Constance Talmadge
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Constance Talmadge (April 19, 1897-November 23, 1973) was a silent movie star born in Brooklyn, New York, USA, and was the sister of fellow actresses Norma Talmadge and Natalie Talmadge.
[edit] Career
Constance was born into a poor family. Her father, Fred Talmadge, 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 nickelodeons, Peg decided to try it. This led the girls from one step to another, eventually spring-boarding all three sisters to stardom. [1]
She began making films in 1914, in a Vitagraph comedy short, In Bridal Attire (1914). Constance's first major role was as The Mountain Girl and Marguerite de Valois in D.W. Griffith's masterpiece Intolerance (1916). Smart and brunette, and like her sisters pretty, over the course of her career she appeared in more than eighty films, often in comedies, like A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness a la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922).
She, along with her sisters, was heavily billed during her early career. By her Blue Book of the Screen bio, from 1923, Constance was "5'5" tall, 120 lbs, with blonde hair and brown eyes, was an outdoor girl who loved activities". [2]
With the advent of talkies around 1929, she left Hollywood, and by the early 1930s she was old news. Her sister Norma did make a handful of appearances in talking films, but for the most part the three sisters retired all together, investing wisely in real-estate and other business ventures. Only a few of her films survive today. [3]
[edit] Personal life
Like her sister Norma, Connie succumbed to substance abuse and alcohol problems later in life. She also suffered through many failed affairs and relationships. [4]
Constance Talmadge 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 Gish and James Rennie. She divorced Pialoglou two years later.
- She then married Alastair McIntosh in February, 1926, divorcing in 1927.
- She married Townsend Metcher in May, 1929, divorcing in 1931.
- She married Walter Michael Giblon in 1939. This marriage lasted until his death on May 1st, 1964.
Along with her sister, Norma, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, she inaugurated the tradition of placing her footprints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. Constance left a trail of five footprints in her slab.
Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.
