Kaleidoscope; "2251 Days (3 of 3) / Kaleidoscope with James Day, Guest: Lillian Gish"

I don't know. Come on everybody tells me for God's sake for coming on so strong. Six years of imprisonment and isolation is showing that you're coming out of here right now. Right. A little sad but I think it symbolizes a new beginning and a new beginning to our to our marriage. After having been through a trial separation and having survived and come back together again and starting again in a symbolic way of saying the vows again of commitment to each other which we've had. We don't have to say but

I think it's a nice way of beginning and your years will be together forever. The relationship really implies has to imply a new beginning. Relationships human relationships are never static. And so I think love has to be set out gestures and a continuous now. That's for me. So you're not doing something here tonight that it's all artificial but something is terribly important. Maybe in a sense in a strange way even blessed with a chance to do this and you must love your family as you love yourself and stick together because that is the basis for better work that society is the family unit. As far as I'm concerned you must contribute your family so that you will find your greatest happiness in doing something for other people. You must be a contributor not a taker.

You have to be a giver and in being a giver you'll find your greatest happiness. Sometimes in our own civilization it seems to be the masculine role mainly to give in the feminine to receive. I'm not at all sure but we're seeing a shift in this very necessary one into reciprocity on both sides that this is a good thing. Porton Alice before this community I offer myself and I am to you I will be your husband. I will love you and cherish your love as long as I live. Take this ring and wear it always. It's a sign of our bond. I offer myself to you. I will be your wife forever and I love you and cherish your love as long as I live. Take this ring and wear it as a reminder every new

beginning made the sacrifices and lessons of our many years of separation. We added to the bond of our love. The strength of. Richard and what God has rejoined men must not divine. Alice has kept me alive with the boys you can see it all around the house. This wedding cake has a been a project that the boys have thought of and have determined that we should be in fact remarried when we come home whether we want it or not. The boys have gone down and selected if you believe in a chocolate wedding cake. He's had engraved in the rings of the days of his captivity and in the name of the prison camp he was in whoa and he's going to wear that ring once a year to remind him of where he's been and he's also going to ask me to put it on the dresser for him to wear in the morning that he forgets he gets tied up in trivia and on important things as a reminder. I have learned lessons from this experience I have been forced to be and not depended on him any longer and so have

become independent in a in a healthier way so that now the relationship can be even stronger bases of independent independent two people together and I know for him it certainly has made a significant contribution he says if you've been to the bottom there's no place else to go but up is or as he says there are no there are no bad days in the USA. It when you were at your press conference somebody asked the ones what the war was all about. You said half to six months later. Have you got a handle on yet. Well the only thing I have a handle on is a verbalisation of what I think my war was about. More and more I am convinced that indeed my war was well founded and that was to give the South Vietnamese an opportunity to stand on their own two feet. And I still feel more than ever right now that we have done everything that I as an individual or that we as a nation to be called upon to do to give them an opportunity now they must do

something themselves. Someone asked him Do you feel now like it was it never happened and he said absolutely not he remembers you know all too well. But in a way for me having him back has kind of erased all that I remember it but I don't feel it anymore. You know now he's here and we it's and it's great. Sick and tired of being a professional p o w no one takes you because you are Richard Stratton or that you have certain thoughts but you have certain friends that you have certain family. I'm glad you have seen the love you get that you know that you have something to contribute. With. The uh. Uh. Uh uh. Uh. Uh. I hate. When am.

I and. I am. On. A hill. I am. To him. I am. The.

Instructors decided to go out to El Stratton recently ran for the school board demoted to the rank of Commander Richard Stratton is assigned to Lockheed aircraft supervising naval personnel. For the stress. It's every day is still a good day in the US A. The proceeding program was made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Oh no you're. Right. The career of Lily and geisha embraces the entire spectrum of the American theater. The

stage the screen goes silent and talking and television a tribute to her skill her versatility and her ability to move with the times and with the medium. Lee and her sister Dorothy who is two years her junior were born into the family of a salesman father and actress mother near poverty and a broken home induced marriage to go into acting and reluctantly dooper met her two daughters to do likewise made her stage to deal at the age of five in a travelling company playing in convict stripes. She learned her trade by doing it. Years of travelling and stage shows led to silent films and to the highly successful association with the greatest director of his time. David worked Griffith among the many films I made together was the historic birth of a nation. Where the advent of talking pictures misgives return to the stage in such classics as Uncle Vanya Camille Hamlet and more recently life with father

but returned later to do such movies as duel in the sun and the comedians and has appeared as well on such television vehicles as the recent costarring role with Helen Hayes in in Arsenic and Old Lace. When I was she's found time in a past 12 years to write it all down in a new and colorful book. Lillian Gish the movie's Mr Griffiths and me and investigation the closing sentences. And this book which is essentially an autobiography you say once I read that in order to do something one must be somebody and there and I suspect the lie is the secret of a happy life. What is being somebody to you what has it meant to be somebody. I think that came from George Jean Nathan who said that enough is no better on the stage in a character than he was as a person. I think that gave birth to whatever.

I quoted it has there been a relationship historically in the kind of person you are in the roles you play. I don't know about me but I think with other people I've noticed that the fine actors and actresses I've known in my life are rather remarkable men and women intelligent dedicated and highly disciplined. Now your let me return to you at a very early age in relationship to the discipline. As I indicated in the in the introduction your career as an actress began if not accidentally it began out of necessity at any rate did it not. Indeed it did. At the age of five and my sister a year younger the age of 4 we both started out in different companies at the same time. My mother was playing in Proctor stock company in New York and then the next year the three of us managed to get an engagement together.

It wasn't often that you worked together though even though both you and your sister were very very young. Well it was difficult. To get a playbook that needed two children the first one we were together in was her first step. And we traveled with two lions and I was in the third act thrown into the lion's den. Teddy and Jenny of course we like them after matinees we would. Stay on stage and feed them and the audience would watch. But during the play and when I was thrown into the den many women would faint because they were real lions from the circus. But you tell in your book that you were separated from the Lions by Weaver but they could see it and know it and couldn't be say no. And the year after the play closed the Lions went back to the circus and Jenny tore the arm off her trainer. So they were normal Alliance which is you know in captivity in little cages become

insane. I'm sure they wouldn't be that vicious roaming out in the open. You recall your first stage role at the age of five you do write about it in the book. Yes I don't know if I recall it or if I've been told it. How can you know tell the age of five it would be difficult to day. I do remember that. I was told the leading man was Walter Houston and I took her some I have to know that that's John Houston's father one day. Yes I took curtain calls sitting on my shoulder much too young to appreciate the privilege and it was in that play as I recall where you were frightened by an unexpected happening. The climax of that play. The child was put into a stone quarry just before an explosion and the villain did this to have revenge on the heroine that he was in love with. And I used to hide behind a rock and there was a dummy made up to look exactly

like me and the hero sees the problem and swings from the top of the stone pouring down grabs the dummy and swings to safety on the other side. Will this enormous explosion didn't happen in rehearsal somebody went boom. And that's what I thought it would be and the night we were in front of an audience this enormous noise and I went one way and the dummy went the other and we were a big hit. We took 20 more curtain calls doing it improperly than we ever did when it really was right. What was it like as a youngster being on the stage it isn't. It couldn't have been as romantic as it may sound today you the conditions were rather primitive Were they not you would certainly want someone who graduated one from a Dramatic Academy and at the age of 500 aspire to a stage career. No this was child labor. Oh we didn't think so. We probably were underprivileged children but we didn't know it. We thought we were very

lucky. Those poor little stayed in one time and had to go to school every day. What a dull life they seem to have to us. Oh no we were privileged. We got our history lessons on the spot. At. Up in New England when the Pilgrims came over to Plymouth Rock down in villa at Valley Forge or get to go or in the Deep South. The history of the War Between the States and in the factories any town that when we were in Detroit we would see how automobiles remained. It's a beautiful way to educate a child who did the teaching mother when she was with you. Yes but sometimes your mother wasn't with him. We had a whole company that took us as their child. Stage people are very generous and dear people. And. If a child is well behaved like an animal it's well-behaved they're very welcome. It's only when they have bad manners people don't want them around.

Wasn't there a homesickness at that early age to be separated from your sister and your mother when you were. Oh I suppose but you didn't have time to be homesick very long you were too busy. Going to a new town every day finding a place to stay. Getting your clothes packed and unpacked. Getting made up being on time. Catching trains all the weather snow rain floods. Was there some point early on when you knew this was the career this was going to be had. No. I just always it always happened to me. Luckily mother was always worried that we didn't have the talent that perhaps we were in the wrong place. Now I can say it takes the three T's taste talent and temerity you can get along with too but it's better to have all three. KC was your mother an actress only. For as long as she had to be. Not through any desire of her own and that's my mother and father their wedding

picture. You can see many people say a mother looks like Jacqueline Kennedy just on a city that loves him. Now mother came to this country in 16 30 to her people. They were from England and my father's people came in 1730 surgery and settled in Lancaster County their Pennsylvania Dutch I think. I picked very good ancestors. Yes and you do say in your book that your father who was never able to provide adequately for the family and ultimately deserted your mother that his background gave you a sense of insecurity and the sense of insecurity made the security your mother gave you all the more valuable other words you cherish that sense of insecurity. Yes but it wasn't his background that was a fine background he did that he was too young probably diversionary didn't have responsibilities and he didn't take them and that was my good fortune. I was put out into the world very early and learned

how to be self-sufficient learned what it was like to make a living and as a result have had a very happy life. All children should have to earn their pleasures and earn what they get weird. We give our children too much for happiness. So this insecurity means that to you it is given. I think it's a fine thing. At what point did you enter the movie. The films the swings were not very well respected at this point. No but we got to an age when we were all arms and legs and the ladies then were not very tall and they wanted small tiny children and we weren't old enough to be what they called so brats or as the news and the films had such bad photography. Sometimes like television here you know an old hag of 18 respect say she had to be a character woman so they their heroines range from 12 to 17 and how old were you at this point.

We were 12 when we made the transition and the transition came about by a very curious coincidence with someone you had known on the stage as Gladys Gladys Smith. Yes you tell us that story. Well. We saw her in a film. Even as children we were a little snobbish. We wouldn't give our nickel to a theater the didn't have a D outside meaning an American Biograph film inside and without knowing it we were picking Mr Gryphus films. Even then as most of America was doing in Nickelodeon. Yes he had made. Until we met him we had made four or five hundred films and in one of these we saw blackness. We thought what has happened to that family they must do this for a living. And the next time we were in New York we looked in the telephone book found where they were went down to see where were the American crew on 14th Street in New York and we asked for Gladys Smith they said no such person worked there and we said oh yes we had seen her and Lena and the geese. Oh

you mean that from there eight and down came Gladys and she said but my name is Mary Pickford now. Mr Bill Lasko had changed it in a place she was in and she was in the film is doing very well making a big salary and all the family working then. And we've just agreed that there is Mary. With the. That was the beginning of the United Artists. Mary Pickford Charlie Chaplin Mr Griffith on the left and his attorney on his left. And over here on the right Douglas Fairbanks just coming into view there. And that was some years later of course. That was 19 18 I think when they formed United Artists because the businessmen were not allowing them to have their independence they were dictating to them what kind of films they should make and they'd banded together and formed their own distributing company. That was Mary Pickford who on that day of your visit to the studio. On 14th

Street in New York introduced you to David work with us. Now in the beginning I said your book was essentially an autobiography. It is but it's also a biography of D.W. Griffith's there's almost more of him in there the nervous Nellie and gay. I hope so. Why. Because I that's what I started out to do with this man is the father of films and by films I mean this medium television is first cousin. Development aside thing from films and maybe it will become the way films will be produced for the world. Who knows what the future is but it's. It all stems from this one then evolving the technique the grama the punctuation of telling a story on cellulite. He did his first talking picture there he is in 1921 he produced a talking picture but soon discarded it because he said seven or eight percent of the world's only speak English.

I played to 100 percent of the world. Why should I commit suicide and reduce my audience just such a small percentage. Knowing so little as I do about the history of films I was startled to discover that among the innovation he brought into filmmaking was something so many things we take for granted today. For example the close up of a person and how they use it. You know they objected they said you can't cut his head off. You kind of cut him into it but you have to see the entire body of the actor. So he had to battle for everything you you but you battle you fight for. But he was proven right in every case. And all the others watched and waited. We were all sworn to secrecy when we rehearsed because we rehearsed these films weeks and sometimes months and there were spies up to know what Mr. Griffith was up to because they would try to do the same thing and get it out ahead of him you know. Even he

had such a wide range of subject matter. Sometimes it was this morning's paper. And another time it was last century history books. He roamed and another time it was poetry like the sands of Dee. In those days all films came in a single reel. What was it like to work in these when readers with Mr. Warrick with Mr. Griffith directing. Very much as it was later on when it was longer the only difference was you spent more time in those days you only took a scene once it was like you were in it was a rehearsal. Oh weeks of rehearsal. You knew exactly what you were doing every minute there was no improvisation where the camera was going. It had been thought out and worked out well but you remember a film on television. Yeah Fred and his drama that was similar because you had one chance to do it only that was consecutive sometimes in

the films we would start the film with the last scene or in the middle and jump around. So it was really easier in live television. How did he as a director bring out the performances from you who had never worked in film. We had to find the boy. We had no place to go to learn this new technique of this new art and children are very receptive and open and imaginative too. If you're lucky enough to have the dramatic imagination and most actors have that and most of his people came from the theater. Even the children. And. Out of that evolved he took the advice of everyone people on the set the electricians the carpenters the cameramen there were part of us in that and then we had our own laboratory right across from my dressing room. I could go in and watch the film being developed and printed and then we would call the man that was handing that in for some of the

scenes. We would light each scene for the mood of the scene. We painted the faces with the light. And I always thought of myself as an artist painting a picture. But it was a moving picture and this was all I had to work with I didn't have canvas oils or brushes. I had to stay within the framework of what I looked like. What is this picture of that picture taken of me early by one of my best friends who is now rather a famous photographer called Nail dog. Maybe use seeing her book mother and child are the bare feet to her last one was of night and day. Why was the birth of the Nation such a great film. We all grew up knowing the birth of the nation was the great early film. Why was it the Great. It was born I suppose on the breath of life and heart. His

father was a colonel. GRIFFITH I think. Was born quite a long time after the Civil War ended but he grew up listening to the history of this. He was a Kentucky and as I recall yes Lewisville Louisville and his father was in the Confederate army. Yeah always maintained that only the winning side never gets to tell its story. But he took great care with documentation and historians and with the births to make it authentic. I don't think anyone has ever accused him of distorting history that knew the history. It was a long film for those days. The first 12 real film that was ever made in America there's a scene from it that is them. I suppose you'd say that's the biggest laugh in the birth of a nation. This is a man on the right is a man called William Freeman and he was just watching me play a scene in the hospital. Singing to the Little

Colonel. It just stood there looking like that. And Griffith saw him and said Billy. Meeting the cameramen Billy bitter. Look at that face. And he just went over took a picture of him doing just that. And it became the biggest laugh of the birth. It was the first picture for which substantial admittance charge was made also wasn't it. Yes it played him in the jail but here it is at. The top price of that day which would change the whole attitude toward film. Yes because that was his popularity too. It would probably cost $12. Twelve and a half dollars a seat today. Comparable to what it was playing for then and it went to towns and villages and large and played to three times the population of the cities. Nothing's ever been like that nothing. Played just hordes of people before or since the birth and therefore it made more

money than ever any film that's ever been made and it was the most costly $61000 with the protection that it was going to be a financial disaster. No one ever knows but it ruined films for the artist. You see up until that time a few struggling artists were going along trying to evolve this thing they believed in and took the responsibility for it. And then the businessmen. When they saw that sixty one dollars turned into over 100 million. Well the battle became quite hot as you know. Business and art had been at odds since the beginning of time and will be I suppose. So the business won. Now D.W. Griffith's continued to succeed up to a point and it fell off suddenly in the bankruptcy. He had a real money sense he didn't need money he tastes were simple. He worked 18 hours a day seven days a week.

He only wanted money to make another film and another film he didn't need anything but a car to get around in and two rooms in second or third rate hotel and. He didn't drink. He maybe had steak once a day. He ate very frugally took great care of his health. He had to to work so many hours and whatever he asked any of us or his crew to do. They were only had to happy to do it because they knew he worked that much harder. And when Labor came in he was given the golden card he could be an electrician a camera man a carpenter. An electrician he was allowed to go any place in the studio and do anything any workman did at that there. They respected and loved him so much. Now your association with him in the films in which he directed you

is of course well known and what he has given you in this professional sense I suppose is easily understood. But you were you had a close relationship. Did you derive from that relationship something other than simply the professional kinds of skills that come out of it so seriously. All right yes think about at that formative age when I was about twenty one or two I met him. From. A child and that's a very important time of your life and it was an education because we would we did the research to you know when he would do a film like intolerance which was his monument. Started with that and then we went back and got the whole history of the world at that time. A curious monument in that it was too long even to be played in its entirety in those days it was 50 or more years ahead of its time. It still remains the greatest picture ever made I think and thought that by people who know him and respect him.

But. We did but we just entered into all the periods whether we were working in the film or not. It was our big interests and that was an education. You've appeared in so many films so many plays. Is it fair to ask whether through all of these one life birth of a nation intolerance or perhaps the very first one really is the one that represents to you a kind of height of satisfaction in your own profession. It's very hard on your vanity films because if you want to know about it if you want to learn what NOT to do you must look at the rushes you must see yourself and no one the does that all the time can have an advantage. It's a very unhappy. Yes way to learn but it's the best way to. You can't see yourself walking away from yourself in any other medium. That's right.

You learn how to do your can you can you in looking at these rushers and thinking back say that's what I want to be as an actress was there a time you know you could always see someone else that you. I say when I was in about 15 or 16 I saw a day needed to Evans play a small part in a play and thought That's it. And Mr Griffith and Darcy went to see the Moscow Art Theater when it came to America in the 20s. And. Only in Russian they didn't know a word of Russian. They knew everything they were saying and doing. They were never caught acting. They were being whatever was necessary. That's what we tried for never to be caught acting always to be real and true. I played for Sir John Gill good. In Hamlet he for six months I played his own. He was never acting Hamlet. He was Hamlet eight times a week for six months. The

greatest classical actor. I think living. Was it difficult to shift from an ingenue to older parts. A review of your book said this was never explained in your book. I was never asked so I'm asking that is that is a defect in 14. I played the mother of a 15 year old girl so I shifted early. If you could act then you were really respected. I say you have said I believe in your book that your sister Dorothy taught you to laugh. Yes she was so gay and so witty and also feminine and that's rare you know. This is the picture of the two there is my sister Dora and Dorothy on the right. You were different kinds of people and she was the outgoing one know she was you know she was super sensitive. But. Witty and. They used to say when she came into Were room the party began. I might come into a room and end it but

what was the difference. I didn't have the good they had she could dance all night and work all day I couldn't. And your work has been your life. A happy life a happy life and be missed. May I once again mention this book which tells of the happy life. Lillian Gish the movies Mr. Griffith and me and incidentally pro fusilli Illustrated and we've borrowed some of these illustrations today. Thank you so much for being with us. Oh it was a great pleasure and I think that I am. Still here.