Advertising Uncle Vanya … 1930

Advertising Uncle Vanya …

Lillian Gish Turns to the Footlights

Years ago, when David Belasco starred Mary Pickford in the fanciful “A Good Little Devil,” Lillian Gish appeared in the minor role of a good fairy.* The other day, however, Miss Gish returned to the speaking stage in New York. Her reception was remarkable.
Lillian Gish turns to the footlights (Uncle Vanya 1932)
Lillian Gish turns to the footlights – (Uncle Vanya 1930)
Miss Gish came back in “Uncle Vanya,” a comedy by the Russian Chekhov. She had the role of Helena. Of her, Robert Litell said in The New York World: “She is not quite like any other actress I have ever seen, with a lovely repose and certainty, a combination of delicate shades and pastel dignity which make us realize how great the screen’s gain has been all these years, to our loss.”
Lillian Gish turns to the footlights - detail (Uncle Vanya 1932)
Lillian Gish turns to the footlights – detail (Uncle Vanya 1930)
No announcement has been made of Miss Gish’s possible return to the films. The two portraits on this page show Miss Gish as Helena in “Uncle Vanya.”
Lillian Gish - Uncle Vanya (Harris)
Lillian Gish – Uncle Vanya (Harris)

Advertising Uncle Vanya …

Jed Harris had selected a well-nigh perfect cast. With Walter Connolly in the title role, the tired, tearful, disillusioned Vanya; with Osgood Perkins, as Astroff, the hard-riding, hard-drinking, disillusioned doctor; with Eugene Powers, as Serebrakoff, the ailing, fat-headed, city professor; with Lillian, as Helena, his young, beautiful, disillusioned wife; with Joanna Roos, as Sonia, his unhappy, love-lorn daughter; with Kate Mayhew, as Nurse Marina; with Isabel Irving, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Harold Johnsrud—one must travel far to find a group of players better suited to a Chekhov play, or one more congenial to work with. Ruth Gordon was not in the cast, but she came to Lillian’s apartment and worked with her. So did Mr. Harris. They believed in her, and encouraged her to believe in herself. Going back to the stage had its difficulties.
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya

Who’s Who in the Cast

Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
OSGOOD PERKINS was graduated from Harvard in 1914 and, aside from Hasty Pudding antics, saw little of the stage until after the war, when he was silently villainous in five motion pictures. His first Broadway gesture was in “The Beggar on Horseback.” In this, as in three subsequent pl!iys, “Weak Sisters,” “The Masque of Venice” and “Pomeroy’s Past,” he impersonated a gentleman of the cloth – sometimes acidly, sometimes benevolently, but always effectively. His cleric constituency exhausted, he turned over a new leaf in “Loose Ankles,” and since that time has been tough and rough and sinister in “Spread Eagle,” Women Go On Forever” and “The Front Page.” He spends many summers abroad and frequently essays a sortie into motion pictures. Married? Yes.
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
LILLIAN GISH returns to the stage in the Chekhov comedy after an absence of 17 years. She last appeared on a prosceniumed platform in New York in 1913, along with Ernest Truex and Mary Pickford, in “A Good Little Devil” at the Republic. Since “The Birth of a Nation” her fame in pictures has been secure. Among the notable films which she has illumined, are “Intolerance,” “Broken Blossoms,” “Way Down East,” “Orphans of the Storm,” “The White Sister,” “Hearts of the World,” “Romola” and “The Scarlet Letter.” Miss Gish made her stage debut at the age of six in a melodrama, “In Convict’s Stripes,” in Rising Sun, Ohio. She was born in Springfield, Ohio, and has never married.
WALTER CONNOLLY was born in Cincinnati, and became acquainted with flats and parallels in college dramatics at St. Xavier’s. Was schooled in touring companies of Sothern and Marlowe, Ben Greet, and the Coburns, chiefly in Shakespearean repertory.
Lillian Gish UNCLE VANYA Osgood Perkins – Kate Mayhew (Signed) 1930 Playbill
Lillian Gish UNCLE VANYA Osgood Perkins – Walter Connolly 1930 Opening Program
Lillian Gish UNCLE VANYA Osgood Perkins – Walter Connolly 1930 Playbill

Back to Lillian Gish Home page

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984)

Image
D.W. Griffith – An American Life (By Richard Schickel – 1984) D.W. Griffith – An American Life By Richard Schickel – 1984 Griffith! Before him, the movies were a nickelodeon novelty, after him, they were an international art form and a powerful, glamorous American industry He was the first to codify the rules and techniques of screen storytelling, the first to establish the conventions by which the unique capacities of the movies for both sweeping spectacle and profound intimacy could be employed in long, complex narratives, the first to assert the director’s claim to primary authorship of a film Above all, it was Griffith who imagined the future of his medium, and with his driving energy, his taste for the grandiose and his flair for publicity, propelled that medium toward that future—only to be crushed by the very forces he had unleashed. D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Painting; D.w. Griffith (1875-1948) Art Print for sale His story is, in huge measure, the story of how the ...
Read more

Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983

Image
Lillian Gish and Jeanne Moreau – Vanity Fair 1983 Vanity Fair – October 1983 Lillian Gish Jeanne Moreau This is a summit meeting: a queen paying homage to an empress. Of course, Lillian Gish, far right, is no truer a blueblood than any other homespun midwesterner. But wherever she goes now, she is treated like a monarch, acknowledging standing ovations in allAmerican palaces like Radio City Music Hall. Her admirers aren’t really applauding her 101 films (she has just completed the 102nd, about a sweet old lady and her sweet old dog). They may never have seen her slim but supernally intense performances in the D. W. Griffith masterpieces or in the Victor Sjostrom classics she made in the late ’20s at MGM. Lillian-Gish-Jeanne-Moreau 60s But they sense in her the grace, the purity, the wealth of symbolism that royalty sustains. Gish’s companion here, Jeanne Moreau, radiates a similar authority; what Gish was to the cinema of the ’20s, Moreau was to the cinema of the ’60s. ...
Read more

LEADING LADIES – 1976 (Electa Clark) PDF Download

Image
  LEADING LADIES – 1976 (Electa Clark) PDF Download “Humanity marches on into the new and glorious 20th century!” exults a daily paper in its first issue of 1901. “Come, oh century, child of hope!” begins a long poem on page one. Another column trills, “We are 20th century women … with the dower of privilege and responsibility which enriches women in this wonderful era!” Lillian Gish had a similar effect on millions who saw her in the movies. She was not only talented, she had a unique quality: pure, ethereal, elusive. As if she acted in whispers. As if in her hands, the definite blurred into the indefinite. It was drama critic George Jean Nathan who described her as being “behind a veil of silver chiffon.” He courted Lillian for years, but she eluded marriage. Horse drawn float declares National American Woman Suffrage Association’s support for Bristow-Mondell amendment 1920s Lillian Gish Actress ‘La Boheme’ Oversized DBW Photo by Kenneth Alexander Leading ladies an affectionate l...
Read more