Gish Sisters & Company (1917) 🇺🇸

Trio that means much to Triangle — Lillian and Dorothy Gish and their mother!

by Marjorie Wright

Not only does this one-family constellation of stars mean much to Triangle, but it contributes much toward the perpetuity of the happiness of thousands of photoplay fans throughout filmdom. At the beautiful Ruth St. Denis home in Los Angeles this interesting little family lives the lives of cultured gentlewomen, devoting themselves to their profession and bringing to it the highest artistic endeavor. The result is that the Gish girls, though young in years, have long since become established as prime favorites.

Lillian Gish is more of a student and a dreamer, being given to secluding herself while she thinks out her part and costumes it according to her own lines. She is of a delicate, almost ethereal style of beauty.

Dorothy Gish, the younger, is an outdoors girl, full of life and high spirits, she going in for all outdoor sports in which she excels. Both girls are devoted to their mother, and are her constant companions. To Mrs. Gish is due the credit of the successful artistic careers of her daughters, as she has personally instructed them since they were tiny girls.

It is good to know that that old superstition about only one really brilliant member of a family appearing in the same generation, is not true. Lillian and Dorothy Gish disprove it. Ever since they began work for the Triangle programme, they have been stars of equal magnitude.

One of the most interesting facts about these two sisters, who have won so many admirers throughout the nation, is that off the screen they are precisely like any other sweet American girls untouched by fame.

That, however, is where their resemblance to each other ceases. Temperamentally they are as unlike as any two respectable persons could be.

Lillian is a girl of the old-fashioned kind. She loves sewing and cooking, and can undertake general housekeeping if necessary, which, of course, it never will be. Dorothy is a woman of the future. Joyously impractical, her imagination is just one riot of poetic fancy. Dorothy is at once the delight and distraction of her sweet-faced mother and sister. All three are great chums; and their evenings together, after work at the studio has been completed for the day, are sacred to them. One would no sooner think of breaking into that charmed circle than — than in walking on the grass when the sign says not to.

Dorothy began her dramatic career at the age of four — she is not yet out of her teens — playing little Willie in East Lynne. She often has regretted in late seasons that she made so many persons cry through her portrayal of that famous role. After “=East Lynne, she appeared chiefly in melodrama, but presently she entered a school in Virginia, remaining there five years. Then she was engaged by D. W. Griffith, who took her with him through several motion picture companies to the Triangle programme. She has been seen there in “Old Heidelberg,” “Jordan is a Hard Road,” “Betty of Graystone,” “Little Meena’s Romance” and “Susan Rocks the Boat.”

Lillian Gish, the elder sister, made her debut when only six years old, in a melodrama called “The Little Red Schoolhouse.” She then became a pupil in a Springfield dancing school, and her next engagement was as one of the fairy dancers with Sarah Bernhardt, who then was making one of her American tours. After two seasons with Mme. Bernhardt [Sarah Bernhardt], Lillian went to New York to finish her dancing lessons.

There she renewed her old acquaintance with Mary Pickford and went with her to visit a picture studio. There she was seen by D. W. Griffith, who was attracted by her natural poise and expression, and he placed her under contract at once. Since joining Triangle, she has appeared in “The Lily and the Rose,” “Daphne and the Pirate,” “Sold Marriage” and “An Innocent Magdalene.”

This Miss Gish has two hobbies — collecting rare old books, mainly on ancient history, and playing golf. She is a keen student of literature, and She can discuss in a manner most interesting the masterpieces of all ages. She always arranges her affairs each week so systematically as to permit of a certain number of hours to be devoted exclusively to reading. Needless to add, there are thousands of fine volumes in her library, and she prizes every one of them to the highest degree.

She plays the piano delightfully and displays enough aptitude to make one wonder why she has never thought of achieving fame as a pianist. However, her sole idea in playing the piano is to add credibly to the entertainment in her own family circle.

Meanwhile Dorothy Gish has hobbies too. She loves motoring and drives her own car dexterously, and ‘tis said often precariously in her zeal to have excitement. She is likewise an expert horsewoman, and she is ruled by an extreme kindness towards all dumb animals. When it comes to aquatic sports, she is immensely capable and she can stand a good endurance test in swimming at any time.

“We love our mother and our art, and we never worry,” Dorothy says. “I am sure as long as anyone remains in this sort of attitude happiness will be a permanent consort.”

“And I think the motion picture has been the cause of our greatest joy in life just as it has served the same purpose with thousands of other people,” Lillian supplements.

“My girls believe in rather a close corporation so far as family life is concerned, but they do derive unlimited pleasure from the realization that they are helping to lighten the burdens of humanity by their artistry on the screen,” Mrs, Gish chimes in pleasantly.

Needless to add, there are thousands of ardent photoplay fans who swear by the Gish sisters, and they will all no doubt be glad to learn that mother counts for so much. Indeed, mankind always likes to have mother exert her potential and beneficial influence over the affairs of mankind. It is all in accordance with our most exalted ideals. Finally, the future of the Gish sisters is replete with possibilities of greater accomplishments than their noteworthy past has brought and throughout their careers — while you are watching their delightful performances on the screen — just always remember that everything they do, both professionally and in private life, is more under the direction of their mother than under any picture director.

“To mother we owe everything, and her instruction is the supreme court with us,” Dorothy explains.

“And if either of us do good work in portraying characters, please give the full credit to mother,” Lillian adds.

All hail the successful firm of Gish Sisters & Company!

And, remember, photoplay fans, while you are watching these girls perform on the screen, you are seeing the results of a mother’s set ambition.

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Dorothy and Lillian Gish as they are today

A Gish as a newsboy

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Dorothy age eight, and Lillian age nine

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William H. Clifford — The Author’s Day in Motion Picture Production

A striking example of how the author is coming into his own in the motion picture business is the experience of William H. Clifford, one of the most successful of the dramatic writers who has turned to writing for the screen. Clifford, who has been known throughout the theatrical world as the King of the Sketch Writers, now occupies the unique position in the photoplay field of the first author to work under an arrangement whereby he shares equally with the star of the company in the profits from production. “This is the author’s day,” declares Clifford, “and my present arrangement is only the forerunner of many other examples of motion picture making in which the author will receive his just share of the profits.”

Clifford began writing for the screen when authors were being paid only twenty-five dollars for scripts. He was the first of the screen dramatists ever to receive as much as five hundred dollars for a single screen story. When he left the Famous Players to take up his present work — that of writing and supervising the direction of the Shorty Hamilton pictures for the Mutual program — he seemed, to his friends in the business, to be taking what they termed an “awful chance.”

But Clifford, realizing the possibilities for the screen author in an arrangement whereby the author held an interest in the company, willingly took up the work, and declares that the profits which will come to him through the undertaking will outmeasure by far those which he earned while writing stories for a fixed price.

“We are only seeing the beginning,” says Clifford, “of the high prices which will be paid to writers for the screen. The time is coming when the stars and the directors will not be the only ones to be paid a large share of the profits accruing from the making of pictures.

“Directors must be relegated to second place, and the butchering of scenarios must cease. When competent authors are engaged in the building of photoplays, they can write their stories with detailed direction, and if the director who handles the pictures deviates from the script to follow his own ideas, gathered perhaps when he was clerking in a store or running a restaurant or shifting scenery, that director should be fired. I do not mean to intimate that most directors are incompetent, but merely that the author knows better than anyone else what should be included in the story.”

Collection: Photoplay Magazine, May 1917
(The Photo-Play Journal for May, 1917)