Dorothy Gish
Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (March 11, 1898 – June 4, 1968) was an American stage and screen actress.[1] 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.
Dorothy Gish
June 4, 1968 (aged 70)
Actress
1912–1963
- Mary Robinson McConnell (mother)
Lillian Gish (sister)
Early life[edit]
Dorothy Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. She had an older 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.[2] 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.[2] In 1902, at the age of four, Dorothy made her stage debut portraying the character "Little Willie" in East Lynne, an adaptation of the 1861 English novel by Ellen Wood.[3]
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, Oklahoma, 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. Soon afterward, their childhood friend, actress Mary Pickford, introduced the sisters to director D. W. Griffith, and they began performing as extras at the Biograph Studios in New York at salaries of 50 dollars a week.[4] During his initial work with the sisters, Griffith found it difficult to distinguish one from the other, so he had Lillian wear a blue ribbon in her hair and Dorothy a red one.[5] 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.[4]
Death and legacy[edit]
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.[20] Her sister Lillian, who was filming in Rome, was at her bedside.[4][20] The New York Times reported the day after her death that the United States consulate in Genoa was making arrangements to cremate "Miss Gish's body" for return to the United States.[4] The ashes were later entombed in Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City in the columbarium in the undercroft of the church. Lillian, who died in 1993, was interred beside her.
In recognition of her contributions to the motion picture industry, in 1960 Dorothy Gish was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The (since renamed) Gish Film Theatre and Gallery of Bowling Green State University's Department of Theatre and Film was named for Lillian and Dorothy Gish and was dedicated on that campus in 1976.[21][22]
Notes
Bibliography
See also