Dorothy Gish

Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (March 11, 1898 – June 4, 1968) was an American stage and screen actress. Dorothy and her older sister Lillian Gish were major movie stars of the silent era. Dorothy also had great success on the stage, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Dorothy Gish was noted as a fine comedian, and many of her films were comedies.

Early life Dorothy Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. She had an elder sister, Lillian. The Gish sisters' mother, Mary, supported the family after her husband James Leigh Gish, a traveling salesman, abandoned the family in New York. Mary Gish, who was "a former actress and department store clerk", moved with her daughters to East St. Louis, Illinois, where she opened a candy and catering business.

In 1910, Mary heard from her husband's brother, Grant Gish, who lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and informed her that James was ill. He was in a hospital in nearby Norman, so Mary sent 17-year-old Lillian to visit him. At first, Lillian wrote back to her 12-year-old sister Dorothy that she planned to stay in Oklahoma and continue her education, but after seeing her father she admitted she missed her mother and sister. So, after a few months away from them, in the spring of 1912, she traveled back and they began performing as extras at the Biograph Studios in New York at salaries of 50 dollars a week. During his initial work with the sisters, Griffith found it difficult to distinguish one from the other, so he had the five years older Lillian wear a blue ribbon in her hair and Dorothy a red one. The girls, especially Lillian, impressed the director, so he included them in the entourage of cast and crew he took to California to produce films there. Newspapers and film-industry publications at the time reported the event and described the severe injuries Gish sustained. The near-fatal accident occurred as Dorothy was walking with Lillian at the intersection of Vermont and Prospect avenues. According to news reports, after the car struck her, it dragged her along the street for 40 to 50 feet. Other movie personnel who were standing together on a nearby sidewalk, including D. W. Griffith, witnessed Dorothy being hit. In addition to Gish's initial examination by the doctor identified by the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago newspaper and Motion Picture News stated that she was rushed to the hospital, where surgeons mended her "very badly torn" left side with "many stitches" and treated the area where one of her toes had been "cut off", presumably a toe from her badly damaged right foot. Completion of the short was postponed yet again, for over a month, while Gish recuperated.

1915–1928 After recovering from the 1914 accident, Gish resumed her screen career the following year, performing in a series of two- and three-reel shorts as well as in longer, more complex films such as the five-reel productions Old Heidelberg, directed by John Emerson, and Jordan Is a Hard Road, once again under D. W. Griffith's direction. Increasingly, Dorothy's appeal to both producers and audiences continued to grow in 1915, leading W. E. Keefe in the June issue of Motion Picture Magazine to recognize her as "one of the most popular film stars on the Motion Picture screen". In an article about Gish in the cited issue, Keefe also recognizes that Dorothy, career-wise, was finally emerging from her sister's shadow: In 1916 and 1917, Dorothy continued to expand her acting credentials by starring in a variety of five-reelers for Fine Arts Film Company or "Griffith's studio", which was a subsidiary of Triangle Film Corporation. Her work in those years required filming on locations in New York and on the West Coast.

In the 1918 release Hearts of the World, a film about World War I and the devastation of France, Dorothy found her first cinematic foothold in comedy, striking a personal hit in a role that captured the essence of her sense of humor. As the "little disturber", a street singer, her performance was the highlight of the film, and her characterization on screen catapulted her into a career as a star of comedy films.thumb

Griffith did not use Dorothy in any of his earliest epics, but while he spent months working on The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Dorothy was featured in many feature-length films made under the banner of Triangle and Mutual releases. They were directed by young Griffith protégés such as Donald Crisp, James Kirkwood, and Christy Cabanne. Elmer Clifton directed a series of seven Paramount-Artcraft comedies with Dorothy that were so successful and popular that the tremendous revenue they raked in helped to pay the cost of Griffith’s expensive epics. These films were wildly popular with the public and the critics. She specialised in pantomime and light comedy, while her sister appeared in tragic roles. Dorothy became famous in this long series of Griffith-supervised films for the Triangle-Fine Arts and Paramount companies from 1918 through 1920, comedies that put her in the front ranks of film comedians. Almost all of these films are now considered to be lost films.

"And So I Am a Comedienne", an article published in Ladies Home Journal in July 1925, gave Dorothy a chance to recall her public persona: “And so I am a comedienne, though I, too, once wanted to do heroic and tragic things. Today my objection to playing comedy is that it is so often misunderstood by the audiences, both in the theater and in the picture houses. It is so often thought to be a lesser art and something which comes to one naturally, a haphazard talent like the amateur clowning of some cut-up who is so often thought to be ‘the life of the party’. In the eyes of so many persons comedy is not only the absence of studied effect and acting, but it is not considered an art.”

She made a film in England Nell Gwynn which led to three more films. Gish earned £41,000 for these movies.

Sound era and return to stage When the film industry converted to talking pictures, Dorothy made one in 1930, the British crime drama Wolves. Earlier, in 1928 and 1929, her performances in the Broadway play Young Love and her work with director George Cukor renewed her interest in stagecraft and in the immediacy of performing live again. The light comedy had proven to be popular with critics and audiences in New York, in performances on the road in the United States, as well overseas in a London production. Those successes convinced her to take a respite from film-making. Postcard of Gish in Life with Father In 1939, both Dorothy and Lillian Gish found the stage role of a lifetime. “Dorothy and I went to see the New York production of Life with Father, starring Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney,” Lillian wrote in her autobiography. “After the performance I said: ‘This is the play we’ve been waiting for to take through America.’” Lillian predicted the popular play would be a perfect showcase for all the people who had seen the hundreds of films featuring Mary Pickford, Dorothy, and herself. She was introduced to Lindsay backstage, and immediately surprised the producers with her enthusiastic desire to head the first company to go on the road, with Dorothy taking the same part for the second road company, and the movie rights for Mary Pickford. Pickford did not make the film version, but the Gish sisters took the two road companies on extensive tours. Another stage success later in Gish's career was The Magnificent Yankee, which ran on Broadway at the Royale Theatre during the first half of 1946. Lillian in her pictorial book Dorothy and Lillian Gish repeats John Chapman's comments about her sister's work in that production: "'Miss [Dorothy] Gish and Mr. Calhern give the finest performances I have ever seen them in. She is a delight and a darling.'"

Television and final films Television in the 1950s offered many stage and film actors the opportunity to perform in plays broadcast live. Dorothy ventured into the new medium, appearing on NBC's Lux Video Theatre on the evening of November 24, 1955, in a production of Miss Susie Slagle's. She and Lillian had previously performed that play together on screen, in Paramount Pictures' 1945 film adaptation.

"The truth is, that she did not know what she really wanted to do," wrote her sister, Lillian, in her autobiography. "She had always had trouble making decisions and assuming responsibilities, in some ways she had never grown up. She was such a witty and enchanting child that we enjoyed indulging her. First Mother and I spoiled her and later Reba, her friend, and her husband Jim. Reba called Dorothy 'Baby' and so did Jim. With the best intentions in the world, we all helped to keep her a child."

From 1930 until her death, she only performed in five more movies, including Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), which was a hit for Paramount. Director Otto Preminger cast Dorothy in his 1946 film, Centennial Summer, and Mae Marsh appears in the film in one of her many bit parts. In the 1951 release The Whistle at Eaton Falls, a film noir drama film produced by Louis de Rochemont, Dorothy portrays the widow of a mill owner. On television during this period, she also made several appearances in anthology television series. Her final film role was in 1963 in another Otto Preminger production, The Cardinal, in which she plays the mother of the title character.

Personal life Film still of Gish with James Rennie in Flying Pat (1920) Dorothy Gish married only once, to James Malachi Rennie (1890–1965), a Canadian-born actor who co-starred with her in two productions in 1920: Remodeling Her Husband, directed by sister Lillian, and in the comedy Flying Pat. In December 1920, the couple eloped to Greenwich, Connecticut, where they wed in a double ceremony in which Gish's friend, actress Constance Talmadge, also married Greek businessman John Pialoglou. Gish and Rennie remained together until their divorce in 1935. Dorothy never married again.

Death and legacy Gish died aged 70 in 1968 from bronchial pneumonia at a clinic in Rapallo, Italy, where she had been a patient for two years to treat hardening arteries. Her sister Lillian, who was filming in Rome, was at her bedside.

The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize was named for her by her sister. It awards a substantial cash prize annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life."

Quotes

Partial filmography

Year Title Role Notes 1912 An Unseen Enemy The sister Two Daughters of Eve In theatre crowd So Near, yet So Far A friend Copy in Museum of Modern Art The Painted Lady Belle at ice cream festival The Musketeers of Pig Alley Frizzy-haired woman in street Copy in Library of Congress Gold and Glitter On street My Baby Wedding guest Copy in Museum of Modern Art The Informer The Southern girl Copies in Library of Congress Brutality The New York Hat My Hero The young woman The Burglar's Dilemma Birthday wellwisher A Cry for Help Witness to accident 1913 Oil and Water In first audience Broken Ways In telegraph office The Perfidy of Mary Rose The Lady and the Mouse The second sister Just Gold The Sweetheart's sister Red Hicks Defies the World Hicks' sweetheart The Vengeance of Galora Unconfirmed The House of Discord The daughter Copy in Museum of Modern Art Almost a Wild Man Miss Smart / Sideshow patron 1914 Her Father's Silent Partner Judith of Bethulia The crippled beggar The Floor Above Stella Ford Home, Sweet Home Sister of Payne's sweetheart The Rebellion of Kitty Belle The Sisters Carol 1915 How Hazel Got Even Hazel His Lesson Participant in mob scene Jordan Is a Hard Road Cora Findley Lost film Old Heidelberg Katie Huder 1916 Gretchen the Greenhorn Gretchen Van Houck Betty of Greystone Betty Lockwood Incomplete film Little Meena's Romance Meena Lost film Susan Rocks the Boat Susan Johnstone Lost film The Children of the Feud Sairy Ann Lost film The Little School Ma'am Nan Atta Boy's Last Race Lois Brandon 1917 Stage Struck Ruth Colby Copy in Library of Congress Her Official Fathers Janice Lost film The Little Yank Sallie Castleton 1918 Hearts of the World The Little Disturber Copy in Cohen Media Group Battling Jane Jane Lost film The Hun Within Beth Copy in Cinémathèque française The Hope Chest Sheila Moore Lost film 1919 Boots Boots Lost film Peppy Polly Polly Lost film I'll Get Him Yet Susy Faraday Jones Lost film Nobody Home Frances Wadsworth Lost film Nugget Nell Nugget Nell Lost film Turning the Tables Lost film 1920 Mary Ellen Comes to Town Mary Ellen Lost filmRemodeling Her Husband Jane Wakefield Lost film Little Miss Rebellion Grand Duchess Marie Louise Lost film Flying Pat Patricia Van Nuys Copy in Cinémathèque française 1921 Orphans of the Storm Louise Girard The Ghost in the Garret Delsie O'Dell Lost film 1922 The Country Flapper Jolanda Whiple 1923 Fury Minnie Lost film The Bright Shawl La Clavel Copy in UCLA Film & Television Archive 1924 Romola Tessa Copy in UCLA Film & Television Archive 1925 Night Life of New York Meg Lost film The Beautiful City Mollie Lost film Clothes Make the Pirate Betsy Tidd Lost film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ Chariot Race Spectator 1926 Nell Gwyn Nell Gwyn London Mavis Hogan Lost film Camille Grace 1927 Madame Pompadour Madame Pompadour Tip Toes Tiptoes Kay Lost film 1930 Wolves Leila McDonald 1944 Our Hearts Were Young and Gay Mrs. Skinner 1946 Centennial Summer Mrs. Rogers 1951 The Whistle at Eaton Falls Mrs. Doubleday 1963 The Cardinal Celia