905 engagement on Broadway. She Knew Pickford As Gladys Smith

In 1909, while visiting friends in Baltimore, Lillian and Dorothy dropped in to see a short film called "Lena and the Geese," and immediately recognized its star as Gladys Smith. The next year the sisters showed up at the Biograph film studios in Manhattan, at 11 East 14th Street, and asked to see Miss Smith. 

That very day Gladys Smith, who had changed her name to Mary Pickford, introduced the Gishes to D. W. Griffith, who at that time was churning out at least three one-reelers a week for Biograph. 

He took the sisters to a rehearsal hall, where he produced a revolver and began to shoot over their heads. He later explained that he wanted to see how they reacted. They evidently passed the fear test, for within hours they were playing small roles in "An Unseen Enemy." Each received $5. 

That was the beginning of an artistic collaboration between Lillian Gish and Griffith that lasted more than a decade. During that time Miss Gish appeared in dozens of Griffith's short films and starred in most of his critically and economically successful longer ones. 

In some films she played bit parts; in others, she played several roles. Sometimes she was the star. All of Griffith's Biograph actors were moved around in this way: it was not until after the success of "The Birth of a Nation" that any received on-screen credit. One Source of Pride: Doing Own Stunts

Miss Gish was proud of the fact that she became an accomplished horseback rider, and performed her own stunts in dangerous scenes. She also learned to edit film, set up lights and pick costumes, and she directed two films for Biograph, one of which starred her sister, Dorothy. 

During most of her years with Griffith, Miss Gish and the rest of the Griffith company of actors and technicians divided their time between New York and Los Angeles. In 1913, when Griffith joined Mutual Productions, Miss Gish, her sister and many other artists at Biograph moved with him. Miss Gish starred in his first Mutual film, "The Battle of the Sexes," in 1914. 

Securing financial backing for "The Birth of a Nation," a Civil War epic and a milestone in the history of the motion picture, was a major battle for Griffith, for the movie's costs constantly outstripped the budget estimates. It was said to have cost $300,000. 

First released in February 1915, under the title "The Clansman," the film ran an unheard-of two hours and was shown at first in only a handful of road-show theaters, to the musical accompaniment of a 30-piece orchestra. Customers paid $2 to see what soon became known as "The Birth of a Nation." Despite the high admission price, the picture was a great hit. 

"In it I played Elsie, the sweet and virginal daughter of the family around which the action was built," Miss Gish said in 1975. "I played so many frail, downtrodden little virgins in the films of my youth that I sometimes think I invented that stereotype of a role." 

Miss Gish's role in Griffith's "Intolerance" (1916) was small. Griffith had envisioned the film as his ultimate contribution to the motion-picture art, but he was forced to trim it drastically on the insistence of his creditors. Many other stars of the day, including Constance Talmadge, Bessie Love and Erich von Stroheim, made brief appearances. Propaganda Films For World War I

During World War I, the Gish sisters went with Griffith to Europe to make propaganda films, among them the immensely successful "Hearts of the World" (1918). By that time, Griffith had joined Adolph Zukor's company, which later became Paramount Pictures. 

Hendrick Sartov, the still photographer for "Hearts of the World," eventually became a cinematographer for Griffith and invented for Miss Gish the "Lillian Gish lens," now called a soft-focus lens, which gives its subject a warmly blurred appearance. 

In the fall of 1919, Griffith moved his entire company to Mamaroneck, N.Y., where he built his own movie studio on a huge estate. It was there, and on locations in New England, that he filmed Miss Gish's popular melodrama "Way Down East," released in 1920. 

Miss Gish wrote in her autobiography that she volunteered to perform the dangerous climactic scene in that film, in which the heroine, lying on the ice floe in a freezing river, is headed for almost certain doom over a waterfall. 

The frail-looking Miss Gish lay on the floe, her hair and one of her hands trailing in the frigid water. "My face was caked with a crust of snow and ice, and little spikes formed on my eyelashes, making it difficult to keep my eyes open," she recalled. "It was a delicious scene, one of my really favorites, but I remember being cold for days afterward." 

"Orphans of the Storm," a French-Revolution melodrama released in 1922, was Griffith's last financially successful picture and, perhaps not coincidentally, the last Miss Gish made for him. "With all the expenses I have, I can't afford to pay you what you're worth," he told her. "You should go out on your own." 

With heavy investments of her own money, she then made two successful movies in Italy, "The White Sister" and "Romola." 

In the mid-1920's Miss Gish became embroiled in a long legal battle with Charles Duell, a socialite who had been her financial adviser (and, as she said in 1975, "sort of my Svengali"), over sums he claimed she owed him. Miss Gish munched carrots during the trial, and newspaper photographs of her stirred a carrot-chomping fad across the country. 

Americans had become enchanted with the new artistic aristocracy, made up of movie stars like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino and Miss Gish. Earlier, in a movie, when Miss Gish had pushed up the sides of her mouth with her fingers to demonstrate feigned happiness, the gesture became a much-copied fad. From the Silents To the Talkies 

Miss Gish made the transition from silents to talkies in 1930 in "One Romantic Night," with Rod LaRocque and Conrad Nagel. By that time, she had signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. "My contract called for six pictures in two years, for which I was paid, I believe, a million dollars," she wrote. 

Miss Gish made a triumphant return to the stage in 1930 in "Uncle Vanya" on Broadway. In 1936 she played Ophelia to John Gielgud's Hamlet and Judith Anderson's Queen Gertrude, and in 1941 she began a record-breaking 66-week run in "Life With Father" in Chicago. In 1960, she starred in "All the Way Home" on Broadway. 

As Miss Gish grew older, roles were more difficult to come by, but she played in summer stock and in an occasional movie, like "The Comedians," "The Night of the Hunter" and "The Undefeated." An early recruit to television, she appeared in "Arsenic and Old Lace" with Helen Hayes and in Horton Foote's "Trip to Bountiful." 

Commenting on what was to be Miss Gish's last screen performance, in the 1987 "Whales of August," Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times: "There's not a gesture or a line-reading that doesn't reflect her nearly three-quarters of a century in front of a camera. Scenes are not purloined when she's on screen." 

Photos: Lillian Gish. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times, 1986) (pg. A1); Lillian Gish in the play "Life with Father" with Louis Calhern. (Vandamm Studio); Miss Gish, left, with her sister, Dorothy, in D. W. Griffith's 1922 film "Orphans of the Storm"; Miss Gish in D. W. Griffith's film "Way Down East" in 1920. (pg. B10)

In 1920, Lillian Gish both delivered a landmark performance in D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East and directed her sister Dorothy in Remodelling Her Husband. This was her sole director credit in a career as a screen actor that began with An Unseen Enemy in 1912 and ended with The Whales of August in 1987. Personal correspondence examined by biographer Charles Affron shows that Gish lobbied Griffith for the opportunity to direct and approached the task with enthusiasm. In 1920 in Motion Picture Magazine, however, Gish offered the following assessment of her experience: “There are people born to rule and there are people born to be subservient. I am of the latter order. I just love to be subservient, to be told what to do” (102). One might imagine that she discovered a merely personal kink. In a Photoplay interview that same year, however, she extended her opinion to encompass all women and in doing so slighted Lois Weber, one of Hollywood’s most productive directors. “I am not strong enough” to direct, Gish told Photoplay, “I doubt if any woman is. I understand now why Lois Weber was always ill after a picture” (29). What should historical criticism do with such evidence?

Lillian (a/d/w) and Dorothy Gish. USW 

By far the most common approach has been to argue that Gish did not really mean what the press quotes her as saying. Alley Acker, for instance, urges us not to be fooled by Gish’s “Victorian modesty” and goes on to provide evidence of her authority on the set (62). Similarly, Affron argues that Gish’s assertions of subservience were partly self-serving. Self-effacement contributed to her star persona as “D. W. Griffith’s virginal, ethereal muse” (15). Gish cultivated this image throughout her career, and Affron finds it exemplified by the oft-repeated story of her masochistic performance in Way Down East’s 1920 ice floe rescue. A different Gish surfaces in an interview with Anthony Slide first published in 1970. There we encounter a decisive and resourceful woman who surmounted extraordinary practical difficulties in directing Remodelling Her Husband. In addition to directing, Griffith gave her the job of supervising completion of a new studio in Mamaroneck, New York.
Neither subservience nor modesty inflect Gish’s assessment of the results: “We finished at 58 thousand dollars, and it made, I think, ten times what it cost, which not many films do today” (Slide 1977, 124). Gish also told Slide that she had wanted to make an “all-woman picture” and had recruited Dorothy Parker to write the titles. In the film, Dorothy Gish portrays a young wife who reforms her philandering husband by leaving him to work in her father’s business. Unfortunately, neither Affron nor Slide has been able to confirm Parker’s role, and no print is known to survive.

 Lillian Gish (a/d/w) 1922. USW 

When the biographical approach emphasizes the difference between Gish’s public persona and her private ambition, it invites us to see her demurral as a clever tactic. By identifying with “the weaker sex” she turns a low expectation of women to her own advantage. That Gish left behind such a large volume of paper makes this hypothesis extremely tempting. Not only have there been numerous published accounts of her life, but her papers, available through the New York Public Library, include personal correspondence, business documents, and scrapbooks spanning the years 1909–1992. In addition, her correspondence with Anthony Slide is available through the Margaret Herrick Library. These sorts of sources urge us to seek a more complicated woman behind the public star persona. 

Lillian Gish (a/d/w), PCMC 

A different source might shift focus to the terms of public discourse and allow us to ask if these terms were as conventionally fixed as the search for the private woman can make it appear. For instance, the Paramount-Famous Players press book (which suggested stories for exhibitors to plant in local papers) provides not one but two different ways to promote Remodelling Her Husband, the famous actress’s directorial debut. The first approach resembles the above-quoted Photoplay and Moving Picture Magazinearticles, emphasizing Lillian’s “delicate physique” and her decision to abandon directing as too rigorous an endeavor. The second strategy, however, foregrounds her “prowess” and presents Dorothy as cajoling Lillian into the director’s chair. The studio publicity department thus promoted directing as something women might encourage their sisters to do while at the same time presenting women directors as an aberration in a profession that required masculine strength and discipline. How this apparently contradictory message played itself out in the trade press and the nation’s newspapers wants further explanation.

Lillian Gish (a/d/w) New York, 1922. USW

One could also take Gish’s remarks literally. After all, she advocates what would become the normative division of labor—women act, men direct—at a time when it was not clear that these work rules would, in fact, prevail. Similarly, while her praise of Griffith’s genius helped to ensure that her own contributions would be central to the story of American motion pictures, such veneration also promoted a particular version of historical events. By all accounts, Gish relished the role of spokesperson for silent film, and perhaps more work should consider her role as historian, critic, and theorist. Certainly Antonia Lant and Ingrid Periz aim to encourage such consideration by including Gish’s Encyclopedia Britannica article, “A Universal Language,” in their collection of women’s writing about the first fifty years of cinema. Echoes of Gish’s argument in that piece may be found in her less-known 1930 essay, “In Defense of the Silent Film.” With its conclusion that “Until the cinema returns from its prodigal excursion into sound it cannot expect to resume its logical development as an independent art” (230), the essay invites comparison with classic laments about the transition to sound from such filmmakers and film theorists as Bela Balazs, Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Grigori Alexandrov. In the essay, Lillian Gish writes with authority from her experience as an actor and names a wide range of directors she considers important—all of them men.

Selected Bibliography

Acker, Ally. Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present. New York: Continuum, 1991.
Affron, Charles. Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life. New York: Scribner 2001.

------. “ A Universal Language.” Rpt. in Red Velvet Seat: Women’s Writing on the First Fifty Years of Cinema. Ed. Antonia Lant and Ingrid Periz. London and New York: Verso, 2006. 200–202, Originally published in The Theater and Motion Pictures: A Selections of Articles from the New 14^th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica New York and London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1929-33, 33-34.

Gish, Lillian. “In Defense of the Silent Film.” Revolt of the Arts. Ed. Oliver M. Sayler. New York: Bretano’s, 1930. 225–30.

Gish, Lillian and Ann Pinchot. Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Hall, Gladys. “Lights! Says Lillian!” Motion Picture Magazine (Apr.–May 1920): 30-31, 102.
Patterson, Ada. “The Gish Girls Talk About Each Other.” Photoplay (June 1921): 29.

Archival Paper Collections:

Anthony Slide Collection. BGSU.
Correspondence from Lillian Gish, 1962-1986. NYPL-BRTD.
D.W. Griffith papers, 1872-1969. MOMA.
Gish Film Theater Collection. BGSU.
Lillian Gish-actress / Anthony Slide, compiler. AMPAS-SC.
Lillian Gish letters and ephemera, 1936-1991.NYPL-BRTD.
Lillian Gish papers, 1920-1978. LOC-MD.
Lillian Gish papers and sound recordings, 1909-1992. NYPL-BRTD.
Reminiscences of Lillian Gish. CUOHRO.
Stark, Samuel. Theatre scrapbook collection, 1860-1950. SU.
Lucy Kroll papers, 1908-1998. LOC-MD.
Complete Project Bibliographies

Filmography

A. Archival Filmograpy: Extant Film Titles

1. Lillian Gish as Actress

Brutality. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Mae Marsh, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Miller, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: ARF, USR, USM, CAO, ROB, USW.

The Burglar's Dilemma. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc.: Lionel Barrymore (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, Adolph Lestina, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USR, USM, GBB.

A Cry For Help. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Walter Miller, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

In the Aisles of the Wild. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Claire McDowell, Harry Carey, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USM, GBB.

The Musketeers of Pig Alley. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Elmer Booth, Alfred Paget, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: BRR, CAQ, ITG, DKK, DEI, ARF, USR, USW, USL, ROB, USF, SES, FRC, AUC.

My Baby. Dir.: Frank Powell (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Mary Pickford, Henry Walthall, Eldean Stewart, W. Chrystie Miller, Lillian Gish, Alfred Paget, Madge Kirby, John T. Dillon, Walter Miller, Jack Pickford, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USR, USW.

The New York Hat. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, st.: Anita Loos (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: CAQ, BRR, SES, USR, ILA, USW, USD, CAO, GBB, USL, USB, FRL.

The One She Loved. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Henry Walthall, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USR, USW.

The Painted Lady. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Blanche Sweet, Madge Kirby, Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 16mm. Archive: DEI, ARF, USR, USW, USL, ROB, USR, USI, AUC.

So Near, Yet So Far. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Mary Pickford, Walter Miller, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USR, USW, GBB.

Two Daughters of Eve. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Lillian Gish, Claire McDowell, Henry Walthall, si, b&w. Archive: USM, USL.

An Unseen Enemy. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, st.: Edward Acker (Biograph US 1912) cas.: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w. Archive: FRC, ITG, DKK, ARF, USR, USM, NLA, USL, ROB, SES, GBB, USI.

The Blue or the Gray. Dir.: William Christy Cabanne (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

The Conscience of Hassan Bey. Dir.: William Christy Cabanne (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, William A. Carroll, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

The House of Darkness. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lionel Barrymore, Claire McDowell, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USM, GBB, USL, USI, USF.

Just Gold. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Alfred Paget, Charles H. West, Joseph McDermott, Kate Bruce, Charles Mailes, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w. Archive: DEI, USM.

The Lady and the Mouse. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Henry Walthall, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USR, DEI, ARF, USM, ROB, GBB.

The Left-Handed Man. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Harry Carey, Charles West, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

A Misunderstood Boy. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Kate Bruce, Robert Harron, Charles Hill Mailes, Alfred Paget, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USL.

The Mothering Heart. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, aut. Hazel H. Hubbard (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Walter Miller, Viola Barry, Kate Bruce, Josephine Crowell, si, b&w. Archive: ITG, DEI, ARF, USR, USM, USL, ROB, USF, SES, GBB.

Oil and Water. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Blanche Sweet, Henry Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: ITG, GBB, USL.

The Madonna of the Storm. Dir.: Alfred Paget (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Harry Carey, Charles Hill Mailes, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

A Modest Hero. Dir.: Dell Henderson, sc. George Hennessy (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Walter Miller, Charles Hill Mailes, si, b&w. Archive: GBB, USM.

So Runs the Way. Dir.: W. Christy Cabanne (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Reggie Morris, W.C. Robinson, Kate Toncray, Joseph McDermott, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

The Stolen Bride. Dir.: Tony O’Sullivan (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Harry Carey, Claire McDowell, Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

A Timely Interception. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, W. Chrystie Miller, William J. Butler, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Joseph McDermott, Walter Miller, Alfred Paget, si, b&w. Archive: USM, USF.

The Unwelcome Guest. Dir.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Mary Pickford, W. Chrystie Miller, Charles Hill Mailes, Claire McDowell, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USR, USW, USL, DEW.

A Woman in the Ultimate. Dir.: Dell Henderson (Biograph US 1913) cas.: Lillian Gish, Charles Hill Mailes, Henry B. Walthall, si, b&w. Archive: USM.

The Battle of Elderbush Gulch. Dir./sc.: D.W. Griffith (Biograph US 1913/4) cas.: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: ITB, ITG, DEI, ARF, USR, USW, USM, USL, USF, USB, DEK.

The Battle of the Sexes. Dir. D.W. Griffith, sc. Daniel Carson Goodman (Majestic Motion Picture Co. US 1914) cas.: Donald Crisp, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mary Alden, Owen Moore, Fay Tincher, W.E. Lawrence, si, b&w, 35mm, 5 reels. Archive: USR.

Home Sweet Home. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc. D.W. Griffith and Harry E. Aitkin (Reliance US 1914) cas.: Henry Walthall, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, si, b&w. Archive: BEB, ITG, USM, USL, USF, DKK, AUC.

Judith of Bethulia. / Her Condoned Sin. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, st.: Thomas Bailey (Biograph US 1914) cas.: Lillian Gish, Blanche Sweet, Henry Walthall, Robert Harron, Kate Bruce, si, b&w, 35mm, 4 reels. Archive: BEB, SES, ITG, USR, USM, ITN, ISL, USL, USF, DKK, USI, DEK, AUC, YUB, FRL.

Lord Chumley. Dir.: James Kirkwood (Biograph US 1914) cas.: Henry Walthall, Lillian Gish, Mary Alden, Charles Mailes, Walter Miller, si, b&w. Archive: ITG.

Man’s Enemy. Dir.: Frank Powell (Klaw and Erlanger US 1914) cas.: Franklin Ritchie, Lillian Gish, si, b&w. Archive: ITG, USW, USM.

The Sisters/A Duel for Love. Dir.: W. Christy Cabanne (Majestic US 1914) cas.: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, W.E. Lawrence, Elmer Clifton, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USW.

The Birth of a Nation. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc.: D.W. Griffith, Frank E. Woods, st. Thomas Dixon (David W. Griffith Corp US 1915) cas.: Lillian Gish, Henry Walthall, Mae Marsh, si, b&w, 35mm, 12 reels. Archive: BGS, ITC, BEB, BRS, BRR, DKK, AUC, ITG, DEW, DEI, PLW, USR, RUR, USW, USM, GBB, NLA, ATM, ROB, CAQ, AOL, NOO, USL, USF, ESM, DEW, SES, USI, YUB, FRC.

Captain Macklin. Dir.: John B. O'Brien, sc.: Russell E. Smith (Majestic US 1915) cas.: Jack Conway, Spottiswoode Aitken, Lillian Gish, si, b&w, 35mm, 4 reels. Archive: USW.

Enoch Arden. Dir.: W. Christy Cabanne (Majestic US 1915) cas.: Lillian Gish, Wallace Reid, Alfred Paget, D.W. Griffith, Mildred Harris, si, b&w, 35mm, 4 reels. Archive: USR, USW, USL.

The Lily and the Rose. Prod: D.W. Griffith, dir.: Paul Powell, st. Granville Warwick, adp. Paul Powell (Fine Arts Film Co. US 1915) cas.: Lillian Gish, Wilfred Alden, Wilfred Lucas, Rozsika Dolly, Loyola O’Connor, Cora Drew, Elmer Clifton, Mary Alden, William Hinckley, si, b&w, 35mm, 5 reels. Archive: USW.

The Children Pay. Dir.: Lloyd Ingraham, sc. Frank E. Woods (Fine Arts Film Co. US 1916) cas.: Lillian Gish, Violet Wilkie, Keith Armour, si, b&w, 5 reels. Archive: DKK.

A House Built Upon Sand. Dir. Edward Morrissey, sc.: Mary H. O’Connor (Fine Arts Film Co. US 1916) cas.: Lillian Gish, Roy Stewart, William H. Brown, si, b&w, 35mm, 5 reels. Archive: USW.

Intolerance. Dir./sc.: D.W. Griffith (D. W. Griffith; Wark Producing Corp. US 1916) cas: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Margery Wilson, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: BGS, CAQ, BEB, SES, AUC, ITG, DEI, PLW, USR, RUR, USW, USM, GBB, NLA, ATM, ITN, ITC, ROB, USL, USF, ESM, USI, CAO, DKK, ITT, USB, YUB, USN, FRL.

Sold For Marriage. Dir. W. Christy Cabanne, st. William E. Wing (Fine Arts Film Co. US 1916) cas.: Lillian Gish, Frank Bennett, A.D. Sears, Pearl Elmore, Curt Rehfelt, William E. Lowery, Fred Burns, William Siebert, Frank Brownlee, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: ITG, USW, USR.

The Greatest Thing in Life. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc./st. Captain Victor Marier (D.W. Griffith/Artcraft US 1918) cas.: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Adolphe Lestina, si, b&w. Archive: GBB.

Hearts of the World. Prod./Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc.: M. Gaston de Tolignac (D. W. Griffith US 1918) cas.: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, si, b&w, 13 reels. Archive: BEB, BRS, ITG, USM, GBB, NLA, ROB, USL, USF, USR, USI, FRC, AUC, FRL.

Broken Blossoms. Prod./Dir.: D.W. Griffith (D.W. Griffith US 1919) cas: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, si, b&w, 35mm, 6 reels. Archive: BGS, CAQ, BEB, BRS, BRR, ITG, DEI, PLW, USR, USM, GBB, RUR, ITN, ROB, USL, USF, USI, DKK, AUC, YUB.

The Greatest Question. Prod./Dir: D.W. Griffith, sc.: S.E.V. Taylor, st.: William Hale (D. W. Griffith US 1919) cas: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, si, b&w. Archive: USM, BEB, USR, USF.

A Romance of Happy Valley. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc.: Captain Victor Marier (D. W. Griffith US 1919) cas: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, si, b&w. Archive: BEB, ITG, USM, RUR, AUC.

True Heart Susie. Prod/dir: D.W. Griffith, st.: Marian Fremont (D.W. Griffith; Griffith’s Short Story series US 1919) cas: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, si, b&w. Archive: BEB, BRS, BRR, ITG, USM, GBB, NLA, ROB, USL, USR, DKK, USI.

Way Down East. Dir.: D.W. Griffith, sc.: Anthony Paul Kelly, cost.: Lucy Duff-Gordon (D.W. Griffith, Inc. US 1920) cas.: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, si, b&w. Archive: USW, BEB, ITB, ITG, PLW, USR, USM, GBB, NLA, RUR, ITN, ITC, ROB, USL, USF, DKK, SES, USI.

Orphans of the Storm. Prod./dir: D.W. Griffith, sc. Marquis de Trolignac (D.W. Griffith, Inc. US 1921) cas: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, si, b&w, 14 reels. Archive: BGS, BEB, SES, PLW, USM, USL, RUR, ITN, ITC, ROB, CAQ, USR, USF, ESM, GBB, AUC.

The White Sister. Pres.: Charles H. Duell, dir: Henry King, sc. George V. Hobart, Charles E. Whittaker (Inspiration Pictures US 1923) cas: Lillian Gish, Ronald Colman, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: ESM, USB.

Romola. Dir. Henry King, sc: Will M. Ritchey (Inspiration Pictures US 1925) cas: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, William Powell, Ronald Colman, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USM, USL, FRC.

La Bohème. Dir.: King Vidor, st: Fred De Gresac (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures US 1926) cas: Lillian Gish, John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, si, b&w. Archive: BEB, NLA, USR, ITT, AUC.

Annie Laurie. Dir.: John S. Robertson, sc: Josephine Lovett (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures US 1927) cas: Lillian Gish, Norman Kerry, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: USW, USL, GBB.

The Scarlet Letter. Dir.: Victor Seastrom, sc: Frances Marion (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures US 1927) cas: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: BEB, SES, USR, USW, ITN, USL, GBB, USB, DKK, AUC, YUB.

The Wind. Dir.: Victor Seastrom, sc./adp.: Frances Marion (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures US 1928) cas: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: ITN, BEB, ROB, ITG, MXU, USR, GBB, DKK, SES, FRC, AUC, YUB.

The Enemy. Dir.: Fred Niblo, sc.: Agnes Christine Johnston, Willis Goldbeck (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer US 1928) cas.: Lillian Gish, Ralph Forbes, Ralph Emerson, si, b&w, 35mm. Archive: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Archives.

B. Filmography: Not Extant Titles:

1. Lillian Gish as Actress

Gold and Glitter, 1912; During the Round Up, 1913; An Indian's Loyalty, 1913; The Angel of Contention, 1914; The Folly of Anne, 1914; The Green-Eyed Devil, 1914; The Hunchback, 1914; The Quicksands, 1914; The Rebellion of Kitty Belle, 1914; The Tear That Burned, 1914; The Lost House, 1915; Daphne and the Pirate, 1916; Diane of the Follies, 1916; An Innocent Magdalene, 1916; Pathways of Life, 1916; Souls Triumphant, 1917; The Great Love, 1918; “Liberty Bond Short,” 1918.

Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish's Estate Sale Fetches More Than $200,000

June 24, 1995

Contents of an apartment that once belonged to silent screen star Lillian Gish sold for $232,127 Friday, nearly twice the expectations of Sotheby's auction house. Although 29 of the 183 lots offered did not sell, Gish's grandnieces and grandnephew selling the items took in far more than the $139,325 to $194,500 Sotheby's had predicted. A walnut commode sold slightly above estimates at $20,700. The chest once survived a smoky fire sparked by wires Edward R. Murrow was using while broadcasting an interview from Gish's apartment, the catalog said.

 

Birthdays

October 14, 1989

Actress Lillian Gish is 93. Actor Roger Moore is 62.

LOCAL

- Jim Whaley

August 5, 1992

Whaley, producer and host of the syndicated TV show Cinema Showcase, died Sunday in Atlanta of a heart attack. He was 44. For 20 years, Whaley brought stars such as Lillian Gish, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Kevin Costner, Meryl Streep and Eddie Murphy to the show. He also did interviews with such Hollywood legends as Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Steven Spielberg.

LOCAL

- Actress Lillian Gish is 95.- Former Surgeon General C...

October 14, 1991

- Actress Lillian Gish is 95.- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is 75.- Golfer Beth Daniel is 35.- State Rep. Bob Starks, R-Maitland, is 46.- Actor Roger Moore is 64.- Former White House Counsel John W. Dean III is 53.

LOCAL

- State Rep. Bob Starks, R-Maitland, is 47.- Actress...

October 14, 1992

- State Rep. Bob Starks, R-Maitland, is 47.- Actress Lillian Gish is 99. (Some references say 96.)- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is 76.- Actor Roger Moore is 65.- Former White House Counsel John W. Dean III is 54.- Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is 53.- Actor Harry Anderson is 40.- Actor Greg Evigan is 39.- Golfer Beth Daniel is 36.- Singer-musician Thomas Dolby is 34.

LOCAL

Robert Emhardt

January 3, 1995

Emhardt, a portly actor who appeared on Broadway and in several television shows, died Thursday in Ojai, Calif. He was in his 80s. Emhardt made his Broadway debut with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Pirate in 1942 and starred with Helen Hayes in Harriet and Lillian Gish in The Curious Savage. He won the Critics Circle Award as best supporting actor of the 1948-49 season for his role in Life With Mother. Emhardt appeared in TV's Occasional Wife, Iron Horse, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Man From U.N.C.

LOCAL

Blanche Sweet, 90-year-old Star Of Silent Films

September 9, 1986

BLANCHE SWEET, 90, who made her first stage appearance in 1898 and became a major star of silent films, died Saturday.Sweet made 124 motion pictures; all but three silent. Her first was The Man with Three Wives in 1909. She became a star in 1913 in D. W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia, one of the first feature-length films made in this country.Sweet played strong and determined young women in most of her films. Griffith originally had cast Sweet as Elsie Stoneman in the epic The Birth of a Nation but gave the role to Lillian Gish.

LOCAL

Really liked Field of Dreams, the new movie with Kevin...

May 20, 1989

Q I really liked Field of Dreams, the new movie with Kevin Costner as an Iowa farmer who conjures up the scandalous Chicago Black Sox team of 1919. Is it true that the writer, played by James Earl Jones, is based on J.D. Salinger?A In Ray Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, on which Field of Dreams is based, the character of the writer is supposed to be Salinger. Director Phil Alden Robinson, who adapted the novel for the screen, said, ''Apart from legal issues, I have great empathy for J.D. Salinger's desire for his privacy.

ENTERTAINMENT

Revel In The History Buffs' Revenge

July 7, 2000

Terrific action aside, the Mel Gibson Revolutionary War saga The Patriot doesn't have a whole lot to do with the real American Revolution. In a country whose citizens have trouble identifying in which century the Civil War took place, a movie like this can drive historians and history buffs nuts. How nuts? Check out Sweet Liberty, an Alan Alda comedy from 1986. He plays a historian whose book is being turned into a seriously unhistorical Hollywood movie. Alda kind of wore out his welcome with moviegoers in the 1980s, but his supporting cast more than compensates: Michael Caine as a wildly self-indulgent star, Michelle Pfeiffer as a leading lady who will go to great extremes to research a role, Bob Hoskins as a clueless screenwriter and the peerless Lillian Gish, in one of her last roles, as the author's dotty mom. And the finale?

Lillian Gish American actress

Lillian Gish, in full Lillian Diana Gish   (born Oct. 14, 1893, Springfield, Ohio, U.S. [see Researcher’s Note]—died Feb. 27, 1993, New York, N.Y.), American actress who, like her sister Dorothy, was a major figure in the early motion picture industry, particularly in director D.W. Griffith’s silent film classics. She is regarded as one of silent cinema’s finest actresses.

Gish grew up from roughly 1900 in New York City and made her stage debut at age five. During Lillian and Dorothy’s years as child actresses, they formed close friendships with Mary Pickford (then still known as Gladys Mary Smith), who in 1912 introduced them to Griffith. Immediately struck by their beauty and charm, he gave them small parts in a series of silent movies, beginning with An Unseen Enemy (1912), and the next year placed them under contract to his studio. Almost from the start Lillian was the more popular of the two. An extra measure of winsome appeal in such two-reelers as The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), The Mothering Heart (1913), and Judith of Bethulia (1914) won her a large audience of admirers; and after her appearance in The Birth of a Nation (1915), she was established as one of Hollywood’s top stars. In Intolerance (1916) and Broken Blossoms (1919) she embodied the ideal of the innocent, vulnerable heroine.



Lillian and Dorothy appeared together in several of Griffith’s greatest films, including Home, Sweet Home (1914), The Sisters (1914), Hearts of the World (1918), and Orphans of the Storm (1921). In 1920 Lillian both appeared in Griffith’s much admired Way Down East and directed Dorothy in Remodeling Her Husband. The Gishes left Griffith in 1922, Lillian going to the Tiffany Company and in 1925 to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Dorothy to Paramount Studios. Lillian’s later films include The White Sister (1923), La Bohème (1926), The Scarlet Letter (1926), The Wind (1928), and One Romantic Night (1930), her first sound picture.
With the coming of the talkies, Lillian left the screen for a time and returned to the stage. With great success, she played on the stage in Uncle Vanya (1930) and subsequently appeared in Camille (1932), Nine Pine Street (1933), Within the Gates (1934), Hamlet (1936), The Old Maid (1936), The Star Wagon (1937), Life with Father (1940, in which she enjoyed a record run in Chicago while Dorothy was starring with the road company), Mr. Sycamore (1942), Magnificent Yankee (1946), Crime and Punishment (1947), The Curious Savage (1950), The Trip to Bountiful (1953), The Family Reunion (1958), All the Way Home (1960), I Never Sang for My Father (1967), and many others. Her last Broadway appearance was in A Musical Jubilee in 1975.



Gish occasionally continued to appear in movies, among them The Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942), Miss Susie Slagle’s (1946), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Night of the Hunter (1955), The Unforgiven (1960), The Comedians (1967), A Wedding (1978), Hambone and Hillie (1984), Sweet Liberty (1986), and her final film, The Whales of August (1987), with Bette Davis. She also appeared on television in a number of distinguished dramatic presentations, most notably in Arsenic and Old Lace with Helen Hayes in 1969. Her autobiographical book The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me was published in 1969, followed by two more volumes of memoirs, Dorothy and Lillian Gish (1973) and An Actor’s Life for Me (1987). She was awarded a special honorary Academy Award in 1971. She also received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute in 1984.

Lillian Gish

Gish, Lillian

International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers | 2001

COPYRIGHT 2001 The Gale Group Inc.

GISH, Lillian

---

Nationality: American. Born: Lillian Diana Gish in Springfield, Ohio, 14 October 1896 (some sources say 1893). Education: Briefly attended Ursuline Academy, East St. Louis, Illinois. Career: About 1902—stage debut in Rising Sun, Ohio, in The Little Red Schoolhouse; 1903–04—with mother and sister Dorothy, toured in Her First False Step; 1905—danced with Sarah Bernhardt production in New York City; 1908–11—lived with aunt in Massillon, Ohio, and with mother in East St. Louis, and briefly with father in Oklahoma; 1912—film debut as featured player, with sister, in An Unseen Enemy for D. W. Griffith; 1913—in Belasco production of A Good Little Devil starring Mary Pickford; collapsed during run of play with pernicious anemia; 1920—directed Dorothy Gish in Remodeling Her Husband; 1921—last film under Griffith's direction, Orphans of the Storm; joined Inspiration Films; 1924—$800,000 contract with MGM; 1930—first talkie, One Romantic Night; resumed stage career in Uncle Vanya; 1930s—began working in radio; 1948—TV debut in Philco Playhouse production The Late Christopher Bean; 1969—began giving film lecture "Lillian Gish and the Movies: The Art of Film, 1900–1928." Awards: Honorary Oscar, "for superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures," 1970; Life Achievement Award, American Film Institute, 1984; D. W. Griffith Award, for "an outstanding career in motion pictures," 1987. Died: In New York City, 27 February 1993.

Films as Actress:

1912

An Unseen Enemy (Griffith); Two Daughters of Eve (Griffith); In the Aisles of the Wild (Griffith); The One She Loved (Griffith); The Musketeers of Pig Alley (Griffith); My Baby (Frank Powell); Gold and Glitter (Frank Powell); The New York Hat (Griffith); The Burglar's Dilemma (Griffith); A Cry for Help (Griffith)

1913

Oil and Water (Griffith); The Unwelcome Guest (Griffith); The Stolen Bride (O'Sullivan); A Misunderstood Boy (Griffith); The Left-Handed Man (Griffith); The Lady and the Mouse (Griffith); The House of Darkness (Griffith); Just Gold (Griffith); A Timely Interception (Griffith); Just Kids (Henderson); The Mothering Heart (Griffith); During the Round Up (Griffith); An Indian's Loyalty (Frank Powell); A Woman in the Ultimate (Griffith); A Modest Hero (Griffith); So Runs the Way (Griffith); The Madonna of the Storm (Griffith); The Blue or the Gray (Cabanne); The Conscience of Hassan Bey (Cabanne); The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (Griffith)

1914

The Green-Eyed Devil (Kirkwood); The Battle of the Sexes (Griffith); The Hunchback (Cabanne); The Quicksands (Cabanne); Home, Sweet Home (Griffith); Judith of Bethulia (Griffith) (as the young mother); Silent Sandy (Kirkwood); The Escape (Griffith); The Rebellion of Kitty Belle (Cabanne); Lord Chumley (Kirkwood); Man's Enemy (Frank Powell); The Angel of Contention (O'Brien); The Wife; The Tear that Burned (O'Brien); The Folly of Anne (O'Brien); The Sisters (Cabanne); His Lesson (Crisp) (as extra)

1915

The Birth of a Nation (Griffith) (as Elsie Stoneman); The Lost House (Cabanne); Enoch Arden (As Fate Ordained) (Cabanne); Captain Macklin (O'Brien); Souls Triumphant (O'Brien); The Lily and the Rose (Paul Powell)

1916

Daphne and the Pirate (Cabanne) (as Daphne); Sold for Marriage (Cabanne); An Innocent Magdalene (Dwan); Intolerance (Griffith); Diane of the Follies (Cabanne) (title role); Pathways of Life; Flirting with Fate (Cabanne); The Children Pay (Ingraham)

1917

The House Built upon Sand (Morrissey)

1918

Hearts of the World (Griffith) (as the Girl, Marie Stephenson); The Great Love (Griffith); Liberty Bond short (Griffith); The Greatest Thing in Life (Griffith); The Romance of Happy Valley (Griffith)

1919

Broken Blossoms (Griffith) (as Lucy Burrows); True Heart Susie (Griffith) (title role); The Greatest Question (Griffith)

1920

Way Down East (Griffith) (as Anna Moore)

1921

Orphans of the Storm (Griffith) (as Henriette Girard)

1923

The White Sister (Henry King) (as Angela Chiaromonte)

1924

Romola (Henry King) (title role)

1926

La Bohème (King Vidor) (as Mimi); The Scarlet Letter (Seastrom) (as Hester Prynne)

1927

Annie Laurie (Robertson) (title role); The Enemy (Niblo)

1928

The Wind (Seastrom) (as Letty Mason)

1930

One Romantic Night (Stein) (as Alexandra)

1933

His Double Life (Hopkins and William B. DeMille) (as Mrs. Alice Hunter)

1942

The Commandos Strike at Dawn (Farrow) (as Mrs. Bergesen)

1943

Top Man (Man of the Family) (Lamont) (as Beth Warren)

1946

Miss Susie Slagle's (Berry) (title role); Duel in the Sun (King Vidor) (as Mrs. Laura Belle McCanles)

1948

Portrait of Jennie (Jennie) (Dieterle) (as Mother Mary of Mercy)

1955

The Cobweb (Minnelli) (as Victoria Inch); The Night of the Hunter (Laughton) (as Rachel); Salute to the Theatres (supervisor: Loud—short) (appearance)

1958

Orders to Kill (Asquith) (as Mrs. Summers)

1960

The Unforgiven (Huston) (as Mattilda Zachary)

1963

The Great Chase (Killiam—doc)

1966

Follow Me, Boys! (Tokar) (as Hetty Seiber)

1967

Warning Shot (Kulik) (as Alice Willows); The Comedians (Glenville) (as Mrs. Smith); The Comedians in Africa (short) (appearance)

1970

Henri Langlois (Hershon and Guerra) (as guest)

1976

Twin Detectives (Day—for TV)

1978

A Wedding (Altman) (as Nettie Sloan)

1981

Thin Ice (Aaron—for TV)

1983

Hobson's Choice (Cates—for TV)

1984

Hambone and Hillie (Watts) (as Hillie)

1986

Sweet Liberty (Alda) (as Cecelia Burgess); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Hunt)

1987

The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson) (as Sarah Webber)

Film as Director:

1920

Remodeling Her Husband (+ co-sc with Dorothy Gish as "Dorothy Elizabeth Carter")

Publications

By GISH: books—

Life and Lillian Gish, with Albert Bigelow, New York, 1932.
The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, with Ann Pinchot, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1969.
Dorothy and Lillian Gish, New York, 1973.
An Actor's Life for Me, as told to Selma Lane, New York, 1987.

By GISH: articles—

"The Gish Girls Talk about Each Other," by Ada Patterson in Photoplay (New York), June 1921.
"Dorothy Gish, the Frankest Girl I Know," in Filmplay Journal, April 1922.
"We Interview the Two Orphans," by Gladys Hall and Adele Whitely Fletcher, in Motion Picture Magazine (New York), May 1922.
"My Sister and I," in Theatre Magazine (New York), November 1927.
"Birth of an Era," in Stage, January 1937.
"D. W. Griffith: A Great American," in Harper's Bazaar (New York), October 1940.
"Silence Was Our Virtue," in Films and Filming (London), December 1957.
"Conversation with Lillian Gish," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1957–58.
"Life and Living," interview in Films and Filming (London), January 1970.
"Lillian Gish . . . Director," in Silent Picture (London), Spring 1970.
Interview with Y. Lardeau and V. Ostria, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), November 1983.
Interview with Allan Hunter, in Films and Filming (London), August 1987.

On GISH: books—

Wagenknecht, Edward, Lillian Gish: An Interpretation, Seattle, 1927.
Lillian Gish: Actress, compiled by Anthony Slide, London, 1969.
Pratt, George C., Spellbound in Darkness, Connecticut, 1973.
Rosen, Marjorie, Popcorn Venus, New York, 1973.
Slide, Anthony, The Griffith Actresses, New York, 1973.
Affron, Charles, Star Acting: Gish, Garbo, Davis, New York, 1977.
Lillian Gish, edited by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1980.
Wagenknecht, Edward, Stars of the Silents, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1987.

On GISH: articles—

Hall, Gladys, "Lights! Say Lillian!," in Motion Picture Magazine (New York), April/May 1920.
Brooks, Louise, "Women in Films," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1957–58.
Brooks, Louise, "Gish and Garbo: The Executive War on Stars," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1958–59.
Tozzi, Romano, "Lillian Gish," in Films in Review (New York), December 1962, see also issue for April 1964.
Bodeen, DeWitt, "Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me," in Silent Picture (London), Autumn 1969.
Morley, Sheridan, "Lillian Gish: Life and Living," in Films and Filming (London), January 1970.
Current Biography 1978, New York, 1978.
Curran, T., "Lillian Gish: Tribute to a Great Lady," in Films in Review (New York), October 1980.
Kael, Pauline, "Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh," in The Movie Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.
Naremore, J., "True Heart Susie and the Art of Lillian Gish," in Quarterly Review of Film Studies (Pleasantville, New York), Winter 1981.
"Dossier: Lillian Gish," in Cinématographe (Paris), October 1983.
Brownlow, Kevin, "Glimpses of a Legend," in Sight and Sound (London), Spring 1984.
Brownlow, Kevin, "Lillian Gish," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), March 1984.
Slide, Anthony, "Filming Lillian Gish," in American Cinematographer (Los Angeles), June 1984.
Obituary in New York Times, 1 March 1993.
Obituary in Variety (New York), 8 March 1993.
DeCroix, Rick & Limbacher, James L., "In Memory of Lillian Gish (1893–1993)," in Journal of Popular Film and Television (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1994.
Oderman, Stuart, "Lillian Gish: A Friend Remembered," in Journal of Popular Film and Television (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1994.
Wolfe, R., "The Gish Film Theater and Gallery: the Ohio Roots of Dorothy and Lillian Gish," in Journal of Popular Film and Television (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1994.
Sweeney, Kevin W., "Redirecting Melodrama: Gish, Henry King, and Romola," in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury), April 1995.
Oderman, Stuart, "The Sound of Silents," in Films in Review (New York), March-April 1996.
* * *
"I was always having bright ideas and suffering for them," Lillian Gish wrote in her memoirs, describing her incredible performance on the ice floes in Way Down East (1920). Perhaps the actress who logged more hours of suffering on-screen than any other, Gish brought both dignity and complexity to the genre of silent melodrama. From the very beginning of her 85-year career, Gish dedicated her all to the art of acting, and, as is little-known about her, to writing, editing, and even directing. (Her one directing effort, Remodeling Her Husband [1920] is, unfortunately, lost.) The great director, D. W. Griffith, treated Gish as something close to a collaborator in many of their works together; she responded with a loyalty that bordered on devotion. Who else but Gish would write memoirs that are primarily about Griffith rather than herself?

Early in her career Gish demonstrated the restraint and subtlety that adds such depth to her performances. Even before her famous role in Birth of a Nation (1915), Gish had developed many of her characteristic poses: in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) she cradles her cheek with her hand, a gesture that she later adapts by moving her pinky finger over to her mouth and chewing on her fingernail. Other early poses include the indignant thrust of an elbow as her fist goes to her hip, a head thrown down onto her arms in despair, and the prim pressing of her hands and pursing of her lips as she rebuffs an overzealous lover. Gish, under Griffith's encouragement, often improvised these "details" that came to define her ingenuous style. In Broken Blossoms (1919) she created the famous gesture of lifting the corners of her mouth with two fingers when her abusive father berates her for not smiling enough. She also suggested trailing her hair and her hand in the freezing water as she lay collapsed on the ice in Way Down East.

Gish studied literature and philosophy, fencing and dancing to prepare her mind and her body for acting. She practiced with the Denishawn Company of Los Angeles, which produced Martha Graham among other famous modern dancers. Similar to Bogart's expressive face, however, Gish's eyes and mouth were her primary instruments of communication. Upon hearing that her lover has been killed, in The White Sister (1923), she delivers the gaze that is found in so many of her films: wide-eyed, vulnerable, distant, and tragic. (The intertitle describes her as being in "a trance-like state of dry-eyed despair.") Some of Gish's most powerful moments on film occur when her stoic suffering gives way to an expressive panic. In the climatic scene of Broken Blossoms, she flings her body around a tiny room and expresses on her face all of the fear and terror of someone who is about to be beaten brutally. In a similar scene from The Wind (1928), Gish is shown clawing at a window pane, eyes wide in horror as she watches the wind uncover the dead body of her rapist.

Too often Gish's acting abilities have been undervalued because they are associated with the stereotype of the "simplistic" moral universe of melodramas. Rarely does Gish express any singular emotion; happiness is tinged with wistfulness, envy with irony, grief with hope. If there is any continuity in her roles it would have to be that her characters are always thoughtful. Gish allows the viewer to watch as her characters progress from one emotion to another, so one can follow as her True Heart Susie first feels disbelief, then horror, then irony touched by hysterical laughter and, finally, a weary acceptance when she discovers her lover plans to wed another; or, again, in Way Down East, when Anna baptizes her dying child, the grief, desperation, and loneliness of her character are all discreetly visible in her facial expression and bodily action. Gish's characters are never entirely predictable. Unlike the tableau poses of earlier melodramatic acting, Gish's emotional moments flow together realistically and logically while still retaining an element of surprise.

While Gish's reputation has been established primarily on the basis of her extensive silent film career, she found equal fame on the stage and in sound film and television. After studying voice lessons, her speaking characters appear as natural and as unpretentious as her silent performances. She eased quite gracefully into "older" roles, such as the tough-as-nails, shotgun-toting mother of orphans in The Night of the Hunter (1955), or the self-sacrificing sister to a bitter Bette Davis in The Whales of August (1987). These final film performances demonstrate Gish's talent for refining and adapting her craft, even as film technology and trends in film acting styles changed radically during her prodigious career.