Life and Lillian Gish E-Book

Albert Bigelow Paine

• Herausgeber: Albert Bigelow Paine
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Life and Lillian Gish written by Albert Bigelow Paine who was an American author and biographer. This book was published in 1932. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

Life and Lillian Gish

By

Albert Bigelow Paine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

I. A GIRL CHILD, BORN WITH A CAUL

II. LIFE AND A LITTLE GIRL

III. ON NAT GOODWIN’S SHOULDER

IV. “THEATRE PEOPLE”

V. A LITTLE TROUPER

VI. ADVENTURES OF DOROTHY

VII. MARY PICKFORD IN THE SCENE

VIII. “DOWN THE LINE”

IX. “HER FIRST FALSE STEP”

X. DOROTHY’S TREE

XI. “SUPPORTING BERNHARDT”

XII. MASSILLON DAYS

XIII. WHERE THE “ROAD” ENDS. NELL

XIV. A CONVENT SCHOOL. TYPHOID

XV. SHAWNEE

XVI. IT SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN

PART TWO

I. “MR. BIOGRAPH”

II. GRIFFITH’S GROUP OF PLAYERS

III. BELASCO DELIVERS A VERDICT

IV. A STUDIO ON PICO STREET

V. THE PATH TO STARDOM

VI. “HOME, SWEET HOME”

VII. “THE BIRTH OF A NATION”

VIII. “INTOLERANCE”

IX. THERE WERE NO LOVE AFFAIRS

X. THE NIGHTMARE OF WAR

XI. UNDER FIRE

XII. FRANCE

XIII. “HEARTS OF THE WORLD”

XIV. “BROKEN BLOSSOMS”

XV. “I WORK SUCH LONG HOURS”

XVI. DIRECTOR LILLIAN

XVII. “WAY DOWN EAST”

XVIII. SAD, UNPROFITABLE DAYS

XIX. PICTURING THE REIGN OF TERROR

PART THREE

ITALY

II. “THE WHITE SISTER”

III. “ROMOLA”

IV. ALSO, THE INTELLIGENTSIA

V. “LA BOHÊME”

VI. “THE SCARLET LETTER”

VII. “THE FIRST LADY OF THE SCREEN”

VIII. “WIND”

IX. GOOD-BYE, CALIFORNIA

X. REINHARDT

XI. THE SHADOW SPEAKS

XII. ON THE FLYING CARPET

XIII. “ONE ROMANTIC NIGHT”

PART FOUR

I. “UNCLE VANYA”

II. HELENA IN NEW YORK

III. “THE PENALTY OF GREATNESS”

IV. WORKING WITH LILLIAN

V. “UNCLE VANYA” TAKES THE ROAD

VI. RELIVING THE YEARS

VII. A FEW NOTES

VIII. L’ENVOI

“HELENA”

“Tranquilly, Lillian Gish sits, dressed in white organdie, her ash blond hair down her back, relaxed on the window seat, looking out for hours into the depths of the California night.

“‘What are you looking at, Lillian?’ Mrs. Gish has asked for years.

“‘Nothing, Mother, just looking.’”

Allene Talmey.

“She is an extraordinarily difficult person to know, and if I hadn’t gone to live with her ... and been with her through some of the most trying times of her life, I doubt whether our casual contacts at the studio would have brought me any intimate knowledge of her. There seems to be a wall of reserve between her and the outside world, and very few people ever get through that wall.

“The little things of life simply don’t worry her at all. Gales of temperament can rage around her—she remains undisturbed.... I have seen her at a time when anyone else would have been distraught with anxiety, come quietly in from the set, eat her luncheon calmly and collectedly (for first of all, Lillian believes in keeping fit for her work), then pick up some little book of philosophy and read it steadily until they sent for her.

“She refuses to believe that there are people in the world who are jealous of her and want to harm her. I remember someone once remarking that a certain person was jealous of her and hated her, and I can still see the look of utter surprise on Lillian’s face. But it never made any difference in her treatment of that person. In fact, I doubt whether she remembered it when she met her again.

“She is intensely loyal to those who have helped her along the path of success. She likes to be alone. She has an inexhaustible fund of patience, and a quiet sense of humor.”

Phyllis Moir

(secretary to Lillian, 1925-27)

PROLOGUE

(Scene: Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”—end of second act. Lillian Gish as Helena)

First Woman in Front of Me: “They say she’s been playing over twenty-five years.”

Second Woman in Front of Me: “Goodness! How old is she?”

“The piece I read said about thirty or so....”

“Oh, began as a child; is Gish her real name?”

“I believe so; the piece said....”

“Do you like these Russian plays?”

“I like her, in anything. I loved her in ‘Broken Blossoms,’ though it nearly killed me.”

“I wonder why she left the movies.”

“Oh, lots of ’em do; the piece said....”

“Do you suppose that is all her own hair?”

“Oh, I think so; the piece said....”

PART ONE

I.A GIRL CHILD, BORN WITH A CAUL

When Lillian was six, she found herself with a company (one night stands, mostly), “trouping” through the Middle West— ... the golden-haired child actress who supplied the beauty and pathos in a melodrama variously known as “The Red Schoolhouse” and “In Convict Stripes.” All of which had come about reasonably enough—as reasonably as anything is likely to happen, in a world where nothing seems at all reasonable until we begin taking it to pieces.

*********************

On an evening in October—the 14th, to be exact, 1896—in a very modest dwelling, in Springfield, Ohio, May Gish—Mary Robinson Gish (born McConnell)—waited for her first child. She was barely twenty, and it was hardly more than a year earlier that James Gish, a travelling salesman—young, handsome, winning—had found her at Urbana, and after a whirlwind wooing, had carried her off, a bride, to Springfield.

No one knew very much of Gish. From that mysterious “Dutch” region of Pennsylvania, he had drifted into Springfield, made friends easily, and found work there, with a wholesale grocery. He might be Dutch himself; “Gish” could easily have been “Gisch”; or French—a legend has it that the name had once been “Guise” or “de Guise” ... all rather indefinite, today.

On the other hand, everybody in Urbana knew about pretty May McConnell, whose Grandfather Robinson had been in the State Senate; who had a President, Zachary Taylor, and a poetess, Emily Ward, somewhere in her family; whose father was a very respectable dealer in saddlery and harness, with a spirited dapple-grey horse in his big show window.

Oh, well, it is all so “accidental” ... even though some of us do not believe in accidents, and talk knowingly of a Great Law ... of a Weaver who sits at the Loom of Circumstance....

Still, it was natural enough that now, within a year from her marriage, pretty May Gish should be looking up from her window at the thronging stars, wondering how a baby soul could find its way among them to her tiny room.

*********************

A girl child, born with a caul ... supposed to mean good fortune, even occult power. Mary Gish did not much concern herself with this superstition; she had been rather strictly raised; when she gave her daughter the name of Lillian, and added Diana—Lillian because she was so fair, and Diana because a big moon looked into her window—she thought it a happy combination and hoped well for it—no more than that.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!