Lillian Gish on "Mary's Little Theater"

Here are photo highlights from March 19 visit to the Mary Pickford Theater, Madison Building, Library of Congress. All photos courtesy Mary Pickford Theater staff.

 One of two signs indicating The Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, Madison Building, Library of Congress.

 Inside Mary Pickford Theater. Lillian called it "Mary's little theater." It seats 40 but chairs are often placed in the stairwell for more seating. The theater was open for a screening while I was there, but I had to run to catch train back to New York.

Writer and film historian James Patterson with Mary Pickford outside The Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd floor, Madison Building, Library of Congress. Washington, DC.

Lillian Gish, Anna Deavere Smith and an Honor for Selma Service by National Guardsman James G. Patterson

March 11, 2014

Dear LDGish.blogspot.com Readers,

On the evening of March 10, after seeing award-winning actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith give a magnificent performance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” LDGish.blogspot.com editor James Patterson returned home to find in his mailbox a resolution from the State of Alabama honoring his father for his National Guard service at Selma in March 1965. The year 2014 is the 49^th anniversary of the historic march.

Patterson has something more in common with Smith. She was recipient of the Lillian Gish Arts Prize in February 2013 in New York. Patterson enjoyed a friendship with Miss Gish from the late-1960s. In the 1920s Miss Gish was considered an artist more than a movie star. Today, Smith is considered an artist.

When 1920s era film magazines asked readers to name the greatest artists in silent film, Charlie Chaplin was the frequent choice for male artist while Miss Gish was frequent choice for female artist.

This divine occurrence of attending Grace Cathedral and receiving the honor from Alabama, is another of many times when my life has taken a positive turn connected in a way with my friendship with Miss Gish.  Photos below.

James Patterson

Life Member Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum

Member, California Historical Society

Member, Alabama Historical Association

 

US Army veteran James G. Patterson who saw service in Korea. Dad often said his National Guard Service at Selma was more dangerous than Korea. Many of those who served with him in the Alabama National Guard also recalled the intensity of the service due to threatened Klan violence. Dad and his fellow Guardsmen were trained with M-1 rifles and instructed by commanders to use them on any bystanders who ran toward the marchers, especially Dr. King. One of the commanding officers told the Guardsmen Dr. King might be killed but "he's not going to be killed in Selma."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace Cathedral's alter before Anna Deavere Smith's performance. At play's end, the entirety of Dr. King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" were projected across the church. It was amazing! Sold-out performance.

 

 

One of the many signs around Grace's exterior frontage inviting people to attend he service. I had an orchestra seat, D 1, three rows from the stage. California Episcopal Bishop Marc Handley Andrus, formerly Alabama Episcopal Bishop, and his wife, sat a few seats away me. We exchanged greetings and spoke briefly of my residency at St. Dunstan's Episcopal College Center at Auburn University.  

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Lifetime's TV production of "The Trip to Bountiful" with Cicely Tyson as Mrs. Carrie Watts, a TV and Broadway role originated by Lillian Gish

We saw the Lifetime production at Joaquin's in Marin.

Gish Award Winner Anna Deavere Smith and James Patterson Celebrate Human Rights and The Arts

March 9, 2014

Gresham Hall Grace Episcopal Cathedral

Sunday morning Forum: Arts and Human Rights, Anna Deavere Smith and Robert McDuffie, of Macon, Georgia, in conversation with the Very Rev Dr Jane Shaw

Baltimore's Anna Deavere Smith, actress and playwright, is said to have created a new form of theater. Her many awards include a MacArthur fellowship, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award, two Tony nominations, two Obies and more.

She was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play "Fires in the Mirror" (about 1991's Crown Heights riots) and has created over 15 one-person shows based on hundreds of interviews, most of which deal with social issues. These shows include "Twilight: Los Angeles" (about the explosive 1992 Los Angeles race riots after a California court acquitted police officers charged, and caught on video, of savagely beating Rodney King), and "Let Me Down Easy," focused on U.S. healthcare.

In popular culture Smith can be seen in Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," in 20 episodes of NBC's "The West Wing," "The American President," "Rachel Getting Married," and the groundbreaking and award winning AIDS justice drama "Philadelphia," with Tom Hanks, and in other movies and television productions.

In addition to authoring books and starring in films, Smith is a professor at New York University's Performance Studies Department.

Of the Gish award, Smith said, "The Gish Prize provides credibility and recognition for artists who invented a new path for themselves and their work." The $300,000 prize was awarded Smith in 2013.

Anna Deavere Smith serves on the boards of the Museum of Modern Art, The Aspen Institute and Grace Episcopal Cathedral. She received the Dean’s Medal from Stanford Medical School and is University Professor at NYU. Ms. Smith continues to develop On Grace, the work she premiered at grace Cathedral in 2012.

James Patterson Blogger's Note: Lillian Gish would be so proud of Anna Deavere Smith for her intense exploration of social issues in her works, books and speeches. Thank you Miss Gish for your wisdom and vision in establishing this important prize.

 

Photo courtesy Grace Episcopal Cathedral.

 

Note: Ms Smith may not remember but I recall meeting her once at Legal Seafoods on K Street in Washington DC when the restaurant hosted a West Wing cast party there. West Wing producers also shot a scene once at Hawk 'n Dove, a Capitol Hill pub I frequented in the late 1990s when I worked at the Republican National Committee headquarters, the Eisenhower Building, on First Street. Disclosure: After a brief period with Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger, (Blogger could not offer spelling corrections) I later switched political parties. I once called the Governator "the future of the Republican Party." I was wrong as the GOP has no future. BTW, Miss Gish supported both parties over the years. We have photos of her with Presidents Jimmy Carter, courtesy Carter Library, and with President Ronald Reagan.

 

James Patterson

Member, California Historical Society 

Life Member: Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum