Scope and Content Note
The papers of Lillian Diana Gish (1893-1993) span the years 1829-1978 with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1969. They are arranged into the following series: General Correspondence ; Subject File ; Speech, Article, and Drama File ; Miscellany ; Additions ; and Artifacts .
Lillian Gish was a silent film star whose acting career on stage, in motion pictures, and on television spanned more that eighty years. The bulk of the Gish Papers consists of scripts of plays, movie and television scenarios, and synopses of silent films that are part of the Speech, Article, and Drama File , but the majority of these are works in which Gish did not perform. However, there are scripts, a few of which are annotated, of productions in which she did appear, including the plays All the Way Home, Anya, I Never Sang for My Father, Nine Pine Street, Portrait of a Madonna, The Star-Wagon, and Uncle Vanya; the movie The Night of the Hunter; and the television production of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Included in the Subject File are papers pertaining to Gish's involvement with groups and organizations such as the America First Committee and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Miscellany includes financial papers, interviews, printed matter about Gish that includes material about her younger sister, the actress Dorothy Gish, scrapbook pages featuring printed portraits of Gish in the silent film era, as well as a holograph testimonial written by the author Eugene O'Neill to his wife Carlotta.
An Additions series is comprised of material added to the papers after 1980. Addition I consists of correspondence and legal papers involving lawsuits brought against Gish by producer Charles Duell in the 1920s. Addition II is a typed letter signed by Gish in which she provides answers to two questions about actors and acting.