lillian Gish, should have been the greatest ever actress

[stuart.uk]

It's just my opinion, but if circumstances had been different, i think Lillian Gish would have been right up there with the likes of Bette Davis and Kate Hepburn as the screens greatest ever actress. Imo i would also class her as the first lady of film as she started in the early 1900s and was still going strong in the 1980s

She was the leading lady in the cinemas first ever feature film Birth Of A Nation in 1915. the film, about life an the American south after the Civil War. the film transformed the movie industry, though on a negative side its racist viewpoint is said to have encouraged the Ku Klux Klan to reform.

Other Gish classics followed Intolerence, Broken Blossoms and Way Down East, where Gish doing her on stunts lay on a sheet of ice with part of her face in well below freezing water.

Lillian went to MGM and did The Scarlett Letter and the western classic The Wind. TW had a controversial ending. it was originally planned that Lillian's character after killing Montogue Love after he brutally raped her would commit suicide after being driven mad by a near ending gale force wind. Gish herself believed her character should have died, a life for a life. however, i respectfully disagree with her and think the change of ending where her husband says that her killing was frontier justice, was under the circumstances a more suitable ending.

Lillian tells the story of how L.B Mayer wanted to create a scandel for her inorder for publicity. She told him she wasn't interested and apart from a couple of films, Lillian left Hollywood for about ten years. Imo those where lost yrs for Lillian on film. she was still a young woman and would have held her own against Garbo, Hepburn, Loy and Shearer. As it was she didn't make her comeback until she was 51 with Duel In The Sun. even then as i think she showed in the movie Lillian still had 5 good yrs of playing romantic leads if the parts had been offered her. Lillian wasn't that much older than Gable, Cooper, Tracy and Cagney. she could have played oppisite them.

I thought her performance in Duel In The Sun was the highlight of the film
and that her death bed scene was terrific as she crawled out of bed toward her disabled husband Lionel Barrymore, so she could die in his arms.

however, Lillian's greatest talkie was The Night Of The Hunter in the mid 50s, as the old lady protecting two kids from their evil step father Reverand Robert Mitchum after he killed their mother.

Lillian carried on working in the 60s and made Follow Me Boys with Fred Macmurray. she made her last film with Bette Davis in the late 1980s

[mrsl]

Hi Stuart:

You may be 100% correct about Miss Gish, but truth be told, she chose a terrible time to vacate Hollhywood, and leave the path open to all those others. When she did return, let's face it, at the time a man of 55 or 60 looked a lot better than an woman of 55 or 60. Nowadays with proper food and exercise, it's hard to tell a woman of 35 from 55 in a lot of cases.

As a younger woman, Lillian was cute and scrappy. I really don't think she was physically capable of being the royal b . . . . that Bette and Crawford were. She may have done those horrible stunts with aplomb, but dressing down a femme fatale was just not her style. I could be wrong, but there is no way of knowing.

Anne

[stuart.uk]

i agree about your assesment of the modern woman. as i'm from the U.K i feel all our best actresses are over 60 with Julie Walters the babe of group in her mid 50s. Helen Mirren is better looking than ever at 61 as is Brenda Blethyn at 60.

i do feel that the likes of Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, Olivia De Havilland and Marlene Dietrich were in the 1960s were capable of romantic leads. it feel however, attitudes toward the more mature women was more negative than it is today

i only thought about Lillian Gish as a still romantic lead in her 50s on the strength of Duel In The Sun. admittedly she wasn't the beauty that other actresses where, but still attractive enough to pull it off

[mrsl]

There was a long dry spell during the 50's where it was hard for a woman of any age to get a decent role to play. They just were not being written. Most women were tossed into Suzy Homemaker roles or the girlfriend who waited for her man. I really don't know for sure what changed the tide either.

Today there are several women who look fantastic, and you named many of them, but I don't want to pirate this thread.

Anne

[Mr. Arkadin]

There's a little poll somewhere here (I think it might be in People of Film) where we listed our favorite actresses. Gish topped my list.

[SSO Admins]

Gish was an incredible actress and one of the most beautiful women ever.

However, when it comes to Hollywood history she's an unreliable narrator. A lot of the things she told interviewers in her later years were just flat out wrong.

[charliechaplinfan]

Jondaris, You've said what I'm beginning to feel about Miss Gish, that she wasn't the most reliable source. As I read more and more material about the silent era it's compounding that feeling.

Lillian Gish made some outstanding films in the silent era. My personal favorite is The Wind. She is a fine actress and a very beautiful woman and I like to watch her films but she's not my favorite actress from that period.

I would rather watch Garbo or Mary Pickford than Lillian Gish. I'm not saying that Lillian Gish wasn't as talented as they were but they were as at least as good as she was but aren't always given the credit they deserve.

[feaito]

I could not say that Lillian Gish is my favorite actress, but certainly she's my favorite person in the movies. She was one of the many actresses I wrote to when I was in High School, somewhere back in 1981-1984, and she answered sending me a beautiful picture of her, with a very warm dedication written on it. It was very sweet of her.

I remember telling her in my letter that she would have been perfectly suited as Catherine in Borzage's "A Farewell to Arms" (1932), because at that time I felt she had similar traits than those of her friend Helen Hayes.

She was an extremely talented actress and was very beautiful, feminine and ladylike. Her Silents are among the best I've seen, ditto her performances in them. She also accomplished very good performances after the talkies came, most notably in "The Night of the Hunter" (1955) and "Duel in the Sun" (1946).

I'd like to see her in "The Whales of August" (1986).

[charliechaplinfan]

That's a lovely story Feaito. She certainly sounds like a lovely woman.

[Damfino]

I do love Lillian Gish, her films were some of the first silents I watched after Buster Keaton got me hooked as a child. All those who know me know I do have a particulalr soft spot for one of her co stars. I agree that she should be up there with Crawford and Davis although she was a different kind of actress to them.

[moira finnie]

Welcome Damfino!
I hope that your appreciation of Lillian Gish includes some of her sound era work. One of her slightly different interesting roles is coming up in the flawed but still engaging The Cobweb on Mar. 11th on TCM at 10pm ET. I like Gish as a rather steely sort protecting her turf in a posh mental facility. She is directed by Vincente Minnelli in this one.

The Night of the Hunter remains, at least for me, her best sound era role, and is simply and beautifully played by her. That one pops up again on TCM's schedule on Mar. 19th at 4:30pm ET and April 12th at 8pm ET.

[catherine]

moirafinnie,

Thanks for mentioning the upcoming Lillian Gish films on TCM, which I would've missed and wept! I recently watched her and Bette in the WHALES OF AUGUST in a role I like to think is true to her own strength of character. Getting to know her from reading her autobiography THE MOVIES, MR.GRIFFITH AND ME was a pleasure, such a frank, funny, rich book about the early inner workings of the film industry. Anyone attending her appearance in the ballet 'Le Spectre de la Rose' late in her life shared a priceless moment in time.

[feaito]

I do love Lillian Gish, her films were some of the first silents I watched after Buster Keaton got me hooked as a child. All those who know me know I do have a particulalr soft spot for one of her co stars. I agree that she should be up there with Crawford and Davis although she was a different kind of actress to them.

Welcome to the Boards Diane. Good to see you here

[Dawtrina]

It's just my opinion, but if circumstances had been different, i think Lillian Gish would have been right up there with the likes of Bette Davis and Kate Hepburn as the screens greatest ever actress.

You mean she wasn't the screen's greatest ever actress? I'm a big fan of Bette and Kate and a whole host of other more recent ladies of the screen, but none of them come close to what I've seen of Lillian Gish.

[Synnove]

Lillian Gish was a different kind of actress from Bette Davis and Kate Hepburn, she had a very different personality. If she is not so well regarded as they are today, it is because she is mostly associated with the silent era. I'm not sure it's true that she isn't as well-regarded though. You hear less about her than the others, but when you do hear about her it is usually said that she was the first lady of the silent screen, and that she was one of the best, perhaps the best, actress of the silent era, and that's no joke.

She wasn't the most famous star, but from an artistic standpoint she was a great success.