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That same year, in
The Mothering Heart,
Lillian started showing signs of the emotional power hidden in the
seemingly frail and hauntingly beautiful actress. Griffith utilized
Lillian's aura to its fullest to develop the image of the suffering
heroine. She also demonstrated an intense anger as shown in the same
film, when she beats a bush after the death of her child. This intensity
was present in all her films thereafter.
Broken Blossoms is arguably Lillian's greatest
silent film. The terror she expressed as her drunken father breaks down
the door to the closet she was hiding in was communicated directly to
the audience. She displayed that same intensity in
Way Down East, when she
baptizes a dying baby and in The Wind,
where she roams, dying, through the streets of Montmartre. In 1920, she
directed Dorothy Gish in Remodeling Her
Husband and in 1922 she made
Orphans in the Storm, her
last film under Griffith's direction. She joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in
1924 and made her first "talkie" One
Romantic Night in 1930. She then returned to
the stage in Uncle Vanya.
During the 1930s Lillian began working in radio. She made her television
debut in 1948 with the Philco Playhouse production
The Late Christopher Bean.
In 1969, Lillian began giving the film lecture "Lillian Gish and the
Movies: The Art of Film, 1900-1928."
Lillian has been honored with many of the motion picture industry's top
honors, including an honorary Academy Award, The American Film Institute
Life Achievement Award and the D.W. Griffith Award for lifetime
achievement.
Lillian's combination of fragility and strength, as well as her rare
beauty and brilliant performance on screen, made her one of the greatest
stars in silent films. She will always be remembered as one of the
pioneers in the motion pictures industry.
Used
with permission from the Official Website of Lillian Gish
www.lilliangish.com
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