Lillian Gish

• Born: October 14, 1893
• Birthplace: Springfield, Ohio
• Died: February 27, 1993
• Place of death: New York, New York

American actor

A legendary and versatile performer for an astonishing nine decades, Gish was hailed as the First Lady of the Silent Screen, starred in some of Broadway’s most memorable productions, performed regularly on television, and was one of the first women to direct films.

Areas of achievement Film, theater and entertainment, television

Early Life

Lillian Diana Gish was always vague about her birth date, never mentioning it in her various autobiographical reminiscences. The years 1896 and 1899 frequently appear on biographical material, though the earlier date of 1893 is considered correct. Her father, James Leigh Gish, married Mary Robinson McConnell, then living in nearby Urbana. He was twenty, and his wife was eighteen. At the time of his marriage, James Gish was a wholesale grocery clerk. He quit to form his own confectionery business. He eventually moved the business to Dayton, Ohio, where Lillian’s sister Dorothy was born on March 11, 1898. The two sisters’ lives remained inextricably linked, privately and professionally, until Dorothy’s death in 1968.

James Gish, a drifter at heart, was not temperamentally suited for fatherhood or marriage. He also failed in his various business ventures in different cities until, finally, he abandoned his wife and two young daughters in New York City. Mary Gish was a strong-willed woman who always managed to find employment and to keep the family together. Lillian often recalled that as a young child she learned the lessons of security, peace and love, from her mother and insecurity from her father, which strengthened her character and taught her to be self-reliant.

One day, the actress Dolores Lorne advised Mary Gish to become an actress and seek employment on the stage. She did, taking the alias “Mae Bernard” so as not to disgrace her family name. Lillian’s earliest memories were of playing backstage in a theater and watching her mother act. In time, the young Lillian was asked to perform. She made her stage debut, billed as “Baby Lillian,” in the melodrama In Convict’s Stripes. The year was 1902 and the place was Rising Sun, Ohio. Sister Dorothy followed soon after in East Lynne. During the next ten years, Lillian, her mother, and her sister performed together as well as apart. Lillian appeared in many plays, and she did one stint as a dancer in a production starring Sarah Bernhardt.

Life’s Work

The major turning point in Gish’s professional career occurred in 1912. She was introduced to D. W. Griffith, the visionary cinema pioneer, and their chance meeting changed her whole life. Gish and her family had come to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (Biograph) to pay respects to their old friend Gladys Smith, who had become known as Mary Pickford. Pickford introduced the Gish sisters to Griffith. He was immediately taken by their purity and innocence, and he cast them in An Unseen Enemy. Despite Griffith’s enthusiasm for her work, Lillian Gish continued with her stage career while she made films on the side.

The first important screen milestone for Gish came in 1913, when she starred in The Mothering Heart. Griffith refused to cast her at first because the woman in the film was supposed to be about thirty, but the resolute actor persuaded the director. She convincingly portrayed a tragic wife whose baby died. It was the first of many heart-wrenching performances. Other important roles that year followed in a succession of pictures directed by Griffith, most notably the biblical story Judith of Bethulia and the Western The Battle at Elderbush Gulch. Gish’s quick rise to prominence was no small feat, since Griffith had many outstanding actors to choose from, including Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, and Miriam Cooper.

The year 1914 proved to be important for Gish, Griffith, and the American cinema. Griffith, angry at Biograph because of its highly limited vision of film’s future, quit suddenly and relocated to the Los Angeles area. More important to the studio, he took most of the talented players with him. Griffith wanted to make an American epic, and he did so in the fall of 1914. The Clansmen opened in California in January, 1915, with Gish cast as the Yankee heroine, Elsie Stoneman. Within two months, the title was changed to The Birth of a Nation for its New York premiere on March 3. Cinema, the “little toy,” had come of age with this epoch-making motion picture. Thereafter, film had to be considered as a new art form.

The following year, Gish appeared in another Griffith masterpiece, Intolerance (1916). Her role, much smaller here, was the unifying symbol of the woman who rocks the cradle, lending cohesion to the four separate stories. She next starred in a series of pictures for Griffith, including Hearts of the World with Dorothy Gish, The Great Love (both 1918), A Romance of Happy Valley, The Greatest Thing in Life, and True Heart Susie (all three 1919). Gish’s maturity and authority continued to increase, and her next film, the highly poetic Broken Blossoms (1919), witnessed her emergence as the quintessential waif-angel of the screen. With this work, she also came into her own as an acknowledged artistic collaborator with Griffith. The Mothering Heart had required Gish to age; now, the twenty-five-year-old actress had to play a young adolescent. She did so brilliantly. Gish brought fresh insights to the character during rehearsals and filming, continually delighting and inspiring Griffith. Her realistic portrayal of an innocent girl brutally battered by a sadistic father continues to shock audiences.

Gish’s best screen work was still ahead of her. Griffith cast her as the plucky, jilted heroine in Way Down East (1920). Her next major film, Orphans of the Storm (1922), directed by Griffith, also starred Dorothy Gish. They played unrelated “sisters” brought up in the same household during the French Revolution. Gish had persuaded Griffith to arrange it so that she and Dorothy could work together. It was their last joint screen appearance. Dorothy was a gifted comedian who preferred light material, whereas Lillian opted for dramatic fare.

Gish’s artistic relationship with Griffith was a complex one. In different films, she assumed various responsibilities, including scriptwriting, bookkeeping, and even directing. She parted company with Griffith following Orphans and starred in two films without him, The White Sister (1923) and Romola (1924). In 1925, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) as a reigning star with complete creative control. Gish gave memorable performances as the heroine in La Bohème (1926), The Scarlet Letter (1926), and The Wind (1928).

After the arrival of Swedish actor and “love goddess” Greta Garbo, MGM decided that Gish was too demure and sexless for their future film projects. They dropped her contract in 1928. She made several other motion pictures for other studios and then, in 1930, returned to the Broadway stage she had abandoned almost twenty years earlier. Over the next six decades, Gish returned to Hollywood occasionally to make films such as Duel in the Sun (1946), The Night of the Hunter (1966), The Comedians (1967), Sweet Liberty (1986), and The Whales of August (1987). Her first priority, however, was the theater, where she performed in countless productions.

Gish’s first stage comeback occurred in Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1930). She then appeared in the title role of Camille (1932), as Ophelia in John Gielgud’s acclaimed production of Hamlet (1936), and had a starring role in one of Broadway’s most beloved and longest-running comedies, Life with Father (1939). Many other notable plays and costarring roles with famous stars followed over the years. The actor also starred in a number of television shows and specials; served as host of the series The Silent Years (1975); and found time to write two autobiographical books, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me (1969), Dorothy and Lillian Gish (1973), and a book for young people, An Actor’s Life for Me (1987).

The last years of Gish’s life were laden with honors. She was awarded a special Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1970 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was given a lavish film tribute by the Museum of Modern Art in 1980. In 1982, she received the Kennedy Center Honor. The American Film Institute gave her a special honorary salute in 1984. She was appointed a trustee of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1966, and she received a Doctorate of Fine Arts from Rollins College and a Doctorate of Performing Arts from Bowling Green State University. The actress kept performing almost to the very end of her life. Gish died in New York City on February 27, 1993, just eight months short of her one hundredth birthday.

Significance

Gish achieved preeminence and recognition during her remarkable career. She became a legend in her own time. The actor began performing while still a child and continued working for nine decades. Her professional life contains the history of the film industry in the twentieth century. Gish has rightly been hailed as the First Lady of the Silent Screen. Pioneering director Griffith, who always referred to her as Miss Lillian, often said that she was the finest and most talented actress with whom he had worked.

Gish, more than any other actor, epitomized the ideal silent screen heroine. She had a fragile, ethereal beauty that was underscored by enormous sensitivity and talent. Equally impressive was the amount of research she undertook for each role. The physical demands she placed on herself, refusing to use stand-ins, always won for her the admiration of her coworkers, who also praised Gish for her cooperative spirit.

Gish’s dedication to her career was total. Her one abiding passion was to perform and entertain audiences, whether on stage, screen, or television. The actress never married, despite scores of marriage proposals. To all suitors her answer was the same: She was married to her profession.

Gish was a champion of women’s rights in Hollywood. She became one of America’s first female film directors as early as 1920 with Remodeling Her Husband, starring her sister Dorothy. Gish was one of the first actors to receive complete creative control over her films when she signed with MGM. She lived long enough to see women achieve major victories in all areas of the entertainment world. Gish will be remembered for her luminous presence and grace.

Bibliography

Affron, Charles. Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life. New York: Scribner, 2001. Affron turns up some new information on Gish’s life and career and shows how she carefully created her identity by keeping much of her life private.

Gish, Lillian. An Actor’s Life for Me. New York: Viking Kestrel, 1987. This reworking of the first part of Gish’s autobiography for young people focuses on the early years of her career. The short book also contains photographs and illustrations.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Dorothy and Lillian Gish. Edited by James E. Frasher. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. A nostalgic look at Lillian and Dorothy Gish through hundreds of photographs, playbills, posters, clippings, and letters. The book is well organized by decades, devoting equal space to each sister. The last section is the most interesting; it examines Lillian’s long career in pictures and closes with complete and separate filmographies and scenographies for the sisters.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me. 1969. Reprint. San Francisco, Calif.: Mercury House, 1988. Gish’s valuable and intimate look at her noteworthy career. The actress provides biographical information on her parents, her early upbringing, and the economic conditions that brought her to the stage, as well as her subsequent career. She concentrates attention on Griffith, providing valuable insight into his films and working methods.

Oderman, Stuart. Lillian Gish: A Life on Stage and Screen. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000. Oderman, a friend of Gish, chronicles her life and career, depicting Gish as a strong and complex woman.

Paine, Albert B. Life and Lillian Gish. New York: Macmillan, 1932. An early, valuable biography of Gish that concentrates on her early stage work, her historic meeting with Griffith, and the flowering of her silent screen career. It closes with her triumphant return to the Broadway theater.

Silver, Charles, ed. Lillian Gish. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980. A loving tribute to Gish by the editor and various artists and colleagues, including Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., François Truffaut, Moira Shearer, Colleen Moore, and Mary Astor. It also includes Edward Wagenknecht’s classic 1927 essay “Lillian Gish: An Interpretation.” The work accompanied a retrospective showing of Gish’s films at the museum.

Related Articles in Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century

1901-1940: March 3, 1915: Griffith Releases The Birth of a Nation.

1971-2000: 1980’s: Female Directors Attain Prominence.