It was at the end of May, 1930, at the Rivoli Theatre, New York City, that Lillian was presented in her first, probably her only, talking picture. For during those months since she had finished it, something had happened—something of epochal proportions: she had returned to the stage! A block down Broadway, in 48th Street, at the Cort Theatre, since April 15, she had been appearing six nights and two afternoons a week, as Helena, in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”

It had all come about naturally enough. When it became known that Lillian Gish was closing her contract with the United Artists, proposals arrived plentifully. The distinguished Russian manager, director, author, Dantchenko, wrote that he had begun a story with her especially in mind; Basil Rathbone sent a manuscript and wrote: “I need not say how happy I should be to do a play with you, a privilege denied me even in my very own play, ‘The Swan.’” A cable from Germany stated that a motion picture company had been formed of those who believed in Reinhardt, and that Jannings and all the best of Germany’s artists had signed; that the first picture was to be “La Vie Parisienne,” by Offenbach—three versions to be made, French, English and German, Lillian to have the position of production manager.

But then came an opportunity such as she had hoped for: One day, George Jean Nathan spoke to her of the actress Ruth Gordon, of how much Lillian would like her.

“Couldn’t you arrange a meeting?” she asked.

He could, and did. He asked them both to tea, at the Colony Restaurant.

Lillian was not disappointed in Ruth Gordon. They had one love in common: France. They talked a great deal about that pleasant land, its beauties, its castles, its wines—especially its wines—one of which in particular, they both loved, Clos Veugeot. Ruth Gordon said:

“And I know a man who has the same taste: Jed Harris, the theatrical producer.”

Someone proposed: “We must try to get a bottle. The first one of us who finds it, to give a dinner, and invite Mr. Harris.”

Said Lillian, remembering:

“But of course no one could get a bottle of Clos Veugeot, any more. One day, Ruth telephoned that she had a bottle of Rhine wine, and that Mr. Harris loved that, too. So we had a small dinner in her apartment, with Rhine wine and strawberry ice-cream. For the first time, I heard Jed Harris talk. I thought I had never heard anyone like him. It seemed to me that he knew the theatre as no one I had ever met. Later, when I went with Ruth to get my hat, I said: ‘Ruth, he’s wonderful! I’d work for such a man for nothing.’ Ruth agreed. She had worked for him in ‘Serena Blandish,’ and told me how fine he had been.

“A few weeks later, George Nathan called up to say that Jed Harris had a part for me: ‘That’s splendid,’ I said, ‘but do you think I could do it?’

“‘Of course. It’s Helena, in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”’

“I said I would read it over at once, and see if I could do it. I adored Chekhov, and had a volume of his plays, but it didn’t contain ‘Vanya.’ I was very excited. For ten years—from the time of working with Victor Maurel, I had hoped to get back to the stage.”

She ran out to a bookshop, and presently was back, deep in the play. She thought Helena a hard part—wondered if she could do it. Her stage work lay far behind her—really counted for little, though for more, perhaps, than she realized.

This was at the end of February, or early in March. Almost immediately, they went into rehearsal. Jed Harris had selected a well-nigh perfect cast. With Walter Connolly in the title rÔle, the tired, tearful, disillusioned Vanya; with Osgood Perkins, as Astroff, the hard-riding, hard-drinking, disillusioned doctor; with Eugene Powers, as Serebrakoff, the ailing, fat-headed, city professor; with Lillian, as Helena, his young, beautiful, disillusioned wife; with Joanna Roos, as Sonia, his unhappy, love-lorn daughter; with Kate Mayhew, as Nurse Marina; with Isabel Irving, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Harold Johnsrud—one must travel far to find a group of players better suited to a Chekhov play, or one more congenial to work with. Ruth Gordon was not in the cast, but she came to Lillian’s apartment and worked with her. So did Mr. Harris. They believed in her, and encouraged her to believe in herself.

Going back to the stage had its difficulties. For one thing, it had been seventeen years since she had appeared before an audience, and then had never played a leading part. The audience did not matter so much—she had never been audience conscious. But the rehearsing. In the pictures, the scene was shot, the film developed, and put on the screen for judgment, all within a brief time. If unsatisfactory, it could be made over, and over again. Furthermore, it could be “edited.” Now, it was all quite different. You could not see how well, or how badly, you had done a thing; you only knew what the director told you.

She had moments of misgiving. Perhaps it would have been better, certainly safer, to remain in the pictures—even the talking pictures that had offended her as incongruous. They were new, crude—Arliss in his “Disraeli” had taken a long step towards something that, in the end, might mean, if not perfection, at least something as near it as the silent film had reached. Oh, well....

It was in New Haven, on the evening of April 6 (1930), that the curtain went up on Lillian’s first night in “Uncle Vanya.” She was nervous, after all. The moment came when Helena enters, merely to drift voicelessly across the stage. There was a burst of applause from the audience—she was not prepared for that, and was almost as frightened as on that long-ago night of the explosion at Risingsun. She quickened her step, quickened it still more—was almost running, at the exit. Jed Harris still gives amusing imitations of this first entrance across the threshold of her new-old career.

Never mind—it was a success. The leading New Haven paper, which never before had given an editorial to a theatrical performance, gave one next morning, to “Vanya.” Professor William Lyon Phelps invited her to luncheon, and was full of enthusiasm. He had seen nothing, he declared, since Mary Anderson, to impress him so much as Lillian’s Helena. He wrote a letter to the “People’s Forum,” calling the public’s attention to the play.

All very gratifying: To Lillian, however, one of the most satisfactory features of her new venture was the absence of the money element—always, after the Griffith days, a foremost consideration. The word “salary” had never been mentioned between her and Mr. Harris. She did not even know what she was to have until she got her envelope at the end of the week.

It was a gray afternoon, in the little den which has become so much a part of our story, that Lillian recounted these things. She owed a heavy debt to Ruth Gordon, she insisted, and thought of Helena as “Ruth’s child.”

And just here came one of those coincidences which are always being popped into plays and stories. In another room, the telephone rang. A maid appeared at the door.

“Will you speak to Miss Gordon?” she said.