Gish was dubbed the "First Lady of the Screen" by Vanity Fair in 1927[2] and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques.

[3] In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gish as the 17th-greatest female movie star of Classic Hollywood cinema.

Her other major films and performances from the silent era included Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), La Bohème (1926), and The Wind (1928).

At the dawn of the sound era, she returned to the stage and appeared in film occasionally, with leading roles in the Western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955).

She also did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and retired after playing opposite Bette Davis and Vincent Price in the 1987 film The Whales of August.

The family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, where they lived for several years with Lillian's aunt and uncle, Henry and Rose McConnell.

In 1910, the girls were living with their aunt Emily in Massillon, Ohio, when they were notified that their father, James, was gravely ill in Oklahoma.

The 17-year-old Lillian traveled to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where James's brother Alfred Grant Gish and his wife, Maude, lived.

When the theater next to the candy store burned down, the family moved to New York, where the girls became good friends with a next-door neighbor, Gladys Smith.

Lillian starred in many of Griffith's most acclaimed films, including The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921).

Gish reluctantly ended her work with Griffith in 1925 to take an offer from the recently formed MGM, which gave her more creative control.

She turned down the money, requesting a more modest wage and a percentage, so the studio could use the funds to increase the quality of her films—hiring the best actors, screenwriters, etc.

Many of the silent era's leading ladies, such as Gish and Pickford, had been wholesome and innocent, but by the early 1930s (after the full adoption of sound and before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced), these roles were perceived as outdated.

She acted on the stage for the most part in the 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in roles as varied as Ophelia in Guthrie McClintic's landmark 1936 production of Hamlet (with John Gielgud and Judith Anderson) and Marguerite in a limited run of La Dame aux Camélias.

She was considered for various roles in Gone with the Wind ranging from Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother (which went to Barbara O'Neil),[15] to prostitute Belle Watling (which went to Ona Munson).

In addition to her later acting appearances, Gish became one of the leading advocates of the lost art of the silent film, often giving speeches and touring to screenings of classic works.

[17] Gish received a Special Academy Award in 1971 "for superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures".

The protest was signed by over 50 film-industry figures, including actors Helen Mirren and James Earl Jones and directors Bertrand Tavernier and Martin Scorsese.

"[40] During the period of political turmoil in the U.S. that lasted from the outbreak of World War II in Europe until the attack on Pearl Harbor, she maintained an outspoken noninterventionist stance.

She was an active member of the America First Committee, an anti-intervention organization founded by a group of law students led by R. Douglas Stuart Jr., with aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh as its leading spokesman.

She said she was blacklisted by the film and theater industries until she signed a contract in which she promised to cease her anti-interventionist activities and never disclose the fact that she had agreed to do so.

[42] Her estate was valued at several million dollars, the bulk of which went toward the creation of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust.

A retrospective of Gish's life and achievements was showcased in an episode of the Emmy award-winning PBS series, American Masters.

The AllMovie Guide wrote on her legacy:[43] Lillian Gish is considered the movie industry's first true actress.

A pioneer of fundamental film performing techniques, she was the first star to recognize the many crucial differences between acting for the stage and acting for the screen, and while her contemporaries painted their performances in broad, dramatic strokes, Gish delivered finely etched, nuanced turns carrying a stunning emotional impact.

While by no means the biggest or most popular actress of the silent era, she was the most gifted, her seeming waiflike frailty masking unparalleled reserves of physical and spiritual strength.

In time, her sensitive performances elevated not only her stature as an actress, but also the reputation of movies themselves.American rock band The Smashing Pumpkins named their 1991 debut album Gish after her.

Singer Billy Corgan explained in an interview, "My grandmother used to tell me that one of the biggest things that ever happened was when Lillian Gish rode through town on a train, my grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, so that was a big deal..."[49] "Lillian Gish" is Scottish rhyming slang for fish and urinating.

American rock band Fruit Bats referenced Gish in the song Eagles Below Us from their 2021 release The Pet Parade with the lyrics “I’ve never seen you so lovely, Lillian Gish, soft lit.”[51] In 2024, East West Players in Los Angeles produced Unbroken Blossoms, a play depicting the making of Broken Blossoms.