As a very young child, so Schenck has told me, Norma displayed her histrionic gifts. The talent was promptly encouraged by her mother, and it was undoubtedly due to Mrs. Talmadge’s influence that her eldest daughter entered the employ of the old Vitagraph Company. Unlike many others whose names have added lustre to the screen, Miss Talmadge was never an extra performer. At the very first she was given a small part. Yet at this time she was a girl in her early teens. Young as she was, however, she contrived to have a sister even younger. This sister, Constance, used to come to the studio with her almost every day and, wide-eyed over the importance of her more mature relative, would fasten Norma’s frock and help her put on her make-up. At last this career of self-effacement was rewarded by a chance for more individual enterprise. Constance became an extra in the Vitagraph studios.
On the part of neither Norma nor Constance is there any effort to suppress these humble days from the stranger’s consciousness. Quite the contrary. Once they were dining at the Ritz with a friend of mine who has decidedly less command of this world’s resources than have the Talmadge girls.
“Oh, how wonderful!” exclaimed this friend. “Think of being able to order like you, Norma—without ever looking at the expense side of the menu!”
Miss Talmadge laughed merrily. “Well,” she retorted, “it hasn’t always been like this, has it, Constance? Remember the old Vitagraph days when we always had to eat inside a quarter? It wasn’t a question with us of soup to nuts, but of soup or nuts.”
I happened to be at a dance several years ago which was attended by both the sisters. Norma Talmadge took that evening only several turns about the room. Constance, on the other hand, danced every number. I myself was lucky enough to benefit by this protracted exercise and as I did so I caught over Constance’s shoulder the eyes of Norma following her sister’s figure through the ebb and flow of dancers. The quality of that glance will always linger with me. Why, indeed, should it not? For here she was—young, beautiful, an idol of the screen—and she was surveying this sister only a few years younger with the fond, admiring glance which some dowager might bestow on one of the younger generation.
My interest was so piqued by this matter of the self-appointed wallflower that I asked a close friend of the Talmadges if this were a habitual attitude of Norma’s.
“Oh, dear, yes!” replied she. “Norma’s always like that. Very seldom do you find her dancing more than several times an evening. What she just loves is to think of Constance as the belle of the ball.”
CONSTANCE TALMADGE
Dainty sister of Norma and Natalie and aunt of Buster Keaton’s solemn-faced baby.