Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life

Abstract

Written with unprecedented access to her letters, journals, and unpublished articles, this is the definitive biography of a seminal figure in American film -- one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Stars of All Time. At the time of her death in 1993, Lillian Gish was universally recognized as a film legend. Now, Charles Affron reveals a life that, for decades, was cast in the shadow of self-generated myth. Using newly released papers at the New York Public Library, Affron fills the gaps left by Gish's selective memoirs and author-ized biographies, and shows how the actress carefully forged her public identity while keeping much of her life private. In a career that began in 1902 and lasted well into the 1980s and included such classic films as The Birth of a Nation and The Night of the Hunter, Gish went from child actress to legend. This account of Gish's life travels two parallel journeys: One traces her beginnings as a child actress in melodramas, through the birth of movies, the glory days of the studio system in Holly-wood and the coming of sound, the Broadway theater and television, to her final starring film appearance in 1987; the other follows a more personal itinerary, beginning with the comaraderies and rivalries of D. W. Griffith's troupe, the onset of her stardom, then on to the Algonquin Round Table and the international smart set. Her scandalous lawsuit with her producer/ fiance, her long affair with critic George Jean Nathan, and her controversial political activism are covered here in detail for the first time. Affron travels with the actress from studios in Hollywood to the stage in New York, from the loving, close relationship Gish had with hermother and her sister Dorothy to her devoted, often troubled relationship with Griffith, with whom she helped shape the development of narrative film. In splendid detail, Affron re-creates the burgeoning culture of moviemaking in the broad context of the arts in America. Along the way, the cast includes Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Eugene O'Neill, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Bette Davis.

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