Lillian Gish (born October 14, 1893, 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.”She is regarded as one of silent cinema’s finest actresses.

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. 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.

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.”

An outspoken champion of quality motion pictures and women in the industry, Gish had been one of the last remaining voices from the dawn of the American film industry

She was the first great dramatic actress of the silver screen, a last legendary survivor of the pioneering generation of American movie artists. Miss Gish, earnest and photogenically soulful, demonstrated a genius for dramatic portrayal, especially in roles that challenged the upper registers of pathos. She embodied an exquisite yet profoundly stirring vision of feminine innocence, devotion, spirituality and often victimization.

Miss Gish showed the same dedication to her craft to the end of her life, working, traveling, fighting studios, battling for film preservation and scorning “talkies” in general and modern movies in particular.

The introduction to Griffith was the start of a close friendship and professional partnership.. Together, Griffith and Miss Gish made 40 films, including the groundbreaking “The Birth of a Nation,” which President Woodrow Wilson said was “like writing history with lightning.”

She spent much of the rest of her career in the theater, playing Elena in “Uncle Vanya” and Ophelia to John Gielgud’s “Hamlet.” She also starred in “Camille,” “Life With Father” and “The Chalk Garden.” She drew the admiration of such fellow stars as Greta Garbo and John Barrymore, and of the notoriously cranky critic George Jean Nathan, who also spent years begging her to marry him.

On television, she portrayed Grandma Moses and appeared in “The Day Lincoln Was Shot,” “The Sound and the Fury” and with her friend Helen Hayes in “Arsenic and Old Lace.” She also starred in the original television production of “The Trip to Bountiful.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized her work in 1970, presenting her with an honorary Oscar, and the American Film Institute presented her with its lifetime achievement award in 1984. In 1982, she received the Kennedy Center Honor.

Miss Gish never married. “I loved a lot of dear men, but luckily I never ruined their lives by marrying them,” she said. “What kind of a marriage would it have been to a wife who worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week?”

SOURCE: Washington Post; Variety; New York Times