Lillian Gish ✝

Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. 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. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gish as the 17th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema. Gish was a prominent film star from 1912 into the 1920s, being particularly associated with the films of director D. W. Griffith. This included her leading role in the highest-grossing film of the silent era, Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). Her other major films and performances from the silent era are: Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), La Bohème (1926), and The Wind (1928). At the dawn of the sound era, she returned to the stage and appeared in film occasionally, including well-known leading roles in the Western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Duel in the Sun. Gish also had major supporting roles in Portrait of Jennie (1948), A Wedding (1978), and Sweet Liberty (1986).