David Llewelyn Wark "D. W." Griffith

 David Llewelyn Wark "D. W." Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948)

Griffith is mostly remembered as the director of the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance (1916). He is closely associated with his frequent leading lady, Lillian Gish. Griffith began making short films in 1908, and released his first feature, Judith of Bethulia, in 1913. His film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States. The film has been extremely controversial for its negative depiction of African-Americans, White Unionists, and the Reconstruction, and its positive portrayal of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan. Several of Griffith's later films, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1921) were also successful, but his high production, promotional, and roadshow costs often made his ventures commercial failures. By the time of his final feature, The Struggle (1931), he had made roughly 500 films.

For his pioneering techniques and early understanding of cinema, Griffith is considered among the most important figures in the history of the medium. However, by the 1930s and 1940s he was in financial trouble and largely ignored or forgot about by Hollywood. Griffith was discovered unconscious in the lobby at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, where he had been living alone. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage on July 23, 1948 at age 73. He is buried at Mount Tabor Methodist Church Graveyard in Centerfield, KY.