Written before the age of video and DVD, where images can be frozen or the real time of movement altered, this book features over 750 frame enlargements from the films in which Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis appeared. These enlargements dissect the craft of each star's acting style, by reproducing moments, often close-ups, in a frame by frame study, and also documents the evolution and refinement of technique. The chapters on Gish are less interesting to me (a matter of personal taste), but the ones on Garbo and Davis are priceless. The films Garbo made were notoriously inferior to what she brought to them. Nowhere is this more evident than in her silent period, though Affron gives us images from films lost or unavailable to us. An example is A Woman of Affairs and the sequence where she embraces a bouquet of flowers from her lover. Affron's images convey the series of expressions that range from relief, panic at the thought of losing the bouquet again, and hysteria. The enlargements capture the transitions, and the "organic and spontaneous nature of her epiphany". The text which accompanies the frames is often hyperbolic and unnecessary. Garbo's sound era is best represented and finalised by the enlargements from Camille, since Affron does not cover Conquest, Ninotchka or Two-Faced Woman. Affron's chapters on Davis cover her apprenticeship with Warner Bros, highlights the three films she made with William Wyler - Jezebel, The Letter and The Little Foxes - as exercises in control and focus, and culminates in her triumph in All About Eve. There is an argument that reducing film performance, particulary ones from a talkie, is diminishing the accomplishment of the performer. While this book could be used as an alternative to the films the frames are taken from, I prefer to use it as a supplement to the films, and an opportunity to appreciate the beauty and talent of these extraordinary actors

If you have been (like me) dissatisfied with having only Gish's autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, as a source of information on her life, then buy this book.
But be warned.
While there is much more information about Gish than was ever available before her death, the author Charles Affron belongs to that new school of biography in which the writer turns snide and bitchy toward his subject. Affron did not make the effort necessary to understand the world in which Gish was born and raised - an era so far from our own in its values that it is another world. Not having this insight, Affron loses patience with Gish and begins to snipe about her "victorian values." He does not even understanding that she was a part of the American EDWARDIAN era and her values display the emphasis on art and beauty and education that was so much a part of that time.
If the world surged into the partying 20s and on and on, moving further from what shaped Lillian Gish, this is not a reason to pick at her personally. A good biographer would explain how she struggled to maintain good values as she saw them.
The upshot is that the author's bias renders the facts so tainted with his dislike that in the end his shallow view spoils all. What is the use of a book that you have to wrestle with in order to discern unbiased information?
I found this book ultimately disappointing, very disappointing. But if you have a Gish collection and want access to its facts about her, then buy it secondhand.

This book is fantastic! I have always thought that Miss Gish was a great performer and one of the most beautiful actresses ever, but it turns out she was a pretty smart cookie (except in the romance department) and lead a very interesting life.

Book reviewer Richard Schickel has given this book a bad review. He is all hot and bothered in that Gish was not very truthful about her life (like umpteen other famous movie stars) and he apparently doesn't like her "proper", chaste, Victorian-era image. The author, Charles Affron, had access to many of her personal papers, including may personal letters that she wrote. While Affron may knock her off her pedestal a little bit, it is only because she was a real person who sometimes made mistakes.

Gish fibbed about all kinds of things like her birthdate, her engagement, and the cause of her mother's stroke. The famed "happy" ending of THE WIND was actually in Francis Marion's script, not a late addition forced by the studio like Gish claimed so much later. She chose to "forget" or not mention all kind of things like her personal relationship with D.W. Griffith (which was probably not sexual anyway) and the fact that she didn't always get along with her sister Dorothy.

Gish's image (which was still close to her actual personality, even if some of the details were not true) really hurt her in the 1920's when the fan magazines turned against her and MGM didn't know what kind of vehicle would be right for her.

She seems to have been the only woman (or person) who could stand up to Griffith when it came to artistic decisions. She certainly was an artistic force to be reckoned with, and the loss of her lone direction credit REMODELING HER HUSBAND (1920) seems worse now that I have read the book.

The only disappointment for me was that Affron did not spend as much time analyzing her films as he should have. While other reviewers have complained that Affron unfairly criticizes Gish for being a Victorian and a Republican, I do not feel that his comments about BIRTH OF A NATION and her politics are unwarranted.

If you are interested in Lillian Gish, D.W. Griffith, and silent films in general, this book is highly recommended.

Quite simply: a terrific book, and one of the most insightful "Hollywood" biographies ever. Affron brings Gish to life in these pages, recapturing the lost glamor of the silent screen era and a vanished American sensibility. Affron is a critic both learned and discerning ... it's a pleasure to watch him think on the page. Any one with any interest in Gish, D.W. Griffith or silent cinema should own this book -- my highest recommendation.