Lillian took suffering for her art to the extreme in a film career which became her obsession. Gish continued to perform on the stage, and in 1913, during a run of A Good Little Devil, she collapsed from anemia. At the time established thespians considered "the flickers" a rather base form of entertainment, but she was assured of its merits. Photoplay magazine cover by Rolf Armstrong (1921)Īfter 10 years of acting on the stage, she made her film debut opposite Dorothy in Griffith's short film An Unseen Enemy (1912). Lillian Gish soon became one of America's best-loved actresses she was 19 years old at the time, but told casting directors she was 16. In 1912, their friend Mary Pickford introduced the sisters to Griffith and helped get them contracts with Biograph Studios. They also took modeling jobs, with Lillian posing for artist Victor Maurel in exchange for voice lessons. When Lillian and Dorothy were old enough they joined the theatre, often traveling separately in different productions. Griffith, and later took the stage name Mary Pickford. Gladys was a child actress who did some work for director D. When the theater next to the candy store burned down, the family moved to New York, where the girls became good friends with a next-door neighbor, Gladys Smith. Her father died in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1912, but she had returned to Ohio a few months before this. She stayed with her aunt and uncle, and attended Shawnee High School there. Her father, who by then was institutionalized in the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane in Norman, was able to travel the 35 miles to Shawnee and the two got reacquainted. The seventeen-year-old Lillian traveled to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where James's brother Alfred Grant Gish and his wife, Maude, lived. In 1910, the girls were living with their aunt Emily in Massillon, Ohio, when they were notified that their father, James, was gravely ill in Oklahoma. Henry's School, where they acted in school plays.
Their mother opened the Majestic Candy Kitchen, and the girls helped sell popcorn and candy to patrons of the old Majestic Theater, located next door. Louis, Illinois, where they lived for several years with Lillian's aunt and uncle, Henry and Rose McConnell. Gish's father was an alcoholic and left the family her mother took up acting to support them. The first several generations of Gishes were Dunkard ministers. Her mother was a Scottish Episcopalian and her father was of German Lutheran descent. Lillian had a younger sister, Dorothy, who also became a popular movie star. Gish was born in Springfield, Ohio, the first child of actress Mary Robinson McConnell, and James Leigh Gish. She was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to American culture through performing arts in 1982.ĭorothy and Lillian Gish with actress Helen Ray, their leading lady in Her First False Step (1903) In 1971, she was awarded an Academy Honorary Award for her career achievements. Despite being better known for her film work, she was also accomplished on stage, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972. During her later years, Gish became a dedicated advocate for the appreciation and preservation of silent film. She also did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film The Whales of August. Gish also had major supporting roles in Portrait of Jennie (1948), A Wedding (1978) and Sweet Liberty (1986). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the former. Her other major films and performances from the silent era are: Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), La Bohème (1926), and The Wind (1928).Īt the dawn of the sound era, she returned to the stage and appeared in film infrequently, including well-known leading roles in the western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955). This included her leading role in the highest-grossing film of the silent era, Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). Gish was a prominent film star from 1912 into the 1920s, being particularly associated with the films of director D. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gish as the 17th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Gish was called " The First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques. Her film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress, director and screenwriter.