Lillian Gish
Actor
Biography
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.
As Director
Filmography
The Night of the Hunter
as Rachel Cooper 1955
The Birth of a Nation
as Stoneman's Daughter Elsie 1915
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
as The Woman Who Rocks the Cradle 1916
Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl
as Lucy Burrows 1919
The Unforgiven
as Mattilda Zachary 1960
Duel in the Sun
as Laura Belle McCanles 1946
The Wind
as Letty 1928
Portrait of Jennie
as Mother Mary of Mercy 1948
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
as Chariot Race Spectator (uncredited) 1925
Way Down East
as Anna Moore 1920
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
as The Little Lady 1912
Orphans of the Storm
as Henriette Girard 1921
The Whales of August
as Sarah Webber 1987
A Wedding
as Nettie Sloan 1978
True Heart Susie
as Susie May Trueheart 1919
The Comedians
as Mrs. Smith 1967
Sweet Liberty
as Cecelia Burgess 1986