Constance Talmadge

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.

Constance Talmadge
Talmadge in 1917
Born	Constance Alice Talmadge (1898-04-19)April 19, 1898 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	November 23, 1973(1973-11-23) (aged 75) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Years active	1914–1929
Spouse(s)	John Pialoglou ​ ( m. 1920; div. 1922) Alastair Mackintosh ​ ( m. 1926; div. 1927) Townsend Netcher ​ ( m. 1929; div. 1939) Walter Michael Giblin ​ ( m. 1939; died 1964)
Relatives	Natalie Talmadge (sister) Norma Talmadge (sister)

Drawing of actress Constance Talmadge by Treichler, page 40 of the December 1921 Screenland.

Early life

Talmadge was born on April 19, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York to poor parents, Fred and Peg Talmadge. Her father was an alcoholic, and left them when she was still very young. Her mother made a living by doing laundry. When a friend recommended that Talmadge's mother use older sister Norma as a model for title slides in flickers, which were shown in early nickelodeons, Peg decided to do so. This led all three sisters into an acting career.[1]

Career

On the cover of Photoplay magazine, 1919

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 Intolerance (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 Babylonian 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".[2] Over the course of her career, Talmadge appeared in more than 80 films, often in comedies such as A Pair of Silk Stockings (film) (1918), Happiness à la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921 film) (1921), and The Primitive Lover (1922).

Constance Talmadge (1923)

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, ... an outdoor girl who loved activities."[3]

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 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 vampire. I try to handle a comedy role much the same way that a cartoonist handles his pencils. If he is drawing the picture of the late Theodore Roosevelt, 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 and other business ventures. Only a few of her films survive today.[1]

Personal life

Norma and Constance Talmadge

Like her sisters Norma and Natalie, Talmadge succumbed to substance abuse and alcoholism later in life. She also had many failed affairs and relationships.[4]

She was married four times; all the unions were childless:

• Her first marriage, to John Pialoglou (1893-1959), a Greek tobacco importer, occurred in 1920 at a double wedding with Dorothy Gish and James Rennie; she divorced Pialoglou two years later. Her marriage to him, a Greek subject, caused her to lose her natural-born U.S. citizenship; following her divorce, she had to apply for U.S. naturalization.[5][6]
• She married Scottish soldier Alastair William Mackintosh (grandfather of author Edward St Aubyn) in February 1926, divorcing him in 1927 on grounds of adultery.[7]
• She married Townsend Netcher in May 1929, divorcing in 1931.
• She married Walter Michael Giblin 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.”

She died of pneumonia.[8] Along with her sister Norma, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, Talmadge inaugurated the tradition of placing her footprints in concrete 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.

Filmography

Short Subject
Year	Film	Role	Notes	Status
1914	Buddy's First Call	Grace Forster
	The Maid from Sweden	Marie Cook
	Our Fairy Play	Helen Payne - the Actress
	The Moonstone of Fez	Winifred Osborne
	Uncle Bill	Gladys
	Buddy's Downfall	Lily - the City Flirt
	The Mysterious Lodger	Lucy Lane
	Father's Timepiece	Marjorie Stillwell
	The Peacemaker	Kitty Grey
	The Evolution of Percival	Mildred
	In Bridal Attire	Mary
	Fixing Their Dads	Florence
	The Egyptian Mummy	Florence Hicks
	Forcing Dad's Consent	Connie Boggs
1915	In the Latin Quarter	Manon		Incomplete
	Billy's Wager	Connie
	The Green Cat	Constance
	The Young Man Who 'Figgered	Nan Tubbs
	Burglarious Billy	Nellie
	A Study in Tramps	Mary Stretch
	The Master of His House	Mrs. Greene
	The Lady of Shalott	Minor Role
	The Boarding House Feud	Connie Drexel
	The Vanishing Vault	Connie
	Spades Are Trumps	Ella Cunningham
	Bertie's Stratagem	Letty Grey
	Insuring Cutey	Cutey's Bride
	Billy the Bear Tamer	Constance
	A Keyboard Strategy	Mrs. Walter Gibson
	Can You Beat It?	Dill - Pike's Wife
	Beached and Bleached
	The Little Puritan	Corinne
1916	The She-Devil
	The Matrimaniac	Marna Lewis
Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes	Status
1915	Captivating Mary Carstairs	Bit Part	Uncredited
	Georgia Pearce
1916	The Missing Links	Laura Haskins		Lost
	Intolerance	Marguerite de Navarre / The Mountain Girl		Extant
	The Microscope Mystery	Jessie Barton
1917	A Girl of the Timber Claims	Jessie West
	Betsy's Burglar	Betsy Harlow
	The Lesson	Helen Drayton
	Scandal	Beatrix Vanderdyke
	The Honeymoon	Helen Drayton
1918	The Studio Girl	Celia Laird
	The Shuttle	Bettina Vandepoel
	Up the Road with Sallie	Sallie Waters		Extant
	Good Night, Paul	Mrs. Richard		Extant
	A Pair of Silk Stockings	Mrs. Molly Thornhill		Extant
	Sauce for the Goose	Kitty Constable
	Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots	Mrs. Leffingwell
	A Lady's Name	Mabel Vere		Incomplete
1919	Who Cares?	Joan Ludlow		Lost
	Romance and Arabella	Arabella Cadenhouse
	Experimental Marriage	Suzanne Ercoll
	The Veiled Adventure	Geraldine Barker
	Happiness a la Mode	Barbara Townsend
	A Temperamental Wife	Billie Billings
	A Virtuous Vamp	Gwendolyn Armitage / Nellie Jones	Also produced	Extant
1920	Two Weeks	Lillums Blair		Extant
	In Search of a Sinner	Georgianna Chadbourne
	The Love Expert	Babs	Also produced	Extant
	The Perfect Woman	Mary Blake
	Good References	Mary Wayne		Extant
	Dangerous Business	Nancy Flavelle		Lost
1921	Mama's Affair	Eve Orrin		Extant
	Lessons in Love	Leila Calthorpe
	Wedding Bells	Rosalie Wayne		Lost
	Woman's Place	Josephine Gerson		Extant
1922	Polly of the Follies	Polly Meacham	Also produced	Lost
	The Primitive Lover	Phyllis Tomley	Also produced	Extant
	East Is West	Ming Toy	Also produced	Extant
1923	Dulcy	Dulcy		Lost
	The Dangerous Maid	Barbara Winslow		Extant
1924	The Goldfish	Jennie Wetherby
	Her Night of Romance	Dorothy Adams	Also produced	Extant
	In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter	Herself
1925	Learning to Love	Patricia Stanhope
	Seven Chances	Girl in Car	Uncredited	Extant
	Her Sister from Paris	Helen Weyringer / La Perry		Extant
1926	The Duchess of Buffalo	Marian Duncan	Also produced	Extant
1927	Venus of Venice	Carlotta	Also produced	Incomplete
	Breakfast at Sunrise	Madeleine	Also produced	Extant
1929	Venus	Princess Beatrice Doriani

Notes

1. Profile, goldensilents.com; accessed August 27, 2014.
2. From Anita Loos's Biography on Il Cinema - Grande Storia Illustrata, Istituto Geografico De Agostini, Novara
3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 6, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
4. Profile, silentera.com; accessed August 27, 2014.
5. "Movie Queen Again Becomes U.S. Citizen", page 12, The Atlanta Constitution, December 6, 1925
6. "Connie Talmadge Becomes Citizen", page 2, The Ogden Standard-Examiner, December 5, 1925
7. "Film Actress's Divorce Suit". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. September 29, 1927. p. 9.
8. "Constane Talmadge, 73, Dead; A Film Star of the Silent Era".

References

• The Griffith Actresses. By Anthony Slide. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1973.
• The Talmadge Sisters. By Margaret L. Talmadge. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1924.
• The Quality You Need Most. By Constance Talmadge in Green Book Magazine, April, 1914.
• 1900 United States Federal Census, Brooklyn Ward 8, Kings, New York; Roll T623_1047; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 109.
• 1910 United States Federal Census, Brooklyn Ward 29, Kings, New York; Roll T624_982; Page: 13B; Enumeration District: 933; Image: 948.
• 1920 United States Federal Census, Manhattan Assembly District 15, New York, NY; Roll T625_1212; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 1061; Image: 877.
• 1905 New York State Census for Kings County, Brooklyn, New York.
• U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925, Ancestry.com.

External links

Advertisement promoting films with Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge, on page 9 of the December 25, 1920 Exhibitors Herald.

• Bio
• Constance Talmadge on IMDb
• Talmadge Sisters at the Women Film Pioneers Project
• Constance Talmadge at Silent Ladies
• Photographs of Constance Talmadge and bibliography
• Constance Talmadge at Find a Grave