There were a couple interviews with her shortly before her passing and she was still sharp as a tack. Truly an amazing woman who showed you could age gracefully without being cosmetically touched up.
First time I've heard her speak. What a remarkable woman, and very funny, and sharp as anything. Shame people seem to be obsessed about the fact she never married.
Katharine Hepburn never married, Greta Garbo never married. What's the big deal ? Marriage is not for everyone, Joannie. Your husband committed suicide being married to you - and that's the truth.
Ludlow Smith was a homosexual man? How do you know this? Within a few months after Katharine and he divorced he was re-married and had children a little bit later...
What an exceptional lady, and Joan is right, Lillian Gish was beautiful and she had a unique loveliness. There is a reason her silent films are still watched and revered.
Miss Gish would have given credit to D.W. Griffith and rightly so. In today's culture wars Lillian Gish would be condemned for her part in Birth of a Nation.
Not true. Angela Lansbury began her movie career in 1944 in Gaslight. As of 2020, she is still working, currently in pre-production for The Adventures of Buddy Thunder. That's 76 years and counting versus Ms. Gish 75-year career. Mickey Rooney began his movie career in 1926 and was still appearing in films at the end of his live in 2014 when Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb came out -- an 88-year span. June Lockhart began her career in A Christmas Carol in 1938. She was still working as of 2019 when she did voice work for Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm. That's 81 years so far. Norman Lloyd was still acting as of 2015 (Trainwreck). He began his film career in 1939 in The Streets of New York -- 76 years and counting. I realize most of these performers had not yet broken Gish's record when you posted that comment seven years ago, but Mickey Rooney certainly had.
And SHE said herself that everyone thought her sister was the witty and funny one and that they thought Lillian had no sense of humour. Yet every video I've seen of her so far, the AFI speech, this, she has been very funny.
grande lillian gish,la tua ironia,la tua eleganza la tua immensa bravura cinematograica e teatrale,resteranno in eterno,e anche in quel periodo ,in qui hai rilasciato la tua intervista,televisiva,la vecchiaia non ha dissipato la tua classe
Gish states that the greatest actor that she ever worked with was John Gielgud. He was extraordinary and many remember him solely for his Oscar winning performance as Hobson in "Arthur". He was also one of the great Hamlets and did memorable work on stage in Shakespearean plays and as a director.
Lili looks like she's ready to die any day but she was still completely coherent and snappy enough to hold a conversation so well. Incredible to think that she'd live another 16 years after this interview! I love it when the good die old!
***** Haha, thanks but she's my second favorite actress after Liv Ulmann. Broken Blossoms was Lili's masterpiece, when she screamed during the penultimate scene it was said that the people OUTSIDE of the studio became concerned and even DW Griffith was shocked.
That's what I was thinking. I think her being successful in spite of (or maybe because of) paved the way for some of today's truly obnoxious talk show hosts and comedians. Mind you being a bit risque isn't always a bad thing, but that being ALL that there is to you is.
Joan came out of a time of prudishness and was the anti which made her famous.. To our modern sensibility it just seems trite and going for the gutter..
How funny! I just watched the Whales of August and couldn't help but think how Lillian so out-acted Bette Davis! Bette did as she always did....she sounded mean and deliberate. That was the extent of her acting...but Lillian had a thousand looks, showed a thousand emotions. I'm guessing Bette might have been one and the same as the "angry" person she always played. Whereas Lillian was just a delight to watch.
My goodness you two are juvenile - Bette Davis couldn’t act? You’re just the same sort of people who want to see the worst in people and propagate the myth that two women working together must involve hate and bitchiness. Bette’s character in WOA was meant to be waspish and bitter - and Lillian’s the opposite - what part of acting and film making don’t you idiots get? So you like Lillian in WOA - great - does it have to involve the character assassination of Davis and her entire career and achievements? Grow the fuck up.
I was at this taping. The edited out a few things before air time. She spoke about "Birth of a Nation" and thought "The Jesse Jackson's were out of line about the criticism of the film"
And now the stalwart "educators" at Bowling Green State U. have followed the mob mentality and trashed the Gish sisters by removing their name from their theater where it's proudly been displayed since the mid 70's, a theater to which Lillian Gish contributed a significant amount of time and memorabilia. She held BG in high esteem. What do they do when she's long dead and unable to speak? Trash her iconic memory, her legacy, and her generosity. Why ? Because she played a nurse in "Birth of a Nation." Following on the heels of the wonderful logic (the kind no doubt exhibited all across the BG campus) they used to decide that that one film appearance in 1915, when Lillian Gish was about 21, makes her a racist, they also made Dorothy Gish suffer simply by virtue of her being Lillian's sister. These people are mental midgets, incompetent, cowardly, and ignorant as hell! None of them is worthy to speak Lillian Gish's name. She was a truly wonderful actress and an equally wonderful woman. A Lady! It's insanity and following the equally unjust trashing of Kate Smith, it's becoming a very dangerous pattern.
@@mmjhcb I couldn't agree more. I think the college's decision was extremely reprehensible - all because of a single role in Gish's incredibly lengthy career. If we judged actors by every single career and life decision they made, we wouldn't be left with much to watch. On top of that, Lillian didn't even write or direct "The Birth of a Nation." D.W. Griffith did. I'm getting sick and tired of these people getting offended and playing the victim card all of the time. I'm a huge film buff especially of classic and foreign cinema and the whole decision to remove the Gish sisters' names from the theater made my skin crawl. They wouldn't know classic cinema (or the history of it) if it punched them in the face. Shame on you BGSU!
by editing out her comment re: t that movie birth of a nation, we could have gleaned how she felt while performing in the movie, the aftermath in this country and why she felt the jesse jacksons' were out of line in criticizing the movie but i guess the last line gives one an idea of her feelings. mediocre actress, in my opinion, she was.
Mary Pickford led the Gish sisters into film with GW Griffith not long after she joined Biograph herself. Back in the very early days doing film was seen as being 2nd rate and below stage actors as they all were at the time. Pickford as a very young girl used to travel from city to city on trains By HERSELF, stay in flea bitten 'hotels' as a part of acting troupes, to make money for the family. She met Gish on the road and is how they became best of friends. Pickford became one of the greatest actors of the silver screan, inventing method acting for film, and Gish one of the great wraith beauties of the time. I have a number of the films.
The woman was 90 here. And this was 90 back in 1983. I remember when my uncle ( born in 1955) turned 60. He said to me Max when I was your age ( I was mid 20s at the time) 60 was little old uncle Seymour with a cane and hearing aid. I can't believe I'm this age!
She played a woman who killed a man then buried the body in the sand. She would then have nightmares about the wind blowing the sand off the body. It was a haunting and beautiful film. It was called, “ The Wind”.
Lillian Gish did have a love life, but she was discreet about it. She had a long term romantic relationship with the theatre critic George Jean Nathan.
What a face she had for silent films! There are stories of men instinctively reaching out their hand to protect her from her (usually brutal) cinematic fate.
This is one of the most notorious Joan Rivers interviews. Rather than targeting Gishfor evolving the simpering maiden type, she nails her for never marrying and remaining a virgin. If it were I I would have called Rivers out for the tart she was. Rivers conveys a negative image of women and of Jews. We are not all hedonists devoid of moral scruple, religious principles and/or sentimentality.
I watched some of the interview and also the movies about her and surely her typical character looks like she is not lesbian but I wonder why she decided to haven't married, can anyone explain it or have more info about this?
Joan was an obnoxious jerk, and as for criticizing Gish for not marrying - perhaps Joan should never have married . She drove her husband Edgar Rosenberg to suicide
@refreshingicecream Sorry, I was making a joke. Lilian Gish actually was known to have had a series of hetrosexual relationships with rich and power producers and one notable critic. They didn't treat her very well I think so that's why she was never married. She was however very "chummy" with Helen Hayes and willed to Hayes the entirety of her multi-million dollar estate. Hayes would die a month after Lilian.
The only one that could carry her role in that sad film was Ann Sothern. The other two (Davis and Gish) should never have acted in that or anything else again.
