Early career Encouraged by her mother, Lillian Gish began performing when she was five years old. Along with her sister Dorothy, who was three at that time, they became part of a traveling troupe. She made her stage debut in 1902, at the Little Red School House in
Risingsun, Ohio. During 1903 to 1904, she toured in
Her First False Step, with her mother and Dorothy. In the following year, she danced with a
Sarah Bernhardt production in New York City. She later told reporters she had never learned how to play; work was her life, at first due to the poverty she endured as a child, and later because work was what she knew best.
Film stardom at Biograph Studios (1912–1925) After 10 years of acting on the stage, she made her film debut opposite Dorothy in Griffith's short film
An Unseen Enemy (1912). At the time, established thespians considered "the flickers" a rather base form of entertainment, but she was assured of its merits. Gish continued to perform on the stage, and in 1913, during a run of
A Good Little Devil, she collapsed from anemia. Lillian took suffering for her art to the extreme in her film career. One of the enduring images of Gish's silent film years is the climax of the melodramatic
Way Down East, in which Gish's character floats unconscious on an ice floe toward a raging waterfall, her long hair and hand trailing in the water. Her performance in these frigid conditions gave her lasting nerve damage in several fingers. The film is now thought to be
lost.
Work with MGM (1925–1928) Gish reluctantly ended her work with Griffith in 1925 to take an offer from the recently formed
MGM, which gave her more creative control. MGM offered her a contract in 1926 for six films, for which she was offered $1 million (equivalent to $ million in ). She turned down the money, requesting a more modest wage and a percentage, so the studio could use the funds to increase the quality of her films—hiring the best actors, screenwriters, etc. By the late silent era,
Greta Garbo had surpassed her as MGM's leading lady, and Gish's contract with MGM ended in 1928. Three films with MGM gave her near-total creative control:
La Bohème,
The Scarlet Letter (both 1926), and
The Wind (1928).
The Wind, directed by
Victor Sjöström, was Gish's favorite film of her MGM career. A commercial failure with the rise of talkies, it is now recognized as a classic of the silent period. Gish biographer
Edward Wagenknecht wrote:
Sound debut, return to the stage, and television and radio 's Broadway production of
Uncle Vanya, 1930 Her debut in
talkies was only moderately successful, largely due to the public's changing attitudes. Many of the silent era's leading ladies, such as Gish and Pickford, had been wholesome and innocent, but by the early 1930s (after the full adoption of sound and before the
Motion Picture Production Code was enforced), these roles were perceived as outdated. The
ingénues diametric opposite, the
vamp, was at the height of its popularity and Gish was increasingly seen as a "silly, sexless antique" (to quote fellow actress
Louise Brooks's sarcastic summary of those who criticized Gish). Gish herself did not want to act on screen and returned to her first love, the theater. She acted on the stage for the most part in the 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in roles as varied as
Ophelia in Guthrie McClintic's landmark 1936 production of
Hamlet (with
John Gielgud and
Judith Anderson) and Marguerite in a limited run of
La Dame aux Camélias. Of the former, she said, with pride, "I played a
lewd Ophelia!" Returning to movies, Gish was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1946 for
Duel in the Sun. The scenes of her character's illness and death late in that film seemed intended to evoke the memory of some of her silent-film performances. She appeared in films from time to time for the rest of her life, notably in
The Night of the Hunter (1955) as a rural guardian angel protecting her charges from a murderous preacher played by
Robert Mitchum. She was considered for various roles in
Gone with the Wind ranging from Ellen O'Hara,
Scarlett's mother (which went to
Barbara O'Neil), to prostitute Belle Watling (which went to
Ona Munson). Gish starred in an episode of the popular
CBS Radio series
Suspense. The episode "Marry for Murder" was broadcast on September 9, 1943. In 1944, Gish starred in an episode of
I Was There, broadcast on CBS. The episode dramatized the making of the film
The Birth of a Nation. On May 31, 1951, she starred in an adaptation of
Black Chiffon on
Playhouse on Broadway. Gish's television debut occurred on February 6, 1949, when she portrayed Abby, a
housemaid, in "The Late Christopher Bean", an episode of
The Philco Television Playhouse on NBC. A review in the trade publication
Variety described her work as "an excellent portrayal". She made numerous television appearances from the early 1950s into the late 1980s. Her most acclaimed television work was starring in the original production of
The Trip to Bountiful in 1953. She appeared as
Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in the short-lived 1965 Broadway musical
Anya.
Later years In addition to her later acting appearances, Gish became one of the leading advocates of the lost art of the silent film, often giving speeches and touring to screenings of classic works. In 1975, she hosted
The Silent Years, a
PBS film program of silent films. She was interviewed in the television documentary series
Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980). Gish received a
Special Academy Award in 1971 "for superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures". In 1979, she was awarded the
Women in film Crystal Award in Los Angeles. In 1984, she received an
American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, becoming only the second female recipient (preceded by
Bette Davis in 1977) and the only recipient who was a major figure in the silent era. She has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1720 Vine Street. Her last film role was appearing in
The Whales of August in 1987 at the age of 94, with
Vincent Price, Bette Davis, and
Ann Sothern, in which Gish and Davis starred as elderly sisters in
Maine. Gish's performance was received glowingly, winning her the
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress. At the Cannes festival, Gish won a 10-minute standing ovation from the audience. Some in the entertainment industry were angry that Gish did not receive an Oscar nomination for her role in
The Whales of August. Gish was more complacent, only remarking, "Well, now I won't have to go and lose to
Cher". Her final professional appearance was a cameo on the 1988 studio recording of
Jerome Kern's
Show Boat, starring
Frederica von Stade and
Jerry Hadley, in which she affectingly spoke the few lines of
The Old Lady on the Levee in the final scene. The last words of her long career were: "Good night". ==Honors==