Mary Robinson Gish ( McConnell; September 16, 1876 – September 17, 1948) was an American actress and the mother of screen stars Lillian and

Dorothy Gish Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (March 11, 1898June 4, 1968) was an American actress of the screen and stage, as well as a director and writer. Dorothy and her older sister Lillian Gish were major movie stars of the silent era. Dorothy also had great s ...

Life

Mary Gish was born in

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, as Mary Robinson McConnell. On January 8, 1893, she married James L. Gish (son of David Edwin Gish and Diana Caroline Waltz) in Clark County, Ohio. They were the parents of actresses Lillian and Dorothy. The girls' father, James Leigh Gish, died on January 9, 1912, when his daughters were 18 and 13 years old. (His christening record dated November 29, 1872, states his name as James Leonidas Gish.) Around the 1890s Mary would operate a concession stand in

Fort George Amusement Park Fort George Amusement Park was a trolley park and amusement park that operated in the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan, New York City, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It occupied an area between 190th an ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 1917, Mary and her daughters traveled to England and France as members of D. W. Griffith's film company,"Biograph Studios", to make a film at the behest of the British Government. This film was almost certainly ''

Hearts of the World ''Hearts of the World'' (also known as ''Love's Struggle'') is a 1918 American silent film, silent World War I propaganda film written, produced and directed by D. W. Griffith. In an effort to change the American public's neutral stance regardin ...

'' (1918), which featured all three Gishes, rising star Bobby Harron, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, and Griffith himself. The purpose of this film was to change the neutral mindset of the American public regarding

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Films

*'' Two Daughters of Eve'' (1912) *''

Judith of Bethulia ''Judith of Bethulia'' (1914 in film, 1914) is an American film starring Blanche Sweet and Henry B. Walthall, and produced and directed by D. W. Griffith, based on the play "Judith and the Holofernes" (1896) by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, which itself ...

'' (1914) *'' Letters Entangled'' (1915) *''

'' (1918)

References

Sources

* Affron, Charles (2001). ''Lillian Gish: Her Legend, Her Life''. New York: Scribner.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gish, Mary 1876 births 1948 deaths Actresses from Dayton, Ohio