Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish

Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. She was called "The First Lady of American Cinema".

She was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D. W. Griffith, including her leading role in Griffith's seminal Birth of a Nation (1915). Her sound-era film appearances were sporadic, but included memorable roles in the controversial western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the offbeat thriller Night of the Hunter (1955). She did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing, for the first time, opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film The Whales of August.

The American Film Institute (AFI) named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time. She was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1971, and in 1984 she received an AFI Life Achievement Award.

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Famous quotes containing the words lillian gish, lillian and/or gish:

    “The stage was our school, our home, our life.”
    —Lillian Gish (1893–1993)

    “For me, it’s enough! They’ve been here long enough—maybe too long. It’s a funny thing, though. All these years Fred was too busy to have much time for the kids, now he’s the one who’s depressed because they’re leaving. He’s really having trouble letting go. He wants to gather them around and keep them right here in this house.”
    —Anonymous Parent. As quoted in Women of a Certain Age, by Lillian B. Rubin, ch. 2 (1979)

    “Again and again, I struggled though the storm. Once I fainted—and it wasn’t in the script. I was hauled to the studio on a sled, thawed out with hot tea, and then brought back to the blizzard, where the others were waiting. We filmed all day and all night, stopping only to eat standing near a bonfire. We never went inside.... The blizzard never slackened.”
    —Lillian Gish (1896–1993)