As she got older she returned to films as a character actor, appearing in several supporting roles in major sound films, most importantly the Cool Old Lady Rachel in The Night of the Hunter. Instead, she did a lot of theater work, appearing in the original cast of Pulitzer Prize-winner All the Way Home and many other stage productions. After her talkie debut One Romantic Night landed with a thud in 1930, she made only one movie over the next twelve years. Her last silent film, The Wind, was one of her best. Thanks to the stunt, Gish's hand would be partially impaired for the rest of her life, but she contributed to what is considered one of the most exciting climaxes in cinema history. She also worked with Griffith many other times, including a small role in the classic Intolerance and main roles in Broken Blossoms, Orphans of the Storm, and perhaps most famously Way Down East, the climax of which required her to lie still on a very real ice floe for hours on end while her hair and right hand were submerged in below-freezing water. Gish starred in the infamous The Birth of a Nation and outright refused to acknowledge that the film was racist, staunchly defending her dear friend and mentor D. (Other actors in the early days of silent film gave, let's say, "larger" performances.) She is also considered to be one of the first actors to really understand the difference between stage and film acting and modify her performances accordingly. Gish was one of the most popular silent screen icons of the 1910s and enjoyed a long career that spanned over 75 years, the longest of any screen legend male or female, making her one of the few actors whose careers were able to survive the transition from silent film to sound. Lillian Diana Gish (Octo February 27, 1993) was a pioneering American silent film actor known for her waif-like, innocent characters and for being a favorite of D.
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