Biografia

She was taught how to shoot by notorious western outlaw Al J. Jennings, who was in one of her early films (after having served a long term in prison for train robbery). When John Huston and Burt Lancaster took her to the desert to teach her how to shoot for O Passado Não Perdoa (1960), they were astounded to discover she could shoot more accurately and faster than they did. She found that she liked shooting, and over the years had developed into an expert shot.

Left her entire estate, which was valued at several million dollars, to Helen Hayes. Hayes died 18 days after Gish.

She and Mary Pickford were childhood friends, but Mary tried to never be left alone with Lillian--remembering her mother's superstitious belief that "the good die young", Mary was in constant fear that Lillian would drop dead at any moment.

After her amicable parting with D.W. Griffith she joined MGM in 1925, but was unceremoniously dumped when Greta Garbo emerged as a star. Considered a "sexless antique", she turned to radio and her first love, the theater. Ironically, MGM had Garbo on the set of A Letra Escarlate (1926) every day to watch Gish work as part of her apprenticeship.

She maintained a very close relationship with her sister Dorothy Gish, as well as with Mary Pickford, for her entire life. She never married or had children.

Lionel Barrymore first played my grandfather, later my father, and finally, he played my husband. If he'd lived, I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older.

I never approved of talkies. Silent movies were well on their way to developing an entirely new art form. It was not just pantomine, but something wonderfully expressive.

Fans always write asking why I didn't smile more in films. I smiled in Annie Laurie (1927), but I can't recall that it helped much.

Those little virgins, after five minutes you got sick of playing them--to make them more interesting was hard work.

[1919] Marriage is a business. A woman cannot combine a career and marriage . . . I should not wish to unite the two.