Mary-Louise Parker Is... Mary Louise Parker!

Thoughts I had while watching... RED (2010)

A few years ago I attended one of those New Yorker festival interviews that featured Mary-Louise Parker and the writer/moderator called her "a chameleon" after showing a clip of her from a movie I didn't recognize in which she wore a blond wig. It was the most ridiculous thing I heard that entire movie year.

Mary-Louise Parker is not a chameleon. Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker. Like most enduring star actors, she's very very good at her one role.

This random memory came to me while watching RED, the October action comedy (yes, I'm two months late.) about Retired and Extremely Dangerous operatives, that the Golden Globe and Satellite voters unfortunately tossed into the precursor-mandated viewing schedule.

In the film Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker with a headset. She works a boring job answering phones in some payroll divison of government and she enjoys flirting with retired killer Bruce Willis played by not-retired action star Bruce Willis. Once someone takes a hit out on Willis, MLP gets caught up in the madness.

All of the delightful MLPisms were there: the stoned line-readings, the sly smiles, the wide eyed narcisstic "this is happening? to me ???" wonder, that improbably unique fusion of frazzled and narcotized performance energy as if her body and mouth have never quite decided which brain  chemicals or illegal substances are in power during that moment.

The movie is not good. But I can't lie and say I didn't enjoy it at all. Here are the things I enjoyed about it most in descending order.

• Mary Louise Parker playing Mary Louise Parker.
• Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis.
• Mary Louise Parker mumbling "pizza" from beneath duct tape after much unintelligible screaming about being tied up and duct-taped. It's true, I LOLed.
• Mary Louise Parker hiding behind Bruce Willis when confronted with John Malkovich playing John Malkovich. My what big teeth he has. "All the better to chew scenery with, my dear"
• Karl Urban being sexy, especially whilst wounded. 
• Bruce Willis casually stepping out of a madly spinning car, as if it's in park and he's just running errands... with loaded firearms.

But mostly I did not enjoy it. For these reasons.

• Brian Cox mangling a Russian accent. 
• Rebecca Pidgeon being cast as someone who you're not supposed to know is sinister, because she's always sinister.
• This is a personal thing but I have a super low tolerance for "comedies" that think rapidly escalating body counts are hilarious. And seriously this thing is vile with the 'killing people is fun and wacky! twinkly cheer.
• That neighborhood where not a single house lights up or neighbor emerges while a group of men machine gun a house for what feels like an hour.
• General laziness.
• The pervasive feeling that it might never end.

• The joke with the stuffed pig did not work. The set up, punchline and execution didn't feel at all in synch for what was, I can only presume, supposed to be a big takeaway gag. I mean, they even sent awards voters that very pig (albeit in miniature form).

Monty, who attacks stuffed animals on sight, was weirdly docile
when confronted with "the pig".

Lastly, I did not enjoy Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman or Helen Mirren as Helen Mirren because they both seemed to be phoning it in for a quick buck and both are capable of so much more. Seriously, do these two ever say "no" to an offer? Did any big-salaried actors make easier paychecks this year?

Even if you didn't see the movie... (you dodged a bullet --- thousands of them actually) do you like it when Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary-Louise Parker?
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You Were Saying...? (Extended Thoughts on Previous Topics)

I pray my occasional 'look at these comments!' posts don't come off as desperate. I'm just a very chatty person, what can I say? Since we are all becoming cyborgs, comments feel closer to conversation all the time. One day we will all forget how to speak. We will grow extra sets of fingers for more typing speed. Evolution will shrink our hands so that we can text with greater ease on our tiny devices.

First, I wanted to thank everyone who offered up music suggestions ♪ ♫  in the Grammy Awards post. I've already started investigating your recommendations since I usually have at least one "music of the year" or "music video of the year" posts in late December.  Keep 'em coming.

Last year about this time the public was going wild for The Blind Side and I included an "Overheard" conversation about it. Broooooke recently discovered the year old post and feels bad that Sandra got such flack for winning because the performance (if not the film) holds up. I would love to include more of those overheard posts but I'm telling you it is SO hard to eavesdrop in NYC. You're oft thwarted by noisy subway trains and traffic and whispering (damn you quite people in noisy cities!). Just last week two older men in suits right next to me on the subway were discussing the Oscar race. I was dying to eavesdrop but alas... major subway noise and then my stop.

A related note on Sandra B: Rebecca finds it odd that people lament the Academy's refusal to give older women the Oscar in the Annette Bening post but also bitch about Sandra's win. Sandra was 45 when she won. But more on this age & oscar topic this week ~ Article in Progress. 

Viggo & Fassy on the set of A Dangerous Method

Patrick F recently declared it a life goal to see all of Viggo Mortenson's movies. I was just thinking about Viggo yesterday and how long it took him to get really famous. It was a by-association thought. I was watching Fish Tank (so good, right?) and dreaming about seeing Viggo and Michael Fassbender as Freud & Jung in A Dangerous Method or The Talking Cure or whatever David Cronenberg is calling that psychiatric bio these days. They seem like such ideally paired co-stars to me.

Cal read the whole Undertow interview -- that's the Peruvian Oscar submission -- and loves that more Latin American movies are getting international attention "Before it was only Argentina and Brazil." Troia recently saw the movie, too, and thinks it one of the most moving of 2010. I bring this up now after the fact because I'm assuming we're going to hear about the foreign film finalists from AMPAS any day now. I love following the foreign film race but I'm not sure about this whittling down process where suddenly 50+ movies are evicted in the last month before the actual nominations. Imagine being on the campaign trail and then >boom< 'Sorry, you're out before nominations are even announced.' My current 9 predicted finalists are here but this category often holds surprises so no one knows anything.

That Helen Mirren "women in hollywood" speech sure has been making the web rounds (though there weren't many comments here on it.) Still, Manuel recalls the first time he saw the delightful Helen Mirren (Prime Suspects) and was hooked ever after. Mirren only gradually entered my consciousness. The first thing I remember seeing her in is White Nights (1985) where she met her future husband, the director Taylor Hackford. I was kind of in love with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the time (she played his wife) and I only remember two things about the movie today.

1. A shot of Misha stretching to warm up where he lays his head against his entirely vertical leg. As if this is something the human body is supposed to be able to do! 
2. This scene where Misha dances for her and she cries from the beauty of his movement. Or at least that's how I remembered the reason for her tears.

Why the Misha love? Blame childhood in the 1970s. It's probably impossible to imagine for anyone born in the 90s when the only people constantly discussed seem to be reality TV show stars but yes... a ballet dancer was once mega-famous to the point where teenager had posters of him on their walls. I wonder if Black Swan will inspire a mini-fad of renewed interest in ballet? If so that'll sure help Benjamin Millipied from Black Swan.

Odes to Emaciation: Christian Bale's Insane Actorly Commitment

I was just about to go into several interesting comments from the latest link roundup but I could do this all day and I have to move on. See.... in about 4 or 5 hours things start getting really crazy with the awards calendar... but maybe Sheila isn't the only one who is less than excited to see the madness begin. She writes

Ahh, these bullshit awards leave me cold. Why do people fawn over them so? Think of all the past great performances that were left out and you get the message. It's all about timing, timing, timing, especially now...

Timing is indeed the magic element. She's not far off with one key example: Christian Bale's "posterboy routine for committed actors" is finally catching up with him in terms of awards heat. 
Are you as chatty this morning? If not, have another cup o' joe.

"Hoist My Spanks Up!" The Ever-Delightful Queen Helen Mirren Speaks Out.

Behold: Helen Mirren at the Women in Hollywood event. Once she's done re-revelling in Halle Berry's Oscar win (Berry must have preceded her onto the stage), she brings us to the now with this smackdown of Hollywood's relentless and innate sexism.



You don't often hear celebrities getting pointed about the hand that feeds them. Like...

I resent having witnessed in my life the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of some very brilliant female ones...

So do I, Helen, so do I. But alas... it's not just Hollywood's fault. The audience has to be held accountable too, don't they? Which tail is wagging which dog exactly?
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IMDb Top 20 Actress List. A Few Late Notes.

Have any of you read this IMDb list which purports to evaluate the "overall importance and impact" of film actresses across the span of the past two decades. That'd be 1990-2009 (though obviously they're including 2010.) I had somehow missed this list which arrived in September I think but I can't let it go by without some comment. I'm not sure what they mean by "impact" exactly... global fame? If so, Angelina is too low. And "importance" is another highly subjective word. The list is as follows.

[I've added the "peak periods" after their names to attempt to show when they were most "important/impactful" or, rather,  "when people cared about them the most" in film.]

1. Julia Roberts  .............[1990-2001]
2. Meryl Streep ..............[1990, 1995, 2002-now]
3. Cate Blanchett ...........[1998-2008]
4. Kate Winslet  .............[1994-2008]
5. Jodie Foster   .............[1990-1997]
6. Nicole Kidman  .........[1995, 2001-2005]
7. Sandra Bullock  .........[1994-2000, 2009-now]
8. Halle Berry  ...............[1991-1992, 1998-2002]
9. Emma Thompson   ....[1991-1995]
10. Angelina Jolie   .........[1999-now]
11. Julianne Moore   .......[1998-2004, 2008-now]
12. Susan Sarandon   ......[1990-1995]
13. Helen Mirren   ..........[2001, 2006-now]
14. Gwyneth Paltrow  .....[1995-2002]
15. Hilary Swank   ..........[1999,2004]
16. Cameron Diaz   .........[1994-2005]
17. Renée Zellweger  ......[1996-2004]
18. Meg Ryan   ...............[1990-2000]
19. Jennifer Aniston   .....[2006-now]
20. Judi Dench   .............[1997-2001, 2005-2006]

I've never attempted to remove my own opinion for an objective list... objective lists are best done by committee. But I did notice that most of the objections to my own personal "Best of the Aughts list" (which only counted 2000-2004 as it was made in 2005) were based on the overall fame and consensus acclaim of the snubees combined with the willful refusal to see that it was a subjectively judged "best/favorite" opinion piece.

But even if you are trying to be objective with "impact/importance" there will be disagreements.

 <--- Nathaniel's #1 "Actress of the Aughts"... if you include the 1990s though, her rank would drop quite precipitously.

For example, I can't figure how Jennifer Aniston ranks at all since they're talking about a decade in Cinema. If you include TV, she is absolutely deserving of a top 20 spot given global fame and tv iconography. But even her romantic comedy features aren't the classics or blockbusters that the other romantic comedy women on the list (Julia + Sandra + Cameron + Meg) have achieved -- usually more than once, too. So I think they're confusing "fame" which she certainly has a lot of with "importance to cinema".

I also think Swank shouldn't rank. She's an active figure for only half of the time frame PLUS her only claim to fame is two roles when all is said and done. Sure those were Oscar winners but that's it. Is there any other modern actor who has managed so much credit for body from such a tiny tissue sample? Because the rest of her resume.. nobody cares. I don't think that's just a personal opinion influencing my observation. Consider that I'm not the biggest cheerleader for Renée Zellweger either but I absolutely agree that she deserves a top 20 spot on a list of this type covering this timeframe. I'd believe that about Aniston too, given her longevity, if anyone could point to any film that was a big deal, either critically or box office wise that she was intrinsic too. Maybe The Break-Up (2006) but isn't that the only possible argument? It's not like people paid for Bruce Almighty to see her.

Also: Gwyneth Paltrow. Similar situation in a way to Jennifer Aniston... i.e. unquestionably one of the biggest celebrities, but one of the biggest actresses? Unless "overall importance and impact" means "size of celebrity" in which case, the list would need serious reworking.

Most surprising (but deserved) inclusion: Meg Ryan. She's the only person who made the list who hasn't been capturing public attention recently and not generally treated positively. I'm proud of the editors for their objectivity there. See, you can usually tell when a list is made by what the rankings are; they always follow current perception meaning that however people are feeling about someone right then matters far more than whatever they felt about them over the course of whatever time frame they're judging. Take Helen Mirren for a prime example. She is very very very busy right now and has sustained the hysteria over The Queen (2006) surprisingly well -- good for her and her team -- so she makes the list but in actuality she has one of those filmographies/ careers where people flit in and out of interest in her quite easily. When she's out of sight, isn't she out of mind?

Missing from the list: I think the most obvious snub is Reese Witherspoon who was working for all of those 20 years and earned a couple of classics, a few self-sold blockbusters and an Oscar as reward.

Your turn. Do you think the editors made the right choices? Or are you mad that they snubbed Uma? Penélope or any other international divas? Oscar-regular Frances? 90s biggies like Michelle, Joan, Winona, Holly, Angela or Demi? Anjelica? Charlize? Laura or Laura? perpetual classic Diane? kooky Helena? bitch-goddess Annette? avant-garde Tilda? Keira or Scarlett? Or maybe Natalie Portman who has been famous for *gasp* 16 years now and still isn't 30.

Links Wide Shut

<--- Jezebel Knight & Day's hideous poster. Apparently massive P&A budgets don't cover photoshop courses.
The Fug Girls check in with Tom Cruise. And then with...
The Fug Girls Nicole Kidman and her red hair. It's still there (whew)
Jane Fonda reports from the set of an (unknown to me) movie.
My New Plaid Pants JA shares his non-negotiables about the proposed Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel.
Low Resolution Joe completes his countdown of the best Buffy episodes. He has great taste and even better memory.
Movie|Line "8 Ways Toy Story 3 is Exactly like A.I. Artificial Intelligence". Kyle sure builds a strong case here.
The Evening Class has an article about a screening of Jennifer's Body with Diablo Cody in San Francisco. This interview actually makes me want to see the movie.

--->New York Magazine Helen Mirren fishes out her teats to promote Love Ranch which I am seeing tomorrow. Yay. My favorite image from the article is the one I can't share her due to my strict PG rating from the MPAA (although maybe The Film Experience is a full R now because sometimes we talk about the gay and you know how they hate that. Even the talking about it.) Rub-a-dub-dub, Helen's in the tub. She's also as quotable as ever

It’s weird when your life becomes vintage, like a period movie,” she says half-seriously. “I’m getting less notorious as I get older. People forget that I ever was.”

Erik Lundegaard I am always a little surprised when box office articles interest me... on account of numbers kind of bore me. I'm not one for math or profit marginzzz. But Erik connects Toy Story 3 and Jonah Hex beautifully.
Sergio Leone and... Seems that Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) is still being super elusive. iTunes was recently selling it and then just as suddenly yanked it. WB doesn't seem to want it on DVD for Americans. Has anyone here seen it?
popbytes Let's hear it for the boy(s). Kenny Wormald gets the Kevin Bacon role in the remake of Footloose.

RCL: Icy Linney, Hottie Mirren, Canadian Ryan

I couldn't sense excitement out there for my weekly random celeb lineup posts but, all the same, I have to commemorate the Tonys one last time since they were practically Golden Globe-esque last night with the TV & Film stars.

<-- Exclusive Unretouched Photo!
Tonyless veteran Laura Linney congratulates newbie ScarJo on her Tony win. [Apparently Scarlett has never seen Mystic River or The House of Mirth. Ice cold blood puts the rose in those dimpled cheeks. Beware.]

I do want to say though, just as a corrective for what I'm seeing on the web, that The Lovely Laura Linney and Viola Davis don't fit the 'screen stars slumming it inbetween jobs' group situation that Tony voters love but stage aficionados rage against. Viola and Laura are both bonafide stage troupers. They've been doing it for years and if the movie roles ever dried up, it's likely that they'd be perfectly content to hit the boards full time. Linney, by her own admission, prefers it to screens big or small. It's just lucky for us that she can adjust her scale to fit any medium. That's not something just any actor can do. Many have tried but few are as adept at all three as she.

So let's get to dresses...

Best Dressed!

I'm not trying to be cheeky putting the original Wicked stars Kristin Chenoweth & Idina Menzel together in best dressed, I just think they deserve it. Cheno looks great in white and can work a micro dress with the best, even somehow managing non obscene pratfalls in them. Speaking of obscenity: Imagine how much Wicked could charge for tickets if Cheno & Idina were to return however briefly after their post-Wicked fame? Idina, of the less flashy personality, makes up for it with this intricate dress. I hope they took a photo together last night, but I haven't seen it if they did.

Update: They did and here it is (Thanks Emma!)

♪ ♫ It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend... ♪

And let's hear it for two women who have decaying portraits hidden in attics on their estates: Bernadette Peters, 62, who stepped out of some greco-roman sculpture garden complete with curls, and Dame Hotness, 64, in a super flattering dark blue scooped neck gown.

One of the best moments last night was when Mirren shouted out to the people "in the gods". I had somehow never heard this expression before but it's apparently a reference to the balcony (i.e. the cheap seats).

Not So Much

I understand that Jada Pinkett Smith is a relatively fierce woman... but divatude aside, do you really wanna risk comparison to that icy hotness of one Vera Farmiga on Oscar night of all things. It's the same dress in the same color family but chopped in half for a woman who's 7 inches shorter and needs to show leg for the illusion of length. I think Blanchett is auditioning in character as DAZZLER for the next X-Men film. (Yes I made that up. Marvel still has some B list characters left before they get to Alison Blaire.) Sherie Rene Scott seemed to forget that when movie stars are invading your domain you have to pick it up a notch. I mean this is pretty but it's awfully casual when you're celebrating a personal success like Everyday Rapture at an awards show. And finally whenever I look at ScarJo's gown -- which I want desperately to like -- I hear Heidi Klum saying "It looks cheap, no?" Maybe it's the color that's making me think of a glittery dress that some young Vice President of Marketing might wear to her corporate Christmas partay.

You know Cate was all like...

'I have lots of gold but not this kind. Gimme.'

I should note that men were also walking the red carpet last night including 'Canadian Who Lives With Me' and 'That Man That's a Movie Star That I Get To Sleep With Every Night.' It's been nearly 24 hours since the Tonys and I'm still reeling at all the new ways the actresses have found to say "my husband" at awards shows. I only wish we could have heard Helen Mirren's new way of describing Taylor Hackford.

Ricky Martin, who no longer needs any euphemisms, was also present.

Ricky & The Canadian That Lives With Scarlett Johansson

Last night was ... odd.
Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, RYAN REYNOLDS

Yes, No, Maybe So? Love Ranch

We've been ignoring trailers, so we might play catch up this week. Today's future enticement is the 70s brothel drama Love Ranch. Let's map out what makes us want to see it... and not.

If you'd rather not know the entire story, I'd advise you not to watch this particular trailer and just reading the less revealing text.



Most marketing teams don't realize (or perhaps have statistical evidence to the unfortunate contrary) that a well told concept, plot hook and name actors should be enough to hook your target audience. Why do they always think a point by point three act summary is best?

Do we want to see it?

YES.


The cinema has always had a preoccupation with prostitutes; Movie makers see the kinship between show & 'ho business' as well they should. Despite this infamous love affair, the brothel setting is underused. [This is completely tangential, but wouldn't a fictional brothel series be fascinating in the hands of the right HBO or Showtime creative team? There's more than enough TV shows about cops, lawyers and doctors so why not try some other drama-magnet workplaces! Those aren't the only three places where drama is a given.] Anyway, from the looks of the trailer the art direction (Bruno Rubeo and team), costumes (Melissa Bruning) and overall setting should provide moments of interest even setting aside the unknown quality of the script, directing and acting.

Plus there are the girls they're selling which include Bai Ling, Taryn Manning & Gina Gershon. Taylor Hackford and his casting team definitely weren't afraid of scene stealers when they went to work. Or maybe they knew that with Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci leading, scene stealing is a far less likely outcome than scene tug-of-wars.

NO.

The movies love boxers almost as much as hookers. Perhaps filmmakers see a kinship between show & body-blow business? But do we need both in the same movie? Love Ranch could be two full hours of clichéd story beats since we've got entrepreneurs, whores and boxers all battling it out for screen time and narrative arcs in the same movie. Those are three of the movies most familiar types right there. Explosive clichés are probably buried everywhere in that Nevada sand like so many film-derailing landmines.

MAYBE SO.

The casting intrigues. Helen Mirren is always worth a look (though "accent" work is always hard to adjust to in the time span of a trailer) and perhaps her chemistry with Joe Pesci will be odd couple fascinating? But I worry. I can't say that I'm a huge fan of Joe Pesci. He strikes me as an... um... excessive actor and I have a much easier time with 'over the top' when the performer taking me there has a vagina. It's just how I'm wired.

When it comes to Love Ranch are you a Yes, a No or a Maybe So?
And does 'maybe so' mean "wait for reviews" or "I'll watch it on DVD" for you?

Can you Cannes-Cannes?

Julien here, your special correspondent at the Cannes Film Festival.

Where shall I start? First of all, you should know is that this is my first trip to the Festival. A few minutes in, I had already bumped into Her Higness Helen Mirren and her hubby Taylor Hackford, watched Agnès Varda give an interview in the middle of the street, and turned down an invitation to yesterday night's screening of Robin Hood. No need to tell you I feel like a little boy left alone in a candy store.

From here, it seems as if the whole world revolves around cinema: the only thing everyone talks about right now is movies. On TV, on the radio, and in every newspaper in France, movies, movies and more movies. And for a split second, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a household name, Abbas Kiarostami a semi-god, and Javier Bardem the most famous man in the world. No doubt that in a few days, all this will be forgotten, and people will return to obssessing about Lady Gaga's clothes and Jennifer Aniston's hair, but for now, the hottest ticket in town is Xavier Dolan, as it should be.

So whatever the Festival may bring, let's enjoy every minute of it, for it's one of the only places in the world where movie stars are still the center of the universe.

Helen Mirren... Not Usually One For That Waxy Look

One of the most brilliant things about Dame Helen Mirren has to be how lively and famously sexy she still is in her 60s. It surely has to do with comfort in her own skin since she doesn't seem to be trying to come across like some fresh 45 year-old. One can't really imagine her ordering up plastic surgery or botox. Is that why seeing her pose with her wax self amuses so?


This statue is one of the newbies at Madame Tussaud's in London. Have you ever been there? I went only once here in NYC and found it all surprisingly amusing. I was stunned to find that RuPaul got quite the goddess centerpiece treatment. And this was a couple of years before RuPaul's comeback on RuPaul's Drag Race.

Despite only entering the tourist trap once, I regularly see their statues outside since they're very close to one of the biggest multiplexes here. Waxy Leonardo DiCaprio is hanging outside right now in a suit.

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Happy 'They Aren't Mothers' Day!

Sometimes we resent how the biological drive takes the great actresses away from us for years at a time or even forever. We're selfish about movies. Sue us. You'll be hearing or saying "Happy Mother's Day" all day today -- call your mother! -- but just for something a bit different we'd like to wish the following actresses and directors a "Happy Day!" even though they never had children (biological or adopted).

The Queen... Dame Helen Mirren

There's more than one way to give back to the universe and live on past your own time.

These women have given us much to enjoy so Happy Day to them, too. Some of them, like Katharine Hepburn, are no longer with us and some of them, like Zeéeee and The Lovely Laura Linney may yet still have children... but that's no reason not to cherish what any of them have already given the world over the years.

Formidable Ava, 'Barefoot Contessa' / Enigmatic Julie, 'The Sunshine Girl'

A VERY HAPPY DAY to...

• Helen Mirren
• Patricia Clarkson
• Katharine Hepburn
• Ava Gardner
• Dolly Parton
• Maggie Cheung
  
• Julie Christie
  
• Betty White
• Jacqueline Bissett
• Daryl Hannah
  
• Kim Cattrall
• Lily Tomlin
• Marsha Mason
• Mae West
  
• Juliette Lewis
• Anjelica Huston
  
• Renée Zellweger
• Katherine Bigelow
• Julie Taymor
  
• Lauren Hutton
• Laura Linney
• Tallulah Bankhead
• Parker Posey
• Claudette Colbert
• Kathy Bates
  

Read more about any of them by clicking on their names. Did I forget anyone? (If I missed a pregnancy or adoption announcement for someone, my apologies and best wishes!). We send all of these women virtual flowers and cards today.

This post is dedicated to three of the cinema's very first star actresses: Florence Lawrence (1886-1936), Mary Pickford (1892-1979) and Lillian Gish (1893-1993).

Mary Pickford & Lillian Gish. Their lives made history.

None of them had children but in many ways they helped to invent both the movies and screen acting. Their artistic descendants, one might say, are legion.
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