1898-1968
Dorothy Gish--"the other Gish sister"--always "Lillian's little sister," was born on this day in Dayton, Ohio. She was her sister's junior by five years. Their mother is pretty well known in film history at this point for having made a success out of a candy business that she started after their father abandoned the family completely. Mary Gish, who had been a stage actress herself, made the bold decision to move her family all the way to East St. Louis to do this. Lillian is known to have helped sell concessions at the local theater that her mother produced. Dorothy is said to have made her stage debut there at the age of just four. Lillian's childhood life was much more unsettled due to her elder age than was Dorothy's, but it was also due to Lillian and her friendship with Gladys Marie Smith, better known as Mary Pickford, that she had an acting career in films at all. She was pulled into her sister's acting world after Smith/Pickford recommended Lillian try out for Biograph and D.W. Griffith took notice. The pair made their film debut in the same film: An Unseen Enemy (now one of Griffith's most well known shorts). The pair play older and younger sisters, as they were in life. That same year they appeared in one of their friend's films also directed by Griffith; So Near, Yet So Far starred Mary Pickford and the Gishes played her character's friends; again, precisely what they were in actual life. Her first appearance in a film sans her sister Lillian was also in a Mary Pickford picture: The Informer (November 1912). Though she was directed at Biograph by Griffith protege's--especially Dell Henderson--it was principally Griffith who directed her at the beginning of her career. And it was Griffith who directed her in her first feature Judith of Bethulia in 1914, where she had a minor role compared to her sister. Griffith susequently had a very public "break up" with Biograph and moved to Mutual forming his own company Majestic (later changed to Fine Arts/Triangle Distribution) under it's umbrella. He took his "stable" of actors and directors with him and that included the Gish sisters. Not long after the move, they both had roles in the feature Home, Sweet Home co-written and directed by Griffith. Other than that, her career continued to be dominated by roles in short films until the middle of 1915. One of those shorts bears mentioning for a nearly tragic reason. In late November of 1914, she was out with her sister in Los Angeles, when she was struck and drug a good ways by a speeding car. The accident nearly killed her. She was in the middle of filming How Hazel Got Even, and her need for serious recuperation delayed the release of the short by months. By mid-1915, she was well enough to resume acting and even began to have roles in 5 and 6 reelers. Her first foray into acting outside the confines of Griffith's direction came in the romantic 5-reeler Old Heidelberg (November 1915), where she took the female lead opposite Wallace Reid; the film was directed by John Emerson who was working at Triangle at the time. She was next cast in the lead in Jordan Is A Hard Road, directed by Alan Dwan, who took a liking to her acting. He next cast her in Betty of Greystone, released in February of 1916; she was top of the bill and on all the promotional materials. She had arrived in her own right; no longer in the shadow of her older sister, she was also done with acting in two-reelers (she did appear in the rather famous "home movie" Camille in 1926, her only other short). The directors that she worked with during this time included Paul Powell, George Siegmann, Joseph Henabery, Edward Morrissey, and the Franklin brothers. One of her more well known films from the period was Gretchen the Greenhorn (September 1916) directed by Chester and Sidney Franklin. In 1918 she again found herself under Griffith's direction, and starring with her sister, in his war epic Hearts of the World; though the Gish sisters were together again, it is generally agreed that between the two, Dorothy stole the show. She was immediately cast in another World War I film The Hun Within, this time outside of Griffith's studio world, this film was distributed by Famous Players-Lasky and directed by Chester Withey. Dorothy then became a hugely big star of comedies, having found her niche--she was a large box office draw; and though her 'comic career' began in earnest in 1918, she had previously acted in Little Meena's Romance (1916) and Her Official Fathers (1917). She also became a favorite actor of director Elmer Clifton. An interesting stand out comedy film of hers during this time is Remodeling Her Husband, in which she was directed by her own sister in 1920. This also marked her return to Griffith's New Art studio, where she continued to star in comedy features. In 1921 she also returned to acting beside her sister under Griffith's direction for his two and half hour long epic of the French Revolution Orphans of the Storm. Further, in 1922, she started Dorothy Gish productions and actively started directly producing her own films. Her very first release was The Country Flapper (July 1922); it was, of course, a comedy. It was also her company's only release. She then took a break from comedy roles to appear in adventure and drama features for Inspiration Pictures, one of which--Romola--was with her sister Lillian. She returned to comedy in 1925 and to director Alan Dwan, who was by then working for Paramount, the result was the romantic comedy Night Life of New York, shot entirely on location in the Big Apple. She never did appear in a film in the 1920's that had sound, she instead returned to the stage to hone speaking roles. Her last few films of the 1920's were British productions with the drama Madame Pompadour being the last; it was a released in July 1927. Staying in the British film industry, her first entry into the world of talking pictures came in 1930 with Wolves, a crime drama starring Charles Laughton. Not finding this work to her liking, she would not appear in another film until 1944, and in that decade she only made two films; preferring the stage to the screen. She did make her television debut at the end of the decade in The Story of Mary Surratt, an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse which aired on the 9th of February on NBC. In 1951 she appeared with Walter Hampden Spring Again, a third season episode of The Ford Theater a New York based live drama series on CBS. It was the first of four appearances on television that year. After the 1920's, Gish only appeared in five films and it was a film that was her final acting role before the camera. In 1963 she appeared in the top supporting role in Otto Preminger's The Cardinal. Gish had increasingly been in poorer and poorer health and in 1966 she went to a clinic in Genoa, Italy to treat a condition of hardening arteries (she probably had inherited the gene that has been discovered in even ancient populations that causes this in patients younger than 80 to develop the life threatening condition). In 1968 she developed bronchial pneumonia and when it looked dire, her sister (who was shooting a film in Rome) rushed to her bedside. Lillian was there when her sister passed, holding her hand, on the 4th of June. She was cremated and her remains were interred at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, along with the remains of her mother. Lillian joined them in 1993. There were many who actually considered Dorothy a superior actress to her sister. Among them was Linda Arvidson, silent movie star and first wife of D.W. Griffith.
[Source: Neil Funkhouser (Find a Grave)] 
[Source: Sean McKim (Find a Grave)]
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