WOMEN IN FILM TRIBUTE SET FOR GISH AND DAVIS

Two of Hollywood’s great veteran actresses--Bette Davis and Lillian Gish--will be honored this weekend at the Women in Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Universal City Cinemas.

Davis will be honored at a gala tonight following the West Coast premiere of her 100th film project, “The Whales of August,” in which she stars with Gish. Gish is being honored Sunday night with the first presentation of the Lillian Gish Awards, given by the festival to films and other entries of merit.

Gish’s birthday was celebrated in New York Wednesday night with the East Coast premiere of “The Whales of August,” in which she plays her most challenging role since her silent films. A party followed at the Plaza.

New York Mayor Edward Koch presented Gish with a crystal apple; Helen Hayes read her a Shakespearean sonnet; she was serenaded with a song, custom-written for the occasion by “Whales” producer Mike Kaplan; “Whales” director Lindsay Anderson read a congratulatory telegram from President Reagan and the First Lady; syndicated columnist Liz Smith predicted the several hundred stars, friends and fans present would forever remember being a part of her birthday.

Earlier in the week, serving tea in the memento-filled Manhattan apartment where she has lived since the 1920s (first, with her mother and famous sister Dorothy, and now, alone), Gish shied away from discussing her birthday or “The Whales of August,” her 105th film.

Her age is uncertain--variously listed between 87 and 92. She frequently has said that she started performing onstage “12 weeks before the new century,” at age 5, making her 92. What is certain is that she has worked nearly non-stop in all acting mediums for more than 80 years and that her output spans all of American film history, beginning with D. W. Griffith; she was also one of the first women to direct films, and to control her own films.

She was treated here this week like a legend.

“I’m used to it,” Gish said, nonchalantly, of all the fuss--hundreds of cards coming into her apartment from all over the world, along with flowers, gifts and visits from reporters, and even fans.

“A lot more has happened to me than should happen to anybody, a lot more than I deserve,” she said.

Gish, draped in an antique dressing gown, and more anxious to play hostess to her guest than to be interviewed, was just as casual about her latest film role which has her portraying the cheerful, caring companion to an embittered, blind sister, played by Davis. The role is larger than any she has played in films since Victor Sjostrom’s 1928 silent “The Wind.” Brushing aside its special significance at this point in her long career, she said: “I don’t think so much about my performance. And I never think about the size of the role; only, if I’m right for it and if I can do it.

“I never wanted my name out front, I just wanted to fit in,” she continued. “We used to ask Mr. Griffith what it meant to be a star, and he said it meant becoming a household name, and that that took 30 years. So we decided we didn’t want to be stars.”

Gish turned down her latest role five times, but due to the persistence of film producer Kaplan, who had been looking for a major role for Gish since first meeting her in 1968, and becoming “enchanted” at the idea, she finally agreed.

“I don’t know why I turned it down; maybe I was tired . . . and you have to get up so early (on films),” Gish said this week. “But then Mike asked to see me, and I couldn’t say ‘no’ to such a kind face.”

Of her unceasing will to work, Gish said: “We’re all creatures of habit, and I work. I’ve never learned to play.”

Asked what she might have done had she not--out of need to support her impoverished family-- become an actress, or whether she has missed out on other aspects of a full life, Gish responded, “How would I know? I’ve never done anything else.”

Then, pointing to a framed, needlepoint memento on her coffee table, Gish read the words: “What you get is a living . . . what you give is a life.”

“Mother always told us not to think of ourselves, but to think of the other person,” she said, cutting off any further questions to offer her guest more tea.

After more than a half century of struggling to maintain her position as both an independent woman in a man’s world and a major film star amidst the constant winds of change in Hollywood, and after enduring a stroke, a mastectomy and a major hip operation, Bette Davis, 79, is still at it, still going strong.

In “The Whales of August,” stripped of makeup and wearing a long white wig that accentuates her frail frame, Davis’ gaunt appearance may at first disarm her fans. She plays a blind woman, Libby Strong--”it’s very unusual for me to be photographed without my eyes,” said Davis--but her latest character has the familiar Davis grit.

Set on a Maine island during a two-day period in 1954, “The Whales of August” also stars movie legends Vincent Price and Ann Sothern. The focus is on Gish’s character, and on the increasing difficulties she is having with her willful, demanding, embittered, older sister. Observing that her character is “very tied to the idea of death” throughout most of the film, Davis said, with a throaty laugh, “In this respect, she’s quite unlike me; she’s quite a pessimist.”

Last fall, while shooting the film on the rugged island location, Davis, clad in chic gray slacks and a matching silk blouse, reflected on a career that has earned her 10 Oscar nominations.

“I’ve been very fortunate, but I’ve never been blase,” said Davis, still chain-smoking and looking every inch the star, even amidst her Spartan surroundings. She draped herself in a mink coat, and continued:.

“I think one of the things that has made my career different is that I’ve never avoided playing unpleasant characters. I’ve never had any vanity,” she said, recalling her unconventional or unsympathetic roles in films like “The Little Foxes,” “Now Voyager,” and “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

“I always went with the changes . . . I did the early TV shows, like ‘Wagon Train,’ and I was one of the first to go on the talk shows. I knew TV was definitely the coming thing, and of course, TV kept all my old films coming to new generations. I think all of this kept my career going.

“(But) it will never be as exciting as the years when I was hoping to make it, you can’t ever have that real thrill again.”

Since her last theatrical film, a 1980 Disney fright film, “The Watcher in the Woods,” Davis has played a succession of roles on network and cable television.

Asked why she decided to work on “The Whales of August” after initially turning down the role Davis said:

“It was a good script and a good part. I don’t know why I changed my mind, I just did . . . I guess I just thought it would be fun to come back to the movies.”

Film director Lindsay Anderson said of working with Davis:

“She is considerable . . . she’s always testing you, always putting you through a certain process. But once you’ve passed, it’s OK.”

Producer Mike Kaplan: “There are not many actresses of Davis’s age or caliber who would have tackled the role, and no one could have played it as well. It’s a testament to the way she goes after a challenge . . . she’s got great guts and courage.”

These qualities have marked Davis’ career since her first film, “The Bad Sister” (1931). Refusing to accept Hollywood’s initial rejection of her unconventional looks, she fought her way through a long-running contract during the ‘30s with Warner Bros., finally forcing the studio to give her the roles she wanted. In the ‘40s, when her career was faltering, she bounced back with the memorable “All About Eve.” At other low points, she advertised her availability in the trade press. And in the ‘60s, she triumphed in two unlikely thrillers, “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” and “Baby Jane,” which earned her a 10th Oscar nomination.

While lamenting the death of “gorgeous parts,” and directors from her own golden age like the late William Wyler, who directed her in her second Oscar-winner “Jezebel” (She won her first Oscar for the film “Dangerous”), Davis said “films are the greatest place for performance. I love it, and I don’t want to stop working.

“I just pray I find one more great one--not another old woman. It’s my dream to play Helena Rubenstein.

“I’d like just one more of the kind of part I once played. This is not that part,” she said, of her role in “The Whales of August.”

“I may never find it. But who knows, one day it may come along.

“I’d like just one more crack at it.”