Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life

Book Description

Written with unprecedented access to her letters, journals, and unpublished articles, this is the definitive biography of a seminal figure in American film -- one of Entertainment Weekly's "100 Greatest Stars of All Time."

At the time of her death in 1993, Lillian Gish was universally recognized as a film legend. Now, Charles Affron reveals a life that, for decades, was cast in the shadow of self-generated myth. Using newly released papers at the New York Public Library, Affron fills the gaps left by Gish's selective memoirs and author-ized biographies, and shows how the actress carefully forged her public identity while keeping much of her life private.

In a career that began in 1902 and lasted well into the 1980s and included such classic films as The Birth of a Nation and The Night of the Hunter, Gish went from child actress to legend. This account of Gish's life travels two parallel journeys: One traces her beginnings as a child actress in melodramas, through the birth of movies, the glory days of the studio system in Holly-wood and the coming of sound, the Broadway theater and television, to her final starring film appearance in 1987; the other follows a more personal itinerary, beginning with the comaraderies and rivalries of D. W. Griffith's troupe, the onset of her stardom, then on to the Algonquin Round Table and the international "smart set." Her scandalous lawsuit with her producer/ fiancé, her long affair with critic George Jean Nathan, and her controversial political activism are covered here in detail for the first time. Affron travels with the actress from studios in Hollywood to the stage in New York, from the loving, close relationship Gish had with her mother and her sister Dorothy to her devoted, often troubled relationship with Griffith, with whom she helped shape the development of narrative film.

In splendid detail, Affron re-creates the burgeoning culture of moviemaking in the broad context of the arts in America. Along the way, the cast includes Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Eugene O'Neill, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Bette Davis.

Customer Reviews:

Mixed Reactions..........2006-05-22

I had mixed reactions to this book. On the plus side, it is well written and researched; it reads fluently and intelligently. On the minus side, it is largely restricted to an account and analysis of her professional life. I gather this is because there is very little that is known about Gish's private life. This is not the fault of the author, but it did make for some tedious reading from about the halfway point forward. I would have liked to get a better sense of who she was as a personality.

Gish is a throwback, this book is not.......2006-04-13

In my circles, many people plainy state that Cameron Diaz and Cameron Manheim are the two actresses that if fused together and a wholly new being was created, would not resemble Lillian Gish whatsoever. Of that I do concur. What I won't buy into is the way my neighbor Jenny Tillis, says that Lillian was not even the strongest performer in the Gish family. Apparently, though I've never read any corroborating evidence, Lillian's Uncle Dolph could suck the cork out of a wine bottle while tight rope walking between two buildings. It's rumored he walked on the tightrope from Big Ben in London all the way to the Eifel Tower in Paris ... uncorking wine bottles the whole way. There's also talk of an "out of wedlock" brother named Klaus who joined the navy and later rode a unicycle while juggling kittens -- he later became spokesman and treasurer for the UAWJK (Unicycling Artists Who Juggle Kittens) raising funds to buy fresh kittens and creating a pension fund for retired and out of work guild members.

DISAPPOINTING, EVEN ON A CLOSER READING..........2005-12-01

One might get the impression the author likes a lot of Ms. Gish's work but feels he sees through her "simple facade", in terms of her beliefs and self-portrayal, and, if so, I think that reader would be correct. Mr. Affron gathers most of this book from earlier publications and the personal papers Lillian Gish left to the New York Public Library. However, it appears clear that he began with the usual anti-Griffith agenda, and, as is seen in Eileen Whitfield's Mary Pickford study, enjoys "demonstrating" the director's supposed racism and sexual perversities. When I finished the book the first time, my main thought ran like this: "Well, he did all he could to dig up dirt and came up almost empty. So he joined the current chorus in the popular attempt to tear down Mr. Griffith." One doesn't have to be a published academic to study these two wonderful artists for years, set politics aside, and seek to understand them honestly. Mr. Affron knew what he believed when he began, and it shows. The best part of this book is the filmography/listing of the subject's work, which I have found helpful.

Warts and all.......2005-10-23

This is a very informative and exceedingly well-researched biography on one of the first ladies of the American cinema. Lillian Gish lived for just 8 months shy of one hundred years, from 1893 till 1993, and began acting in 1902, turning in her last role in 1987. She literally grew up with the movies, and got a chance to act on the stage, the big screen, and the small screen, touring with some great plays, starring in classic films and tv movies, and being directed by some seminal film directors. For the most part, she was a top-notch class act who lived her life free of major scandal, although, as Mr. Affron establishes, she was not without flaws either.

Like many other people in show business, Lillian lied about a good many things about her life, such as her age, the true cause of her mother's health problems, the true extent of her relationships with Charles H. Duell, Jr. and George Jean Nathan, and the fact that there was never any unhappy ending in the script of 'The Wind,' nor is there evidence that the so-called unhappy ending was the original ending they shot. However, it's made clear that she didn't lie about any of these things with malicious intent, and she never lied about or covered up anything really serious or scandalous. These were just the types of lies that most celebrities tell, to preserve a certain public image, or to reinvent themselves so their images are more in line with the images the public have cast them in. As for the other less than perfect aspects of Lillian's life, I didn't get at all what other people have mentioned, a snide, negative, haughty, or even outright mean tone Mr. Affron took towards his subject. It's not necessarily a personal attack to criticise someone for some admittedly embarrassing and questionable aspects of her life, such as her activism for the controversial right-wing group America First in the years leading up to WWII. As Mr. Affron points out, some of Lillian's views, such as those concerning the arts, stood in striking contrast to the views of most other Republicans. He also has a valid point in taking her to task for her at best questionable lifelong defence of 'Birth of a Nation,' pointing out how her paternalistic racial views, while clearly the product of her time, didn't really change over her life, and how it seems incomprehensible how she couldn't grasp why so many people felt the film was horrifically racist. He also points out how her defence of her mentor D.W. Griffith was so strong and knee-jerk that she even suggested that one of his lost films, which had somewhat more enlightened depictions of African-Americans, was lost on purpose because people didn't want the public to see he had been capable of making non-racist films as well. It's all good and well to stand by your mentor, the person who really discovered you and nurtured your talent, but it's not without merit to point out how sometimes her defence of Griffith was just embarrassing. I also didn't pick up on what other people have mentioned, that Mr. Affron was demeaning towards Lillian's silent films, in particular the melodramas she shot for Griffith. Again, this criticism isn't without merit; not everyone feels he was the greatest director who ever lived. There are also valid reasons to view some of his films as dated overwrought morality plays, regardless of who acted in them.

The in-depth content of this book really seems to fall off a little more than halfway through. Lillian didn't act in many movies or plays of note after 'The Wind' in 1928, so it often reads like little more than a recital of unmemorable plays, below-par films, and television specials and made-for-tv movies. There wasn't a lot of coverage of her non-acting life, her day-to-day personal life. Thus there were a lot of gaps between her post-1928 acting stints, and one gets the feeling that the book has become more of a career biography than a full in-depth biography of the whole person. It was great to learn about everything Lillian acted in after she largely disappeared from public view, but it's also as though her personal life got the short end of the stick. I also wished there could have been more pictures in the photo section, although I did like how every chapter had a photo at the beginning.

More myth than woman.......2005-05-21

The biography isn't particularly well written and the tone is very deprecating butI gave the books 4 stars simply because I learned everything I've ever wanted to know about the most famous silent screen actress. Lillian Gish was a naive, ignorant, poorly educated and sheltered woman. She was a child stage actress along with her sister not because they or their mom loved the theater but because they needed the money. There is nothing at all wrong with that but Gish's attitude about acting as some sort of sacred art seems a bit self serving. She clearly worshiped the ground D. W. Griffith walked on and felt he could do no wrong. She started acting under him when she was an impressionable fatherless teen. She quickly became his favorite actress. Safe to say, the naive sheltered girl was flattered by the favor shown to her by an older, handsome man in a position of power. She was an extraordinarily dedicated and talented silent screen actress. After the talkies killed the silents, she never retired but never came close to proving herself as a legimate television or talking film actress. Her final 65 years were spent in tireless advocation of silent film.

Book Description

This popular series from Boosey and Hawkes features favorite orchestral works in full-score format. Combining high-quality production with affordable prices, each volume of the Masterworks Series features: full-size format; full-color fine art covers; newly published introductory notes, commentaries and illustrations; more. Essential scores for every library! A revised edition (1993) including Bartok's alternative ending.

Customer Reviews:

The one to get!.......2007-05-21

Larger size for failing eyes. I bought my first copy in the mid-60s, the miniature score, and paid almost 50% more for a score 50% smaller. If you collect scores, add this one to your collection!

Solid score.......2007-05-09

This is a good full score of one of Bartok's most famous pieces. It includes some notes about the piece as well as the composer's original program notes. It also includes both the original and alternate endings to the 5th movement. I used this for study with a high school music class.

B&H Masterworks Library version of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.......2006-12-12

This is THE edition to buy. Good print, adequate size, everything you need is there.

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

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Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
David Cooper
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521485053

Book Description

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra has proven to be one of the most popularly successful concert works of the twentieth century. It is seen by its champions as an example of Bartók's seamless blend of Eastern European folk music and Western art music, and by its detractors as indicative of the composer's artistic compromise. This book contains a discussion of the historical and musical contexts of the piece, its early performance history and critical reception. It also includes the first complete movement-by-movement synopsis of the Concerto, as well as detailed technical information about the work.

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The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19: Score

Manufacturer: Universal Edition
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Symphony No. 5, Op. 47: New Collected Works of Dmitri Shostakovich - Volume 5

ASIN: 3702418490

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Pantomime in One Act, after a Libretto by Menyhert Lengyel.

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One of the basic scholarly works on the composer's style.

Bartok's Chamber Music
Janos Karpati
Manufacturer: Pendragon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 094519319X

Customer Reviews:

One of the basic scholarly works on the composer's style........1999-01-22

The author, Janos Karpati, musicologist and professor of the F. Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, is equally well known as a Bartok specialist and as a distinguished scholar of the music of the East, especially that of Japan. The Introduction is planned to define the place and relative weight of chamber music within the whole oeuvre. Cahpter 2, Forerunners and Contemporaries is an important summary of stylistic similarities. "Monothemiticism and Variation" investigates an important underlying principle of Bartok's art. Karpati introduces his most original analytical concept, "mistuning". In Karpati's hand this expression turned into a strictly formulated theoretical concept: on p. 211 a table explains how acoustic intervals can be replaced by "mistuned" ones either a semitone lower or a semitone higher.

Inside Bluebeard's Castle: Music and Drama in Bela Bartok's Opera

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Inside Bluebeard's Castle: Music and Drama in Bela Bartok's Opera
Carl S. Leafstedt
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle

ASIN: 0195109996

Book Description

This is the first book-length examination of Bartok's 1911 opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, one of the twentieth century's enduring operatic works. Writing in an engaging style, Leafstedt adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the opera by introducing, in addition to music-dramatic analysis, a number of topics that are new to the field of Bartok studies. These new areas of critical and scholarly terrain include a detailed literary study of the libretto and a gender-focused analysis of the opera's female character, Judith. Leafstedt begins with a short introductory chapter that places Duke Bluebeard's Castle within the context of Bartok's early composing career, his discovery of folk music, and its impact on his later work. The book goes on to explore the composition's troubled history, its failure to win two early Hungarian opera competitions, and the three versions of the ending that resulted, discussed here in depth for the first time. The core of the book is devoted to the musical and dramatic organization of the opera and offers an analysis of the seven individual door scenes, including a detailed analysis of scene six, the "lake of tears" scene, illustrating the work's complex tonal organization and dramatic structure. A separate chapter places this darkly psychological version of the Bluebeard story within the broader context of European history and literature. Throughout the book, Leafstedt draws on original Hungarian source material, much of it newly translated by the author and available here for the first time in English, and he includes a generous selection of musical examples. Inside Bluebeard's Castle is an ideal starting point for research in twentieth-century music, Hungarian cultural history, and opera studies, as well as an invaluable guide for anyone interested in Bartok's only opera.

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Bela Bart-k: A Celebration
Benjamin Suchoff
Manufacturer: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810849585

Book Description

This compilation of essays, lectures, and scholarly papers on Bart-k studies from 1953 to the present includes insights obtained by the author over a half-century career as a Bart-k specialist.Divided into three parts, chapters examine Bart-k as a multifaceted music figure: composer, folklorist, pianist, and teacher. As composer, it includes program notes, an introduction to his principles of composition, and theoretic-analytical discussion of selected works, including Mikrokosmos. As folklorist, it examines the outcome of Bart-k's fieldwork, methodology, and findings in East European, Arabic, and Turkist autochthonous folk music materials. Bart-k's American years are also discussed. The narrative is supported by a substantial number of musical examples and references.

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String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2
Bela Bartok
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 048643799X

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The stirring first quartet captures the composer's great stylistic rebirth, from the Romanticism of the opening movement to a finale inspired by Hungarian folk tunes. The second quartet combines disparate influences into a work of astonishing force and originality.

The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music

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The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music
Elliott Antokoletz
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520067479

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The basic principles of progression and the means by which tonality is established in Bartók's music remain problematical to many theorists. Elliott Antokoletz here demonstrates that the remarkable continuity of style in Bartók's evolution is founded upon an all-encompassing system of pitch relations in which one can draw together the diverse pitch formations in his music under one unified set of principles.

Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest

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a truly eye-opening explanation of Bartok and his works!

Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest
Judit Frigyesi
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0520207408

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Bartók's music is greatly prized by concertgoers, yet we know little about the intellectual milieu that gave rise to his artistry. Bartók is often seen as a lonely genius emerging from a gray background of an "underdeveloped country." Now Judit Frigyesi offers a broader perspective on Bartók's art by grounding it in the social and cultural life of turn-of-the-century Hungary and the intense creativity of its modernist movement. Bartók spent most of his life in Budapest, an exceptional man living in a remarkable milieu. Frigyesi argues that Hungarian modernism in general and Bartók's aesthetic in particular should be understood in terms of a collective search for wholeness in life and art and for a definition of identity in a rapidly changing world. Is it still possible, Bartók's generation of artists asked, to create coherent art in a world that is no longer whole? Bartók and others were preoccupied with this question and developed their aesthetics in response to it. In a discussion of Bartók and of Endre Ady, the most influential Hungarian poet of the time, Frigyesi demonstrates how different branches of art and different personalities responded to the same set of problems, creating oeuvres that appear as reflections of one another. She also examines Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, exploring philosophical and poetic ideas of Hungarian modernism and linking Bartók's stylistic innovations to these concepts.

Customer Reviews:

a truly eye-opening explanation of Bartok and his works!.......1998-10-18

I am a fan of history-and-criticism books (especially on musical topics), but ONLY when they read with the clarity of logic and the authority of resourced research which is demonstrated by this wonderful book. The purposes and meanings which underlie so much of Bartok's work and music, from folk-song research to Cantata Profana and all of the stage works, are beautifully revealed. It is a true inspiration to read about the milieu which helped to create the great sense of purpose which drove Bartok to his greatness. (Derrill Bodley, Professor)

Allegro Barbaro and Other Short Works for Solo Piano

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Allegro Barbaro and Other Short Works for Solo Piano
Bela Bartok
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486401103

Book Description

This treasury of piano works from one of the 20th century's most influential composers includes the dancelike Allegro Barbaro, a sonorous, boisterous piece of power and bravura; 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs; 6 Rumanian Folk Dances; 20 Rumanian Christmas Carols; and 8 Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs. Musical gems for pianists at intermediate and advanced skill levels.

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