Background
Talmadge was born on May 2, 1894, in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Frederick Talmadge, an advertising salesman, and Margaret Talmadge. She grew up in Brooklyn, N. Y. , in modest circumstances.
Talmadge was born on May 2, 1894, in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Frederick Talmadge, an advertising salesman, and Margaret Talmadge. She grew up in Brooklyn, N. Y. , in modest circumstances.
She and her two sisters were movie-struck, far more interested in the nearby Vitagraph studio than in Erasmus Hall High School, which they nominally attended.
Later at Vitagraph, Talmadge received her real education.
Talmadge began her career by posing for nickelodeon song slides and, at fourteen, started work at Vitagraph. In The Household Pest (1910) she first appeared on the screen, although only the back of her head was visible. In Tale of Two Cities (1911) she had a minor ingenue role, and in Under the Daisies (1913) she played her first lead.
She played every kind of part, from a teenager to a grandmother. She was also called upon to serve as a seamstress and to make up extras. She learned much about acting from her idols, Florence Turner and Maurice Costello, leading members of the Vitagraph stock company; and she acquired, above all, the discipline of hard work. During her five years there she appeared in more than 100 films, her salary slowly rising from $25 a week to $250.
The Battle Cry of Peace (1915), a full-length feature designed to promote wartime recruiting, first brought Talmadge to prominence. It also brought her a salary offer of $400 a week from National Pictures Company in Hollywood. Her career at National failed to materialize, but she made two films for Fine Arts and soon afterward was placed under contract by the Triangle Film Corporation headed by Thomas Ince, Mack Sennett, and D. W. Griffith. She appeared under their aegis in seven inconsequential pictures, none of them directed by Griffith.
Her sister Constance was luckier. She too had served an apprenticeship at Vitagraph, and her performance as a mountain girl in Griffith's Intolerance (1916) launched her on a highly successful film career.
Under his shrewd guidance she founded her own film studio in New York City and in 1917 completed her first film, Panthea. Its success was instantaneous. As in Under the Daisies, she loved and she suffered. "I love to portray women with fire in their blood and true wholesome romance in their hearts, " she later wrote. She found an audience at once, and for five years she continued to suffer, in boudoirs and in palaces, in contemporary dress and in costume, usually with Eugene O'Brien as her leading man.
In 1922, Talmadge moved her studio to Hollywood, where she continued to make films that appealed primarily to women. Smilin' Through (1922) proved perhaps the most successful of these, with its skillful blend of high romance and the supernatural. Secrets (1924) had an almost equal appeal. Only in Kiki (1926), her one excursion into comedy, did she fail to please her public. Second only to Mary Pickford in popularity, she had no rival as "the lady of the great indoors. "
The glitter of Talmadge's private life was equally satisfying to her army of fans. Like Constance and her other sister, Natalie, who married Buster Keaton, Talmadge lived in the opulent style expected of Hollywood royalty during the 1920's. She worked hard, though, and between 1922 and 1930 reputedly earned more than $5 million.
With the advent of sound pictures Talmadge's career, like that of her sister Constance, came to an end. Critics complained that in New York Nights (1930), her first talkie, she sounded like a student of elocution. They complained again that in Dubarry, Woman of Passion (1930), she sounded like a teacher of elocution. After these two failures Talmadge retired from film making.
She had never wanted a stage career, but in 1932 she made a number of vaudeville appearances.
Plagued by arthritis during the last years of her life, she lived in Las Vegas, Nev. , for much of the time, confined to a wheelchair. She died there, leaving an estate of more than $3 million in addition to extensive land holdings.
Talmadge was one of the most elegant and glamorous film stars of the Roaring '20s. Moviegoers today have little opportunity to evaluate Talmadge's talents. Her still extant version of Camille (1927) survives only in a fragmentary state, but it gives a glimpse of Talmadge at the height of her career. Her performance shows her to be an affecting actress and, to a surprising extent, it justifies the high reputation she once enjoyed.
Talmadge was slight, brown-haired, and dewy-eyed.
In 1916 Talmadge met Joseph M. Schenck, the manager of the Loew's Theater Circuit; she married him on October 20, 1916.
She married George Jessel on April 23, 1934, after her divorce, earlier that month, from Schenck.
Her marriage to Jessel ended in divorce in 1939. Seven years later she marrried Carvel M. James, a physician.
1869–1925
1870–1933
1902–1980
1878–1961
1898–1981
She was an American silent film actress who was best known as the wife of Buster Keaton.
She was an American silent movie star born in Brooklyn, New York.
