Lillian Gish

American actress, born in 1893. A pioneer of screen acting, she began with D.W. Griffith in the early 1910s and starred in The Birth of a Nation (1915), Broken Blossoms (1919), and Way Down East (1920). Her naturalistic, emotionally precise performances set a new standard for the medium. At MGM she fought to make The Scarlet Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928). She worked in film and television across seven decades, returning to the screen in The Whales of August (1987). She died in 1993.