Lillian Gish (American, 1893–1993)
Gish was an actor whose career spanned 75 years after starting in 1912. For pioneering forms of film acting, she was dubbed the “First Lady of American Cinema.” In 1915, she starred in the highest-grossing film of the silent age, the controversial The Birth of a Nation directed by D.W. Griffith. The White Sister, seen here and taken by her frequent collaborator James Abbe, was a 1923 silent melodrama about love, loss, religion, inheritance, and good and evil stepsisters that was filmed on location in Italy. Gish returned to stage after the silent era, but did act in some films in the 1940s and 50s, including Duel in the Sun and The Night of the Hunter.
Gish’s mother was an actress, as was her sister Dorothy. After moving to New York from the Midwest, their next-door neighbor happened to be burgeoning star Mary Pickford who introduced them to D.W. Griffith; he put the sisters in his next film The Unseen Enemy. Gish became known for her extreme dedication to her roles, sometimes to her detriment. When she signed a contract with MGM, she gave herself less money for the studio to increase the quality of her films. Appearing on television and radio for decades, her last film was 1987’s The Whales of August with Vincent Price and Bette Davis as her sister that lived with her in Maine.
