Beauty cannot describe her, because beauty still only stays on the outside.
Nobility cannot describe her, for nobility is nothing more than an earthly word.
How to say it? She was ethereal, soft, dreamlike woman.
If Audrey Hepburn is an angel who landed on earth, then she is a fairy in a fairy tale, a fairy in a dream, and seems to have never set foot on earth.
Her name is Lillian Gisch, she was born at the end of the last century, and although she has lived in the secular world for 99 years, she has always felt like a dream girl.
Lilian Gisch
In the silent film era of Hollywood, in that frame of silent black and white images, her delicate, soft posture, confused and innocent gaze are enough to make people obsessed.
Her stories, her images, seem to be meant to prove that she really existed in the world.
Lillian was born in Ohio in 1893.
When she was very young, her alcoholic father left them and ran away from home.
To make a living, the mother moved to Illinois with her two young daughters to live with her children's uncles and aunts.
Lillian of childhood (right)
Her mother was selling popcorn and candy at a theater, and Little Lillian and her sister Dorothy came to help out as soon as school was over.
Although the candy in front of her is colorful and sweet, the brilliant stage in the theater makes Little Lilian even more fascinated.
Soon after, a fire destroyed the theater. However, the dream of the stage has sprouted in Lilian's heart.
The mother moved to New York with her two daughters. It was here that Lilian's fate took a turn.
At that time, Lilian had become an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl. Her face is round and soft like an angel, her eyes are pure and clear as Tianchi, and her figure is delicate and light, as if it is a porcelain doll that people can't bear to touch.
The beauty of Lillian does not belong to the earthly world
Her neighbor, another beautiful girl, formed a deep friendship with her.
The girl introduced her and her sister to her host, the talented director Griffiths.
It turned out that the girl next door was mary bickerfu, the American sweetheart who became famous in the future.
Lillian's delicate appearance and innocent gaze suddenly impressed Griffiths.
He was a full 18 years older than Lillian and was obsessed with film, and Lillian was the muse he was looking for.
Griffiths, a genius director in the silent film era
To him, she was like a girl who came out of Dickens's novel, pure, beautiful, vulnerable, and perfectly in line with his requirements for a heroine.
Soon, Lillian's petite and agile shadow appeared in Griffith's film.
Lillian on the screen
In "The Birth of a Nation," she is imprisoned by the mob and hides in vain in a small space, her innocent eyes filled with shock and helplessness. Finally, she was so weak that she suddenly passed out.
It is said that the astonishing fragility she presented made the audience so anxious that they almost had to stand up and pray loudly.
Lillian on the screen
What makes the audience love more is her rare girlish temperament. Even as the years passed, she could always remain virgin.
In the movie "Destroyed Flowers", she is 25 years old and plays a 15-year-old girl Lucy who is suffering from death, but there is no sense of violation.
Her delicacy, her innocence, her innocence, seemed to become her eternal character.
Lillian is also a performing genius. Although she did not have professional training and debuted later than other actors, her acting skills led the genre.
In the pompous style of the silent film era, her performances flowed naturally, without carving, and naturally, which made her a pioneer of the naturalistic performance genre.
In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Lin Daiyu is described as "like a flower shining on the water when idle, and acting like a weak willow supporting the wind". This sentence is also appropriate for Lilian.
Because Lilian on the screen is often a small family jasper, a girl with tuberculosis, a weak woman who is bullied... Always look like I see pity.
Does Lilian dressed in the East have a bit of Daiyu's charm?
However, in real life, Lilian's petite body seems to be hiding a "small universe", full of persistent and indomitable energy.
During the filming of "Towards the East", she was lying on top of the ice floes in thin clothes, drifting along the rapids. At that time, she was completely filming in the field in a snowstorm. It is conceivable that Lilian, who is weak in body, was almost frozen to death.
After that, Griffiths quickly bought her a high amount of insurance.
Lilian on a flowing ice floes
When filming "Bohemian Girl", in order to interpret the scene of the heroine who was seriously ill and dying, she actually went on a hunger strike for three days, and even before filming, she sucked up saliva with cotton, making herself haggard and weak. When the scene of the protagonist's death was filmed, Lilian actually fainted.
The director panicked, suspecting that she was really dead, because she had stopped breathing, and it seemed that her soul had also gone with the wind...
Lillian's private life was as pure as her appearance.
When she left Griffiths and came to MGM, her acting skills became more skilled.
However, MGM wants to make more gimmicks to maximize profit on Lilian.
And Lilian's life is flawless, in addition to her beloved film career, she has not even talked about love, and it is really impossible to start if you want to hype.
The supervisor consulted with her and wanted to create some gossip to win attention, but Lilian flatly refused.
How can a fairy who does not belong to mortal dust be willing to be contaminated with the dust of the world?
Such a clean fairy, but because of his own fine dust, was ostracized by MGM.
Soon after, the rise of sound films, Lilian took the opportunity to return to the theatrical stage, temporarily bidding farewell to the chaotic and secular Hollywood.
Later, she was once active on stage and television, and her face was still beautiful and moving.
When she returned to the screen in her later years, people were surprised to find that the "porcelain doll" still had a girlish appearance.
In her later years, Lilian's face was still delicate
She is the eternal girl, the eternal "Miss Lilian", the eternal "Movie Lady" in people's hearts.
She remained unmarried and childless all her life, and married herself to a career in acting that she loved.
Many have speculated that she had a romance with Griffiths. In fact, however, she has always regarded him as her mentor in life, calling him "Mr. Griffith" all her life.
When Griffiths walked down from the altar and was gradually forgotten, Lillian always respected him as before.
In his impoverished and sick old age, Lillian guarded him until his death from illness.
Later, with Lillian's efforts, the United States issued a stamp commemorating Griffiths, allowing the great director to return to his rightful place.
She was also a mentor and friend to Griffiths, and this intimate relationship transcended the mundane.
In 1993, Lillian died in a dream at the age of 99.
This ethereal fairy seemed to have returned to heaven, and the long, nearly century-long earthly disturbances had left no trace of her vicissitudes.