Silent star sisters Constance and Norma Talmadge
By Christina Kimble
Baggage. Each of the Talmadge sisters had their fair share of it. Like packing for a trip and needing accessories to match the day’s outfit, their careers went hand in hand. Norma was the little black dress and Constance was the pearl necklace to make it pop.
The soulful-eyed brunette, Norma Talmadge was born on May 2, 1894 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Constance Talmadge, a buoyant blonde, soon followed, being born on April 19, 1898 in New York City, New York.
Fatherless from a young age, Norma took the lead and broke into films at the Vitagraph Company studios in Flatbush, New York in 1910, with no previous acting experience. A Tale of Two Cities (1910) was the three-reel special that gave her a permanent position at Vitagraph and assignment to Van Dyke Brooke’s unit.
Constance Talmadge followed her older sister’s lead and the comedy short Bridal Attire (1914) thrust her onto the acting scene and into Vitagraph Company, alongside her sister. Constance’s boyish cherub looks earned her the nickname Dutch by her stage mother, Peg.
In 1915, Vitagraph’s ten-reel special The Battle Cry of Peace opened a contract for Norma from National Film Corporation, and Constance resigned from Vitagraph along with her sister so both could move to California. Upon arrival, the contract fell through due to the corporation being undercapitalized.
Both sisters, resilient and unwavering, applied at the Triangle Film Corporation and took part in the film The Missing Links (1916) together, but it was Constance who caught the eye of film director D.W. Griffith, who later cast her in Intolerance (1916), a film about four separate stories of love from different eras crushed by power.
Norma didn’t go without advancement however, as she starred in The Social Secretary (1916), a film about a woman disguising her appearance to evade unwanted advances from men. Later introductions to Joseph M. Schenck lead to the set up of the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation in New York, Norma’s marriage to Schenck and the production of Panthea (1917).
The Constance Talmadge Film Company additionally followed and established Constance as a producer in her own right, when Constance’s contract ended with Triangle.
Norma, starring in roles featuring compromising situations, and Constance, taking the spotlight in light-hearted comedies, lead to successful acting careers for both sisters until the Talkies took hold, and their squeaky Brooklyn accents caused attention to fizzle out and away from the silent stars.
Classy Norma died of a stroke on December 24, 1957 and fabulous Constance died of pneumonia on November 23, 1973, but their dynamic style left unique marks in the history of silent films and on the architecture of society.
Catch Constance Talmadge in the upcoming Silent Sundays screening of “Her Night of Romance” with Ronald Colman on Sunday, Feb. 15, 4pm at Jacksonville’s Hotel Indigo near Tinseltown. Click here to purchase your tickets early.
Sources:
http://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-constance-talmadge-and-norma-talmadge/
http://m.imdb.com/name/nm0848226/