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Dorothy Gish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dorothy Gish | |
 photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1932 |
|
| Born | March 11, 1898 Dayton, Ohio |
| Died | June 4, 1968 Rapallo, Italy |
Dorothy Gish (March 11, 1898 - June 4, 1968) was an American actress. Born Dorothy Elizabeth de Guiche in Dayton, Ohio, she was the younger sister of actress Lillian Gish.
Dorothy's mother Mary began acting in order to support the family after her husband left. When they were old enough, Dorothy and Lillian were brought into their mother's act, and they also modeled. In 1912 their childhood friend Mary Pickford introduced them to director D.W. Griffith, and the sisters began acting at the Biograph Studios.
Dorothy and Lillian both debuted in Griffith's An Unseen Enemy. Dorothy would go on to star in over 100 short films and features, many of them with Lillian.
Overshadowed by her sister's popularity, Dorothy virtually retired from motion pictures when talkies came along. She moved to England, where she turned her attention to the stage. From 1930 until her death, she only appeared in five more movies, and one television movie. She did make several appearances in anthology television series in the early 1950s.
She was married to James Rennie (1890-1965), a Canadian-born actor who was her co-star in Remodeling Her Husband (filmed in 1920, it was directed by Dorothy's older sister, Lillian, in her only directorial outing). They were married in 1920 in a double ceremony with actress Constance Talmadge and businessman John Piagoglou, and were divorced in 1935.
She died in 1968 from bronchial pneumonia at the age of 70 at a clinic in Rapallo, Italy where she had been a patient for two years, with sister Lillian at her side. Dorothy Gish was interred in Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church columbarium in the undercroft of the church, New York City. Her sister Lillian was later interred beside her.
Her best known films are Old Heidelberg, Stage Struck, The Little Yankee, Children of the Feud, That Colby Girl, Hearts of the World, Battling Jane, The Hope Chest, and Orphans of the Storm.