Lillian Gish in Time/Life's The Roaring '20s

                                                     Time/Life's The Roaring '20s (Clara Bow, upper left, and Babe Ruth,                                                       upper right.)

                                                                   Lillian Gish

Lillian Gish

Gish’s deal with MGM was so lucrative that she asked for a cut to pay supporting actors more

Widely considered the finest actress of the silent era, Lillian Gish did more than any other performer to define the techniques that worked on film. Her trademark wistful gestures and contemplative looks offered viewers a portal into her characters’ souls. Fragile and vulnerable, Gish presented the perfect persona for the delicate damsels in distress she often played.

Like so many of the stars of the 1920s, Gish entered show business as a child. When she was 19, her lifelong friend and New York City neighbor Mary Pickford introduced her to director D. W. Griffith. Soon she was appearing in various Griffith productions, including feature-length films like the controversial Birth of a Nation in 1915.  

Gish left Griffith in 1925 for a deal with MGM that was so lucrative that she negotiated her contract down so her supporting actors and crew could get paid more. Gish shifted her focus to the theater in the 1930s and ‘40s, then returned to movies and the new medium of television in the 1950s. Her final film was the 1987 drama Whales of August, about two elderly and incompatible sisters played by Gish and another screen legend, Bette Davis.

Text from Time/Life's special on The Roaring '20s

Released January 2017.

Jim Patterson note: Lillian Gish’s last film with D. W. Griffith was Orphans of the Storm in 1922. She went abroad to film White Sister 1923 and Romola 1924 and Griffith had no role in either film. Her MGM career began in 1925.

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2016 Highlights in The Year of Lillian Gish

                   "It's Not Only Long - It's Read!" Lillian brushing her hair. She never cut it. circa late                              1940s.

2016 – Highlights of The Year in Gish

December 30, 1925 The 90th anniversary of “Ben-Hur” with Ramon Navarro. The film was released December 30 1925 and many fans did not see it until 1926. Lillian is among the many MGM stars who saw and thus appeared in the crowd during the chariot scene.

February 46th anniversary of Lillian Gish's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (For film work).

March 2016 100th birthday of playwright Albert Horton Foote, Jr. (March 14, 1916 – March 4, 2009) perhaps best known for his screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television, including The Trip to Bountiful starring Lillian Gish as Carrie Watts. (Lillian Gish also played this role in the first Broadway production of "The Trip to Bountiful.") He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta and two Academy Awards, one for an original screenplay, Tender Mercies, and one for adapted screenplay, To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1995, In describing his three-play work, The Orphans' Home Cycle, the drama critic for the Wall Street Journal said: "Foote, who died last March, left behind a masterpiece, one that will rank high among the signal achievements of American theater in the 20th century." In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

May 8, 1947 The 70^th anniversary of premiere of “Duel in the Sun” Lillian received an Academy Award nomination for Supporting Actress

August 9, 1926 The 90^th anniversary of “The Scarlett Letter” starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hansen

September 5 100^th anniversary of “Intolerance,” premiered September 5, 1916. Two of the most famous images in silent cinema are from “Intolerance.” (1) The Babylon Gate and (2) Lillian Gish rocking the cradle of time.

October 14 Lillian Gish’s birthday!

December 1, 1966 the 50^th anniversary of “Follow Me Boys” a Walt Disney production with Lillian in a supporting role.

The fourth Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize recipient Bob Dylan (1997) awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He did not attend the awards ceremony.  

November 2016 The 23^rd Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize to Elizabeth LeCompte. Ceremony at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Manhattan.  

October 2016 25th anniversary of Lillian Gish's induction into the Theater Hall of Fame in New York!

August/October 1986 30^th anniversary of filming “The Whales of August” on Cliff Island, Maine. 

The film premiere was August 19, 1987. This was Lillian’s last film.

December 2016 “Whales of August” playwright David Barry dies.

December 2016 Death of Fritz Weaver, 90, Lillian’s Broadway costar in Eugene O‘Neill’s “The Family Reunion.” (1958)

November 2016 Death of Tammy Grimes, 82, Lillian’s Broadway costar in “A Musical Jubilee” (November 13, 1975-February 1, 1976)

December 16, 2016 Library of Congress, National Film Registry, selects “The Musketeers of Pig Alley,” cinema’s first gangster film, starring Robert Harron and Lillian Gish and directed by D. W. Griffith in 1912. The film premiered October 31, 1912

2017 Events:

30^th anniversary of Lillian’s book “An Actor’s Life for Me!”

30^th anniversary of “The Whales of August” released August 1987.

October 14 Lillian’s birthday!

30^th anniversary of The D. W. Griffith Prize to Lillian Gish.

24^th Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize 

Critical Response to D. W. Griffith's 1912 "Musketeers of Pig Alley" a 2016 selection of the National Film Registry

Crticial response (1912-1915) to D. W. Griffith's "Musketeers of Pig Alley" placed on the National Film Registry, 2016

A fan card designed for Lillian Gish circa late 1960s or eaerly 1970s. 

In The Chicago Daily Tribune of October 28, 1915, Flickerings from Filmland columnist Kitty Kelley, wrote,” Couldn't Get By. The following cutouts were ordered to films inspected by the municipal censor board at the city hall yesterday:  THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY (Biograph).   Thugs assaulting man and subsequent scene of robbery; doping wine.”

Apparently, Griffith’s film, one of eleven films in that edition of the newspaper to have censored scenes, was too realistic for Chicago audiences. So said city hall film censors. The “doping wine” is a scene where a gangster places a power in Miss Gish’s drink. Spoiler alert: She is saved from drinking it. These censored scenes survive in the copy of the film preserved by the Library of Congress on the National Film Registry.

In the Amusements column of The Rome (New York) Daily Sentinel of December 21, 1912 had the following summary of “Musketeers of Pig Alley”:

“At the Casino (Theater) tonight the program is very well selected having a variety that cannot   help   but strike the pleasing point with all.  The Biograph picture, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, is an underworld story which will remind   many who see it of some recent happenings in New York City. There are gangs and gang feuds.    The whole production is handled with much care, and is a strong release. Much is printed from   time to time in the newspapers of the workings of gangsters, but the public gains but a vague   idea of the actual facts. Much has been done and is  still   being   done,  to  wipe  out  this   evil      which has  long   been   a   menace  to  the  respectable  citizen  and  this   picture   shows   the   situation   as   it  is,  and  the  extreme   necessity  for  radical   action  on  the  part  of  the authorities. While the theme of the story is  decidedly interesting  and exciting,  it  also   serves  as  a  consistent  vehicle  to  present  the  facts.”

Note: “Musketeers of Pug Alley” put images of gangster life before 1912 audiences thus making “this evil” more gripping and startling to viewers. It helped in policing and in public awareness and participation with law enforcement. It also allowed audiences to see the important role law enforcement officers have and the dangers they face. The film shows gunfights and brawls between police and gangsters.  

An advertisement for “Musketeers of Pig Alley” in the same paper for December 21, 1912, read: “’MUSKETEERS    OF   PIG ALLEY" A depiction of gangster evil. This Biograph picture is especially good even for them. It’s very exciting and a typical New York story. Note: As Miss Gish said whenever I congratulated her on having one of her films placed on the National Film Registry: “It [the film] has stood the test of time.”

Admission to “Musketeers of Pig Alley,” on a double bill with “The Supreme Test,” described as an Essanay film, was 5 cents.

In 1970 Miss Gish appeared in Schenectady, New York, with her one-woman program, “Lillian Gish and the Movies,” at the Proctor Theater sponsored by the American Theater League. The ATL used a mixed photograph of Lillian that featured a scene from “The Musketeers of Pig Alley.”

Comments?

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Jim Patterson, Editor

LDGish.blogspot.com

Passages of Lillian Gish costar Fritz Weaver and "Whales of August" screenwriter David Berry

Broadway veteran Fritz Weaver, 90, died November 25 at his Manhattan home. In 1958 Weaver worked with Lillian Gish in the Broadway production of T.S. Eliot's "The Family Reunion" at The Phoenix Theater. The play ran for 32 performances, October 20 to November 16, 1958. Lead actor in the pay was Conrad Bain and Lillian Gish played the role of Agatha. Weaver won a Tony Award in 1970 for the Robert Marasco Roman Catholic boys school drama, "Child's Play."  He had a long career in film, TV, and theater.




Playwright David Berry, who wrote the play and screenplay "The Whales of August" died December 16 at his Brooklyn home. He was 73 and had a heart attack.

Berry wrote the screenplay for the 1987 movie version of "The Whales of August," directed by British director Lindsay Anderson and starring Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, Ann Southern, Vincent Price, Harry Carey, Jr., Mary Steenbergen, Tisha Sterling (Southern's daughter) and Diane Ladd. This was Lillian's last film.

"The Whales of August" was filmed on location at Cliff Island, Maine, in the Casco Bay in the late summer and fall of 1986. Lillian celebrated her October 14th birthday on the island. The cast lived in trailers on the island during the production because the ferry ride from Portland was long, the ocean could be rough and the fog very thick. It was a great screenplay and a great film. Ann Southern was nominated for an Academy Award for her robust and appealing supporting role as Tisha.




Lillian Gish and Vincent Price in "The Whales of August" 1987. The film was about two elderly sisters coming to terms with their relationship, families, and their remaining time together in Lillian's Maine vacation cabin as winter approaches. Vincent Price plays Lillian's romantic interest. The play/film is set in the 1950s. It is a lovely film about how relationships change and grow over time. It is told from the perspective of the elder stars and is not explained to the audience by younger cast members.

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Jim Patterson, Editor
Writer/Speaker/Blogger
Celebrating the Life and Legend of Lillian Gish
December 27, 2016

Lillian Gish Film "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" on The National Film Registry 2016

                                              Lillian in print advert for Blackgama circa 1980s.

December 14, 2016 D.W. Griffith’s 1912 “Musketeers of Pig Alley,” the first gangster film, starring Lillian Gish and Robert Harron, was named to the National Film Registry, bringing the number of total films recognized to 700. This is Lillian’s sixth film, and her first short film, on the National Film Registry. See below.

Lillian played the role of The Little Lady. Her costars included sister Dorothy Gish, Elmer Booth, Robert Harron and two actors, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey, Sr, who had larger roles in other Gish films, 1947’s “Duel in the Sun,” and Harry Carey, Sr., in Griffith’s 1912 “An Unseen Enemy,” which was the film debut of The Gish Sisters. (Harry Carey, Jr., starred in Lillian’s last film “the Whales of August” in 1987.) The film also starred Jack Pickford, brother of actress Mary Pickford.  Future Academy Award-winner Donald Crisp also has a gangster role. The 17-minute film, released in October 1912 when Lillian was 19 based on an 1893 birthday, was shot at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and New York City.

Under the National Film Preservation Act, movies are only eligible to be preserved under the registry if they are at least a decade old and recognized in the National Film Preservation Board’s view as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The Librarian of Congress has the final decision and the public can also nominate films for registry consideration.

Other Lillian Gish films on The National Film Registry:  The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), The Wind (1928), and The Night of the Hunter (1955).

Personal note: When the National Film Registry selected Lillian’s films, I sent her a note or letter of congratulations. She always responded. Based on her letters, she was most proud “The Wind” was recognized for the film registry.  

Jim Patterson, Writer/Speaker 

Jim Patterson at the 2016 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Arts Prize Ceremony at the Whitney Museum of American Arts

Jim Patterson at the 2016 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Ceremony at the Whitney Museum of American Art. November 3, 2016. I am holding an image from Ursuline Academy, the Convent School Lillian attended at the start of the 20th century. Oak Leaves, the student publication from 1935 has sweet student remembrances of Lillian. (Photos courtesy of Whitney.)

The presentation screen for the 2016, 23rd, Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize this years at the Whitney Museum of American Art.Director Elizabeth LeCompte, The Wooster Group, was the 2016 prize recipient.

At the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize background screen raising a glass of red wine to Lillian. I rather like the Gish Glow above my head so I kept the image. Lillian credited red wine with keeping away anemia. She drank for health. In Lillian's last film "The Whales of August" she has a glass of red wine to her late husband on their anniversary and worries what to do with Libby (Bette Davis).

Program notes: past Gish price recipient Peter Sellers spoke fondly of Lillian and her silent films. He noted her work inspires of across time. A. A. M. Homes, author of The End of Alice and other works, a member of the Gish Prize selection committee this year, thanked Lillian for her artistry and the award which was from an artist to future artists.

In the audience I sat next to Carrie Mae Weems another member of the Selection Committee for 2016.


November 3 Historical Notes on Lillian Gish:

On November 3 1960, the Meredith Willson musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" opened on Broadway with Tammy Grimes in the title role (532 performances).  Grimes won a Tony Award for her role and in 1970 in Noel Coward’s Private Lives (198 Performances). Starred with Lillian Gish in A Musical Jubilee on Broadway in 1975 (92 performances) Jim Patterson Note: Tammy Grimes died October 31, 2016

On November 3 1990 Mary Martin, actress (Peter Pan), dies of cancer at 76. See Mary Martin interview Lillian at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ZUTU9fwpA
Lillian wanted the role of Peter Pan in the 1924 silent film. Role went to Betty Bronson.

Nov 3 was her 86^th birthday of actress Lois Smith who was Carrie Watts in the 2005 Peter Norton revival of "The Trip to Bountiful" at Peter Norton Space Off-Broadway in New York. Lillian was the original Mrs. Carrie Watts in the 1955 film and stage production of the Horton Foote play for 39 performances. After Broadway, Lillian toured in the production.

Lillian Gish Wished to Play Desdemona Opposite Paul Robeson

                                                                Lillian circa mid-1940s

On November 1 1604, William Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello" was presented at Whitehall Palace in London.

Lillian loved all the classics, especially Shakespeare, and in 1930, when she left Hollywood for the stage, she wanted to play Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson.

Albany Times Union August 30 1930

"[Lillian Gish] said she had not been asked to play opposite Paul Robeson, [N]egro star, in an American production of Shakespeare's "Othello," but 'if Robeson is, as one hears, the greatest actor of Othello in the world, I should be glad to play opposite him (as Desdemona)'". Assuming 1898 birth, Lillian would have been 32 at the time. 

Ward Morehouse in The New York Sun November 7, 1930

“Lillian Gish writes from Chicago that she won't appear as Desdemona this season because Jed Harris has abandoned his plan to do ‘Othello.’"

Historical Note:

Paul Robeson played Othello at The Schubert Theater for nearly 300 performances in 1943 with German Uta Hagen, then 24, as Desdemona.  He was the first African American lead with an all-white supporting cast on Broadway. Miss Gish would have been 45 then assuming an 1898 birth. Lillian was doing older roles by then. Robeson played Othello in London in 1930 with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, then 23, as Desdemona.