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Lillian Gish Quotes

Lillian Diana Gish was an American pioneering actress of the screen and stage, as well as a director and writer. Her film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called "The First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques.Gish was a prominent film star from 1912 into the 1920s, being particularly associated with the films of director D. W. Griffith, including her leading role in the highest-grossing film of the silent era, Griffith's The Birth of a Nation . At the dawn of the sound era, she returned to the stage and appeared in film infrequently, including well-known roles in the controversial western Duel in the Sun and the offbeat thriller The Night of the Hunter . She also did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film The Whales of August. During her later years Gish became a dedicated advocate for the appreciation and preservation of silent film. Despite being better known for her film work, she was also an accomplished stage actress, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972. Wikipedia  

✵ 14. October 1893 – 27. February 1993
Lillian Gish photo
Lillian Gish: 11   quotes 0   likes

Famous Lillian Gish Quotes

“Lillian Gish is not only the best actress in her profession, but has the best mind of any woman I have ever met.”

Lillian Gish

D. W. Griffith
About

“I'm so glad I didn't ruin a man's life by marrying him.”

Lillian Gish

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20095610,00.html

“For Lillian Gish, My Favorite Actress. On the occasion of her 1st visit to New York of which this book is a practical guide. From Her Chattel, F. Scott Fitzgerald”

Lillian Gish

F. Scott Fitzgerald's letter to Gish, written within a copy of Tender is the Night http://gothamist.com/2013/01/29/fitzgerald_pens_letter_to_favorite.php
About

“According to director Lindsay Anderson, one day while filming The Whales of August he said to Lillian Gish, "Miss Gish, you have just given me a perfect close-up." Bette Davis remarked: "She should. She invented 'em."”

Lillian Gish

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094315/trivia
About

“If you're caught acting, nobody believes you.”

Lillian Gish

“I never cease to wonder at my luck in having for my sister the woman who, more than any other woman in America, possesses all the qualities of true greatness.”

Lillian Gish

Dorothy Gish
About

Lillian Gish Quotes

“Thalberg wanted commercial hits. I wanted art.”

Lillian Gish

http://marilynmonroeflims.blogspot.com/2012/07/lillian-gish-greta-garbo-class-acts.html (On her work with MGM)

Art

“When I was in films, we pretended to kiss but we didn't. It was considered unsanitary. Now they swallow each others' tonsils. It's disgusting.”

Lillian Gish

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20097815,00.html

Kiss

“You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father, and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older.”

Lillian Gish

As quoted in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams

Women , Men , Way

“I never chose money, I always chose people. I wanted to be around people who knew more than I did. I think that’s why I never fell in love with an actor. They never seemed to know any more than I did. I wanted to be with writers… My idea of a dream man was Thornton Wilder.”

Lillian Gish
Love , Money , People , Dreams

“I don't feel I'm old. I just feel I'm me. And I've always been a happy person. I love the human race. I love my work. I love the world—I've been around it four times, you know. And I'm a believing person. I believe in God, even though I can't see him. You can't see the air in this room, right? But take it away and you're dead. And I believe there's something for us after we die. The world isn't wasteful. It keeps going on and I think we do too.”

Lillian Gish

As quoted in Lillian Gish : Her Legend, Her Life (2002) by Charles Affron, p. 353

Love , God , World , Feeling

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