(1893–1993)
a US actor in silent and sound films, and on the stage. She was small and delicate, but her acting career lasted for nearly 90 years. She and her sister Dorothy Gish (1898–1968) were favourite actors of D W Griffith , and Lillian became internationally famous in his Birth of a Nation (1915). Her ‘talkies’ (= films with sound) included Night of the Hunter (1955) and her last, The Whales of August (1987). She received a special Oscar in 1971.