Richard Semler Barthelmess was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920) and was among the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. The following year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two films: The Patent Leather Kid and The Noose.
Barthelmess in 1934
With Lillian Gish in the 1920 release Way Down East
Silverscreen magazine, 1922
Collage of various characters portrayed by Barthelmess, 1920
Lillian Diana Gish was an American actress. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called the "First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gish as the 17th greatest female movie star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
1921 publicity photo
Dorothy and Lillian Gish with actress Helen Ray, their leading lady in Her First False Step (1903)
Gish with Richard Barthelmess in Broken Blossoms (1919)
Gish as Anna Moore in Way Down East (1920)