Constance Talmadge

At 75 years old, Constance Talmadge has this physical status:

Constance Alice Talmadge (April 19, 1898 – November 23, 1973) was an American silent film star.

She was the sister of actresses Norma and Natalie Talmadge.

Early life

Talmadge was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 19, 1898, to Margaret L. "Peg" and Frederick O. Talmadge, both poor parents. Her father was an alcoholic and they were divorced when she was still young. Her mother did laundry for a living. Peg decided to do so after a friend suggested that Talmadge's mother use older sister Norma as a model for title slides in flickers, which were first shown in early nickelodeons. Both three sisters went on to pursue acting careers as a result of their experience.

Personal life

She had been married four times before getting married: none of the unions were childless:

Talmadge's mother insued the hope that she might return to films one day. In her autobiography, her mother said, "Success and fortune cast a spell that can never be shaken off." "A woman can claim that because of her love, and at this moment, she is compelled to give up her chosen occupation." However, there is certain to be a time when keen longing and deep regret for her late career predominate over the more stifling aspects of love and marriage. Unhappiness and rivalry have ensued in the aftermath."

She died of pneumonia. Talmadge, along with her sister Norma, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, pioneered the art of putting her footprints in concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. In her slab, she left a five-foot trail.

She appears on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6300 Broadway Blvd.

Source

Career

In a Vitagraph comedy short, she began making films in 1914, In Bridal Attire (1914). In D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), she was in her first major role as the Mountain Girl and Marguerite de Valois.

Following its initial release, Griffith re-edited Intolerance and even shot new scenes long before it was out of stock. In the middle of preparing for some new shots, Grace Kingsley discovered Talmadge in her dressing room at the Fine Arts Studio in Los Angeles.

"Did you really drive these galloping heifers of horses?" He was asked by Kingsley.

Talmadge said, "Indeed I did." The other night, two women sat behind me at the Auditorium. 'Of course she never really drove those horses herself,' they said. Somebody doubled for her.'

Know what I did?

"I wish I could show you my knees, all black and blue, not cracked up against the dashboard of that chariot," I turned around and told them.

Griffith's portrayal of the tomboyish Mountain Girl in 1919 was so popular that he was named The Fall of Babylon, a new, separate film. He refilmed her funeral scene to ensure a happy ending.

Anita Loos, a screenplay for her, admired her "humour and her irresponsible way of life." Talmadge appeared in more than 80 films over the course of her career, many in comedies such as A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Romance and Arabella (1921), and The Primitive Lover (1922).

During her early career, Talmadge, along with her sisters, were heavily billed. She was "5'5" tall, 120 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes,... an outdoor girl who loved sports," according to her 1923 Blue Book of the Screen biography.

Talmadge was asked by a writer for Green Book magazine what kind of stories she wanted to do in 1920, she replied, "Although no fewer than sixty manuscripts are sent to me every week, it's impossible to find precisely the sort of comedy she especially likes." I like comedies of manners, comedies that am amusing in the way that little everyday commonplace foibles and frailties are humorous – subtle comedies, not comedies of the slap stick variety.

Talmadge left Hollywood in 1929 with the invention of talkies. Norma made a few appearances in talking films, but the three sisters resigned as a family, investing in real estate and other business ventures together for the most part. Only a few of her films survive today.

Source