Constance Talmadge
Encyclopedia
Constance Talmadge was a silent movie
star born in Brooklyn
, New York
, USA, and was the sister of fellow actresses Norma Talmadge
and Natalie Talmadge
.
, Peg decided to try it. This led all three sisters into an acting career.
(1916).
Griffith re-edited Intolerance repeatedly after its initial release, and even shot new scenes long after it was in distribution. Grace Kingsley found Talmadge in her dressing room at the Fine Arts Studio, in Los Angeles
, in the midst of making up for some new shots.
"Did you really drive those galloping brutes of horses?" asked Kingsley.
"Indeed I did," said Talmadge. "Two women sat behind me at the Auditorium the other night. They said, 'Of course she never really drove those horses herself. Somebody doubled for her.' Know what I did? I turned around and told them, 'I wish I could show you my knees, all black and blue even yet from being cracked up against the dashboard of that chariot!'"
So popular was Talmadge's portrayal of the tomboyish Mountain Girl, Griffith released in 1919 the Babylon
ian sequence from Intolerance as a new, separate film called The Fall of Babylon. He refilmed her death scene to allow for a happy ending.
Her friend Anita Loos
, who wrote many screenplays for her, appreciated her "humour and her irresponsible way of life". Over the course of her career, Talmadge appeared in more than 80 films, often in comedies like A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness à la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922).
Talmadge, along with her sisters, was heavily billed during her early career. According to her 1923 Blue Book of the Screen biography, she was "5'5" tall, 120 lbs, with blonde hair and brown eyes, was an outdoor girl who loved activities."
When Talmadge was asked by a writer for Green Book Magazine what sort of stories she wanted to do in 1920, she said: "Although no less than sixty manuscripts are submitted to me every week, it is exceedingly difficult to get exactly the kind of comedy I especially want. I want comedies of manners, comedies that are funny because they delight one’s sense of what is ridiculously human in the way of little everyday commonplace foibles and frailties – subtle comedies, not comedies of the slap stick variety."
With the advent of talkies in 1929, Talmadge left Hollywood. Her sister Norma did make a handful of appearances in talking films, but for the most part the three sisters retired all together, investing in real estate
and other business ventures. Only a few of her films survive today.
, Talmadge succumbed to substance abuse
and alcoholism
later in life. She also had many failed affairs and relationships.
She was married four times, but her early relationships rarely lasted more than a total of three years;
Talmadge's mother fostered the belief she might one day return to films. “Success and fame cast a spell that can never been quite shaken off,” her mother pointed out in her autobiography. “A woman, because of her love, may say, and in the fervor of the moment believe, that she is ready to give up her chosen work. But there is sure to come a time when keen longing and strong regret for her lost career dominate over the more placid contentments of love and marriage. Then unhappiness and friction ensue.”
Along with her sister Norma, Mary Pickford
, and Douglas Fairbanks
, Talmadge inaugurated the tradition of placing her footprints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. She left a trail of five footprints in her slab.
Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
is at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
star born in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, USA, and was the sister of fellow actresses Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
and Natalie Talmadge
Natalie Talmadge
Natalie Talmadge was an occasional silent film actress who was more well-known as the sister of her movie star siblings Norma and Constance Talmadge until her marriage to silent film actor and comedian Buster Keaton....
.
Early life
Although her actual birth year has been in dispute, Talmadge was born on April 19, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York according to the 1900, 1910, and 1920 Censuses. Talmadge was born into a poor family. Her father, Fred, was an alcoholic, and left them when she was still very young. Her mother, Peg, made a living by doing laundry. When a friend recommended that Peg use Norma as a model for title slides in flickers, which were shown in early nickelodeonsNickelodeon movie theater
The Nickelodeon was a multi-purpose theater that was popular from about 1900 to 1914. Usually situated in converted storefronts, the Nickelodeon featured motion pictures, illustrated songs, slide shows and lectures...
, Peg decided to try it. This led all three sisters into an acting career.
Career
She began making films in 1914, in a Vitagraph comedy short, In Bridal Attire (1914). Her first major role was as The Mountain Girl and Marguerite de Valois in D.W. Griffith's IntoleranceIntolerance (film)
Intolerance is a 1916 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a...
(1916).
Griffith re-edited Intolerance repeatedly after its initial release, and even shot new scenes long after it was in distribution. Grace Kingsley found Talmadge in her dressing room at the Fine Arts Studio, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, in the midst of making up for some new shots.
"Did you really drive those galloping brutes of horses?" asked Kingsley.
"Indeed I did," said Talmadge. "Two women sat behind me at the Auditorium the other night. They said, 'Of course she never really drove those horses herself. Somebody doubled for her.' Know what I did? I turned around and told them, 'I wish I could show you my knees, all black and blue even yet from being cracked up against the dashboard of that chariot!'"
So popular was Talmadge's portrayal of the tomboyish Mountain Girl, Griffith released in 1919 the Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ian sequence from Intolerance as a new, separate film called The Fall of Babylon. He refilmed her death scene to allow for a happy ending.
Her friend Anita Loos
Anita Loos
Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author.-Early life:Born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California , where her father, R. Beers Loos, had opened a tabloid newspaper for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher...
, who wrote many screenplays for her, appreciated her "humour and her irresponsible way of life". Over the course of her career, Talmadge appeared in more than 80 films, often in comedies like A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness à la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922).
Talmadge, along with her sisters, was heavily billed during her early career. According to her 1923 Blue Book of the Screen biography, she was "5'5" tall, 120 lbs, with blonde hair and brown eyes, was an outdoor girl who loved activities."
When Talmadge was asked by a writer for Green Book Magazine what sort of stories she wanted to do in 1920, she said: "Although no less than sixty manuscripts are submitted to me every week, it is exceedingly difficult to get exactly the kind of comedy I especially want. I want comedies of manners, comedies that are funny because they delight one’s sense of what is ridiculously human in the way of little everyday commonplace foibles and frailties – subtle comedies, not comedies of the slap stick variety."
"I enjoy making people laugh. Secondly, because this type of work comes easiest and most naturally to me, I am not a highly emotional type. My sister could cry real tears over two sofa cushions stuffed into a long dress and white lace cap, to look like a dead baby, and she would do it so convincingly that 900 persons out front would weep with her. That is real art, but my kind of talent would lead me to bounce that padded baby up and down on my knee with absurd grimaces that would make the same 900 roar with laughter.
"You see, in my way, I take my work quite as seriously as my sister does hers – I would be just as in earnest about making the baby seem ridiculous as she would about making it seem real. I am not fitted to be a vamp type. There is nothing alluring, or exotic, or erotic, or neurotic about me. I could not pull the vamp stuff to save my life, but if I am assigned a vamp role in a comedy, and I had such a part in my fourth First NationalFirst NationalFirst National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio, called First National Pictures, Inc. It later merged with Warner Bros.-Early history:The First National...
picture, In Search of a Sinner. I play it with all the seriousness and earnestness and sincerity with which a real vamp would play it, except that I, of course, over-emphasize all the characteristics of the vampireVampireVampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
. I try to handle a comedy role much the same way that a cartoonistCartoonistA cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
handles his pencils. If he is drawing the picture of the late Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, with a few strokes he emphasizes Teddy’s eye-glasses and teeth, leaving his ears and nostrils and the lines of his face barely suggestive. One must leave a great deal to the imagination on the screen, because in the span of one short hour we sometimes have to develop a character from girlhood to womanhood through three marriages and two divorces, and perhaps travel half way round the world besides; so, like the cartoonist, I try to emphasize the salient characteristics, which, of course, in my particular work, bring out the humorous side of the person I am portraying."
With the advent of talkies in 1929, Talmadge left Hollywood. Her sister Norma did make a handful of appearances in talking films, but for the most part the three sisters retired all together, investing in real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
and other business ventures. Only a few of her films survive today.
Personal life
Like her sister NormaNorma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
, Talmadge succumbed to substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
and alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
later in life. She also had many failed affairs and relationships.
She was married four times, but her early relationships rarely lasted more than a total of three years;
- Her first marriage, to John Pialoglou, occurred in 1920 at a double wedding with Dorothy GishDorothy GishDorothy Elizabeth Gish was an American actress, and the younger sister of actress Lillian Gish.-Early life:...
and James RennieJames Rennie (actor)James Rennie was a Canadian film actor who appeared in several Hollywood films during the 1920s and 1930s.-Early life:...
. She divorceDivorceDivorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d Pialoglou two years later. - She married Alastair McIntosh in February 1926, divorcing in 1927.
- She married Townsend Netcher in May 1929, divorcing in 1931.
- She married Walter Michael Giblon in 1939. This marriage lasted until his death on May 1, 1964.
Talmadge's mother fostered the belief she might one day return to films. “Success and fame cast a spell that can never been quite shaken off,” her mother pointed out in her autobiography. “A woman, because of her love, may say, and in the fervor of the moment believe, that she is ready to give up her chosen work. But there is sure to come a time when keen longing and strong regret for her lost career dominate over the more placid contentments of love and marriage. Then unhappiness and friction ensue.”
Along with her sister Norma, Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, and Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Talmadge inaugurated the tradition of placing her footprints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. She left a trail of five footprints in her slab.
Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
is at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.