Dorothy Gish

Movie Actress

Dorothy Gish was born in Massillon, Ohio, United States on March 11th, 1898 and is the Movie Actress. At the age of 70, Dorothy Gish biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Other Names / Nick Names
Dorothy Elizabeth Gish
Date of Birth
March 11, 1898
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Massillon, Ohio, United States
Death Date
Jun 4, 1968 (age 70)
Zodiac Sign
Pisces
Profession
Film Actor, Stage Actor
Dorothy Gish Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 70 years old, Dorothy Gish has this physical status:

Height
157cm
Weight
Not Available
Hair Color
Blonde
Eye Color
Blue
Build
Slim
Measurements
Not Available
Dorothy Gish Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Roman Catholic
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Not Available
Dorothy Gish Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
James Rennie, ​ ​(m. 1920; div. 1935)​
Children
Not Available
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Mary Robinson McConnell, James Leigh Gish
Siblings
Lillian Gish
Dorothy Gish Life

Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (born March 11, 1898 – June 4, 1968) was an American actress of film and stage, as well as a producer and writer.

Dorothy and her older sister Lillian Gish were major movie stars of the silent era.

Dorothy was also a natural performer on the stage and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Dorothy Gish was regarded as a fine performer, and many of her films were comedies.

Early life

Dorothy Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. Lillian, her older sister, was a member of the Lillian. Mary Robinson McConnell Gish, the Gish brothers' mother, helped the family after her husband James Leigh Gish, a traveling salesman, left the family in New York. Mary Gish, "a former actor and department store clerk," and her children followed her daughter to East St. Louis, Illinois, where she opened a candy and catering company. Dorothy made her stage debut in East Lynne, an American interpretation of Ellen Wood's 1861 English novel "Little Willie" on her first appearance.

Mary learned that James was sick from her husband's brother, Grant Gish, who lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma, who told her that he was ill. Since he was in a hospital in nearby Norman, Oklahoma, Mary sent 17-year-old Lillian to visit him. Lillian wrote to her 12-year-old sister Dorothy that she wanted to stay in Oklahoma and continue her education, but after seeing her father, she confessed to her mother and sister. So, she returned to them a few months ago in 1912. The sisters were introduced to director D. W. Griffith shortly afterward, and they began to appear as extras at the Biograph Studios in New York at a salary of 50 dollars a week. Griffith found it impossible to tell one from the others during his first time with the sisters, so he had Lillian wear a blue ribbon in her hair and Dorothy a red one. The girls, especially Lillian, impressed the filmmaker, so he included them in the entourage of cast and crew that travelled to California to film films there.

Personal life

Dorothy Gish married only once, to James Malachi Rennie (1890–1965), a Canadian-born actress who co-starred with her in two films in 1920: Remodeling Her Husband, directed by sister Lillian, and in the comedy Flying Pat. The couple married in Greenwich, Connecticut, in December 1920, where they wed in a double ceremony in which Gish's compatriot, actress Constance Talmadge, also married Greek businessman John Pialoglou. They were married to Gish and Rennie until their divorce in 1935. Dorothy never married again.

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Dorothy Gish Career

Career

Dorothy and her sister appeared in An Unseen Enemy, Griffith's 1912 film. She would appear in over 100 short films and television series, many with Lillian. Dorothy had to contend with regular comparisons to her elder or "big" sister by film critics, fellow actors, studio executives, and other motion picture insiders throughout her career. And from the outset of the sisters' work for Biograph, such comparisons were made. In her autobiography When the Movies Were Young: Griffith's first wife, Linda Arvidson, recalls their first time in the studio.

Dorothy Gish's budding film career came to an end on a street in Los Angeles the day after Thanksgiving in 1914. The 16-year-old actress was struck and almost killed by a "racing motorcycle" on Friday, November 26. Newspapers and film-industry journals at the time announced the case and chronicled Gish's injuries. Dorothy was walking with Lillian at the intersection of Vermont and Prospect avenues when they collided. According to news, the car dragged her along the road for 40 to 50 feet. Dorothy was struck by other movie workers on a nearby sidewalk, including D. W. Griffith. The Los Angeles Times informed its readers of the fire the following day:

Other pedestrians on the scene were also described in subsequent news articles. Dorothy's "horrified relatives" rushed to her assistance, according to the Chicago Sun Tribune and trade papers, with Griffith being among those who climbed the unconscious teenager into an ambulance and then riding her in the emergency vehicle. The Chicago newspaper and Motion Picture News announced that she was taken to the hospital after her doctor appeared by the Los Angeles Times described her "very badly torn" left side with "many stitches" and treated the area where one of her toes had been "cut off," presumably a toe from her badly injured right foot. At the time of the shooting, Gish was conning a two-reel romantic comedy with actor W. E. Lawrence. Due to director Donald Crisp's bout with pneumonia, the film, How Hazel Got Evening, had already been postponed once at Reliance-Majestic Studios. The short was postponed once more, for more than a month, until Gish recovered. How Hazel Got Even was not intended for release on December 27, 1914, but it wasn't until mid-February 1915 that it was not available in theaters.

After recovering from the 1914 disaster, actress Gish resumed her screen career the following year, appearing in a number of two- and three-reel shorts as well as in longer, more complicated films such as the five-reel productions Old Heidelberg, directed by John Emerson, and Jordan Is a Hard Road, as the fifth director of D.W. Griffith's. Dorothy's appeal to both producers and viewers continued to grow in 1915, leading W. E. Keefe's column in the June issue of Motion Picture Magazine to honor her as "one of the most well-known film stars on the Motion Picture screen." In an essay about Gish in the quoted topic, Keefe acknowledges that Dorothy, career-wise, was finally emerging from her sister's shadow:

Dorothy continued to develop her acting experience by appearing in a number of five-reelers for Fine Arts Film Company or "Griffith's Studio," a Triangle Film Corporation subsidiary. Her filming in those years demanded filming on locations in New York and west coast.

Dorothy found her first cinematic foothold in comedy in the 1918 film Hearts of the World, a film about World War I and France's devastation, a personal hit in a role that captured the essence of her sense of humor. Her role as the "little disturber," a street performer, was the film's focal point, and her characterization on screen led her to a career as a comedian.

Dorothy did not appear in any of Griffith's earliest epics, but while she spent months researching The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Dorothy was included in many feature-length films made under the banner of Triangle and Mutual releases. They were directed by young Griffith employees such as Donald Crisp, James Kirkwood, and Christy Cabanne. Elmer Clifton produced a string of seven Paraphrasedoutput comedies with Dorothy that were so popular and well-received that they aided in paying the bill for Griffith's expensive epics. Both the general public and commentators were raving about these films. While her sister appeared in tragic roles, she specialized in pantomime and light comedy. Dorothy made a name for herself in this long line of Griffith-supervised films for the Triangle-Fine Arts and Paramount companies from 1918 to 1920, comedies that placed her in the front ranks of film comedians. Almost all of these films are now considered lost films.

"And so I Am a Comedienne" was an article published in the Ladies Home Journal in July 1925, giving Dorothy a chance to re-invent her public image: "And so I am a comedienne, even though I do long for noble and tragic activities." My main objection to playing comedy is that the audiences are so often misunderstood it, both in the theater and in the picture houses. It is so often thought to be a lesser art and something that comes naturally, such as some haphazard skills in some cut-up that is so often described as "the life of the party." Comedy is not limited to the lack of studied effect and performance, but it is not considered an art in the eyes of so many people, but not so much.

Nell Gwynn, an English actress, made a film that became three more films. Gish made £41,000 for these films.

Dorothy Wolves, the British crime drama, was converted to talking pictures when the film industry transitioned to talking pictures in 1930. She appeared in Young Love and her work with director George Cukor in 1928 and 1929, reviving her interest in stagecraft and in the immediacy of performing live again. In performances on the road in New York and elsewhere in a London production, the light comedy had proved to be very popular with critics and audiences in New York. Those triumphs led her to take a break from film-making.

Both Dorothy and Lillian Gish played the role of a lifetime in 1939. In her autobiography, "Dorothy and I went to see Life with Father, starring Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney." "This is the play we've been waiting for to see in America," Lillian said after the performance. Hundreds of people included Mary Pickford, Dorothy, and herself were left in the hundreds of films. She was introduced to Lindsay backstage and delighted the producers with her ardent desire to lead the first company to go on the road, with Dorothy taking the same role for the second road company and Mary Pickford's film rights. Pickford did not make the film version, but the Gish sisters took the two road companies on extensive tours. The Magnificent Yankee, which appeared on Broadway at the Royale Theatre in the first half of 1946, was another stage success in Gish's career. In her pictorial book Dorothy and Lillian Gish repeats John Chapman's remark about her sister's role in the film: "Miss [Dorothy] Gish and Mr. Calhern give the finest performances I've ever seen. "She is a delight and a darling."

Many stage and film actors had the opportunity to appear in plays that were broadcast live on television in the 1950s. Dorothy descended on the new medium, appearing on NBC's Lux Video Theatre on the evening of November 24, 1955 in a miss Susie Slagle's production. In Paramount Pictures' 1945 film version, she and Lillian had previously appeared together on film.

"She didn't know what she really wanted to do," her sister, Lillian, wrote in her autobiography. "She had always had trouble making decisions and taking responsibility, in some ways she hadn't grown up." We loved indulging her in this witty and enchanting child. First Mother and I spoiled her and later Reba, her companion, and her husband Jim. Dorothy was called 'Baby,' by Reba and Jim. We all helped keep her daughter a child, with the best intentions in the world.

She appeared in five other films, including Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), which was a hit for Paraphrasedoutput. Dorothy was cast in Otto Preminger's 1946 film Centennial Summer, and Mae Marsh appears in the film in one of her many bit roles. Dorothy portrays the widow of a mill owner in The Whistle at Eaton Falls, a film noir drama film directed by Louis de Rochemont. She also appeared in anthology television series several times during this period. In 1963, she appeared in another Otto Preminger film, The Cardinal, in which she played the mother of the title character.

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