The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me

By Lillian Gish w/ Ann Pinchot
 
This colorful, moving memoir is more than the story of one of the greatest stars of all time; here, for the first time, Lillian Gish takes us through the history of the moving picture industry itself. Beginning with her life as a child actress at the turn of the century, Miss Gish portrays her long years as a silent film star, her first experience in sound films, her successful return to the theater after years in movies, and her later television appearances. The story of Lillian Gish is inseparable from the history of movies in America: from the early days, when the pioneers of the industry worked long hours through hardship and cold, public criticism, the horrors of war, and the poverty of the Depression, united by their common vision of the greatness that was to be. Through warm remembrances Miss Gish gives us insights into the people and events that shaped the development of modern films. Here are glimpses of the giants of film and theater: Pickford, Valentino, von Stroheim, Garbo, Coward, Gielgud, and many others. She brings to life the courageous and innovative David Wark Griffith, the father of film art, whose consuming passion was to create new and better ways to tell a story on celluloid. A long-time member of his company and his lifetime friend, Miss Gish separates the man from the legend. Hard-working, perfectionistic, striving always to reach new heights, he was also tender, generous, sensitive, and hopelessly impractical with money. Lillian Gish's account of the Griffith years gives us an intensely human view of a great man, as well as the inside story of the making of such early film classics as The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm. Here is a monument to the golden days and to those who made them memorable. Enhanced by photographs of Miss Gish in many of her most famous roles, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me is a tribute to a great actress and a great lady. It is also a tribute to a man, an industry, and an era.