Considered 'the first lady of American cinema', Lillian Gish was the muse of the pioneer D. W. Griffith and one of the founding performers of the cinematic art. She starred in silent milestones such as 'The Birth of a Nation' and 'Orphans of the Storm', where she developed an expressiveness of revolutionary delicacy. Her career spanned exceptionally more than seventy years, from silent film to late titles like 'The Night of the Hunter' and 'The Whales of August'. Her fragile face and her contained intensity defined the very language of acting before the camera.
Lillian Gish
99 years (Oct 14, 1893 – Feb 27, 1993)Springfield, USASpringfield, Ohio, USA
76 Movies · 8 Series
Considered 'the first lady of American cinema', Lillian Gish was the muse of the pioneer D. W. Griffith and one of the founding performers of the cinematic art. She starred in silent milestones such as 'The Birth of a Nation' and 'Orphans of the Storm', where she developed an expressiveness of revolutionary delicacy. Her career spanned exceptionally more than seventy years, from silent film to late titles like 'The Night of the Hunter' and 'The Whales of August'. Her fragile face and her contained intensity defined the very language of acting before the camera.
1893-10-14 · Springfield, USASpringfield, Ohio, USA
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 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.