Review/Television; Lillian Gish Looks Back on a Century

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: July 11, 1988

You can't get off to a better start than Lillian Gish, now in her 90's and still managing to hit just the right balance between fragility and feistiness. Beginning its second season on public television, tonight at 9 on Channel 13, ''American Masters'' is presenting ''Lillian Gish: The Actor's Life for Me.'' Produced and directed by Terry Sanders, the hourlong film offers a profile of Miss Gish as ''told in her own memories, thoughts and words.'' The narrator is Eva Marie Saint. The opening moments are worrying as we watch Miss Gish board a jetliner and settle in for what looks suspiciously like a journey into tired devices. But it seems that the point of this elaborate setup is merely to illustrate the length of Miss Gish's ''journey across the 20th century.''

Miss Saint notes that when 5-year-old Lillian made her stage debut in 1902, ''it was the year before Kitty Hawk, when another debut would take place - Orville and Wilbur Wright flying for the first time with an engine into the trackless skies.'' That bit of contrivance out of the way, Miss Gish takes over, sitting for a straightforward interview that is illustrated generously with film clips from her life and career.

Very much the accomplished woman, Miss Gish is capable of being proper, sentimental and tough as nails, often all at the same time. Her early years as a child actor actress would seem to be strained, if not harrowing, yet she insists that she grew up in a ''beautiful, kind, unselfish world,'' a world in which her mother was ''the most perfect human being'' she would ever know.

And then there is D. W. Griffith, the legendary director she would meet in 1913. Miss Gish would become his perfect heroine, starring in ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915), ''Intolerance'' (1916), ''Broken Blossoms'' (1919), ''Way Down East'' (1920), and ''Orphans of the Storm'' (1922).

Her devotion to Griffith remains undiminished. She recalls how the director had ''given films their form and grammar.'' He worked with no scripts in the early days. Everything was in his head, Miss Gish says, and ''it was up to you to find the character.'' She has no patience with Method actors who insist on the necessity of first-hand experiences. ''If you haven't the imagination to be that character,'' declares Miss Gish, ''go into some other business.''

This is a wonderfully written article by John O'Connor.  He has written many articles about my life and legend before.  

O'Connor, John. "Review/Television; Lillian Gish Looks Back on a Century." New York Times. N.p., 1988. Web. 6 Apr 2012.