#Fact1She met with Benito Mussolini, whom she greatly admired, during a visit to Italy.2Strongly denied The Birth of a Nation (1915) was racist until her death, despite ongoing complaints that it was a glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.3Ended her relationship with George Jean Nathan after finding out that he was Jewish. This was despite the fact that Nathan had converted to Protestantism and he shared Gish's right-wing views.4The debut album of the rock band Smashing Pumpkins was named "Gish" after her.5She was filmed for a scene in Woody Allen's Zelig (1983). She scolded legendary director of photography Gordon Willis on his lighting set-up and, while the crew watched aghast, gave Willis step-by-step instructions on how to relight the scene. Willis complied. The scene did not make it into the final version of the film.6At her 1984 AFI Life Achievment Award ceremony, John Houseman claimed that she and her sister Dorothy Gish were offered the chance to buy the Sunset strip for $300. After considering the offer, they decided to spend the money for two dresses at the fashionable Bullock's department store instead.7She maintained a very close relationship with her sister Dorothy Gish, as well as with Mary Pickford, for her entire life. She never married or had children.8She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.9Left her entire estate, which was valued at several million dollars, to Helen Hayes. Hayes died 18 days after Gish.10In 1970, she wrote to congratulate California's First Lady Nancy Reagan after the Governor's wife likened anti-war protesters to Nazis in an interview. "Every time you and Ronnie open your mouths you echo my thoughts," Gish wrote.11Lillian was originally a member of the America First Committee, which advocated against US intervention in WII. It was not an uncommon position to be against America joining the war, with polls showing that 40% of Americans agreed at one point, but eventually apparent Nazi brutality made anti-war sentiment a radical opinion-one most infamously associated with the fascist sympathizing Charles Lindbergh. Gish was against any war due to her experience filming Hearts of the World, a WWI propaganda film, with Griffith in war-time France, in which she saw the horrors the Great War had unleashed. On why she opposed American involvement in WWII, Gish said "if I could save one American life and ruin my career in doing so, I would consider my career well lost." She resigned as a member of the committee several months before Pearl Harbor, and would later write a letter "I made War Propaganda" in Scribner's Commentator asking for forgiveness. After War was declared with Germany, any feelings of isolationism were seen as non-patriotic. Mary Pickford defended her: "This lady is as you and I are. She was merely against war".12She was taught how to shoot by notorious western outlaw Al J. Jennings, who was in one of her early films (after having served a long term in prison for train robbery). When John Huston and Burt Lancaster took her to the desert to teach her how to shoot for The Unforgiven (1960), they were astounded to discover she could shoot more accurately and faster than they did. She found that she liked shooting, and over the years had developed into an expert shot.13She and Dorothy Gish both started working for D.W. Griffith in the early days of American Mutoscope & Biograph. While it has been claimed that Griffith was immediately infatuated with Lillian, in their first film for him, An Unseen Enemy (1912), he thought they were twins. According to Lillian's autobiography, he had to tie different colored hair ribbons on the girls to tell them apart and give them direction: "Red, you hear a strange noise. Run to your sister. Blue, you're scared too. Look toward me, where the camera is.".14She was of English, French and German heritage.15In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lillian Gish #19 on their list of 50 Greatest American Female Screen Legends.16Lillian and Mary Pickford were childhood friends, but Mary tried to never be left alone with Lillian--remembering her mother's superstitious belief that "the good die young", Mary was in constant fear that Lillian would drop dead at any moment.17She held director D.W. Griffith in such high regard that, up until her death in 1993, she would always refer to him as "Mr. Griffith".18While shooting Way Down East (1920), she was required to lie down on a slab of ice that was floating in a river for several hours in order to shoot a scene. While she did this, one of her hands was immersed in freezing cold water for hours, which permanently damaged the nerves in her wrist.19John Gilbert was infatuated with her, and would mess up his "love scenes" with her in the filming of La Bohème (1926) on purpose, so he could keep kissing her.20After her amicable parting with D.W. Griffith she joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925, but was unceremoniously dumped when Greta Garbo emerged as a star. Considered a "sexless antique", she turned to radio and her first love, the theater. Ironically, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had Garbo on the set of The Scarlet Letter (1926) every day to watch Gish work as part of her apprenticeship.21She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1720 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.22Related, on her mother's side, to United States President Zachary Taylor.23She once autographed an 8mm copy of her film The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913) for a young filmmaker named Harry McDevitt.24Every year on Gish's birthdate, October 14, New York's Museum of Modern Art shows at least one of her films or television performances.25Received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award (1984).26Following his death, she was interred beside her sister Dorothy Gish at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City.27On June 11, 1976, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Film Theater was dedicated on the Bowling Green State University campus in Bowling Green, Ohio.28Sister of Dorothy Gish. Daughter of actress Mary Gish.