In the first decade of silent movies starting in 1910, the players were anonymous with no names in the film credits. But once “the Biograph girl,” Florence Lawrence, was advertised as the first movie star in 1909, studios were careful to control the images of their actors. There were ironclad contracts, exotic biographies made up, and scandals and bad behavior were buried by studio ‘fixers.’ Entertainment journalists also fell in line to get access to interviews, writing overblown puff pieces lauding their subjects. Here’s a sample from a piece written over a hundred years ago in 1915 in Photoplay magazine on Norma Talmadge written by Arthur Hornblow, Jr.:

“She finished sifting all the sand in her vicinity through her hands and gazed idly at the white-capped surf before us. ‘I love the sea,’ she said. ‘You see, I was born almost beneath the spray of Niagara, and perhaps that has something to do with it.’ I turned to look at her as she leaned back easefully against the canvas rest. Her face, of gentle contour, was more child-like than woman-like in the formation of its features, but its expression and thoughtfulness gave token of a mind and character developed far beyond their years. Norma Talmadge, considering the importance of her position in the movie world, is very young – she was born as recently ago as May 2nd, 1895, in a little cottage just outside of Buffalo, where the booming of the mighty falls formed a regular part of one’s life, and where wisteria climbed lovingly about the porch, a symbol of the peace within.”

Talmadge was actually born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1894, and invented a new birthplace to make herself more interesting. Whether Hornblower fell for her story, was coerced by a studio publicist to write what the star told him, or was willingly complicit is unknown. But the then-20-year-old Talmadge would go on to have a very successful career, one that was made by studios and the press.

From a life of virtual poverty, her star rose in Hollywood because of her ambition, good luck and a stage mother who also masterminded her career and that of her sisters, Natalie and Constance. Mother Peg took in laundry to keep the family together after the father absconded one Christmas day, but she had her eye on show business for her beautiful daughters. Talmadge started out as a photographer’s model for illustrated song slides until a meeting with a studio employee at Vitagraph studios got her bit parts in movies in 1910, earning $25 a week. Eventually, she made it as a contract player and broke out in 1911s A Tale of Two Cities, a weekly serial put out one reel at a time. Other roles soon followed as Talmadge didn’t turn any role down.

Here’s an excerpt from another interview Talmadge did for American Magazine of June 1922 entitled “Norma Talmadge: A Great Moving Picture Star” in which the interviewer, Keene Sumner writes: “Young as she is, Miss Talmadge has played a wonderful range of parts – She has an intuitive understanding of all kinds of people because she likes people and can imagine herself in their places – She could put herself in your place, or your cousin Mabel’s or your aunt Henrietta’s.” 

Here’s what Talmadge told Sumner about one of her early roles at Vitagraph: “I remember another of those small parts,” she went on, with a laugh. “The play called for several pickaninnies, and one other white girl and I were pressed into service along with a few real darkies. We didn’t like that. So, when it came to making up, we blacked only our faces and our hands, leaving the backs of our necks perfectly white. We were careful not to turn around when the director gave us a hurried inspection, so he thought we were all right and they began to make the scene. I’ll never forget the abrupt halt that scene came to when we turned our white necks to the camera! The director was so furious that he told us we couldn’t be in the scene at all – which was exactly what we had hoped he would do.”

In 1913, she was voted Vitagraph’s most promising star by exhibitors.

Talmadge continued working until her big break finally came in the film The Battle Cry of Peace in 1915. She left Vitagraph after 250 films under her mother’s prodding to work for National Pictures Company at $400 a week. They sent her to California. After her movie Captivating Mary Carstairs tanked, National Pictures folded. Talmadge got a contract with D.W. Griffith’s company where sister Constance was already working, and for the next eight months, Talmadge made seven films for Griffith. She returned to New York after the contract ran out and met her future husband, the producer Joseph Schenk, at a party in Long Island. They married two months later.

Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote about the marriage in Photoplay in August 1923: “Norma’s marriage to Joe Schenck is one of the happiest in the film industry … I don’t suppose there is a woman in the world today upon whom gifts have been so profusely showered. Her gowns, her jewels, her furs, her art treasures, her cars – literally, she has everything. She doesn’t know what it is to desire anything. She has never had a business worry in her career. Her husband is one of the richest and shrewdest producers in the game, and every smallest detail of worry or strife about her pictures is taken off her shoulders.”

The last was because Schenk set up a production studio in 1917, the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation, for all her films. Her first film was the hit Panthea, now lost, where she played yet another martyr who sacrifices for her husband, and with that film, Talmadge joined the ranks of the top stars of the day, second only to Mary Pickford in popularity. More successes followed including Poppy with Eugene O’Brien, a screen pairing that was so well received, the two starred in ten more films.

Talmadge and Schenk moved their productions back to Hollywood in 1920, and under Schenk’s supervision, her career in that decade flourished with ever more expensive productions with lavish sets and costumes. Best known are The Branded Woman in 1920, Passion in 1921 and Smilin’ Through in 1922, her biggest triumph. She was the number one box office star by then, earning $10,000 a week, famous for her performances of long-suffering and self-sacrificing heroines in melodramas that female audiences adored.

The Hollywood marriage didn’t last. Talmadge fell in love with her much younger costar Gilbert Roland who co-starred with her in 1927s Camille, but Schenk stalled the divorce proceedings, not willing to lose his biggest star. By then he was president of United Artists which distributed Talmadge’s films. Again, with an eye on the box office, Schenk also cast Roland in Talmadge’s next three films. Talmadge didn’t end up marrying Gilbert, worried about the 11-year age difference.

Her last two silent films were made for UA, The Dove and The Woman Disputed, both flops in 1928. Talkies had arrived and the audience was looking for new stars. Talmadge did make two of those after much vocal coaching but then asked to be let out of her contract after the last one, 1929s Du Barry, Woman of Passion, turned out to be a disaster. Apparently, her sister Constance sent her a telegram that convinced her to stop acting. It said: “Quit pressing your luck, baby. The critics can’t knock those trust funds Mama set up for us.” Talmadge retired with a fortune thanks to the investments Schenk had made for her.

After seven years of separation, Talmadge finally got her divorce from Schenk and married comedian (and Schenk’s friend) George Jessel in 1934. Five years later, she divorced him as well and in 1946, married her doctor Carvel James who cared for her while she struggled with arthritis and cocaine dependency in her later years. They moved to Las Vegas where she died on December 24, 1957, from pneumonia following a series of strokes.

In one of her last interviews for Motion Picture Classic in February 1931 entitled “Going .. Going .. Near The End of The Road Norma Talmadge Looks Back,” she told interviewer Gladys Hall, “I wouldn’t have missed it. In nothing else in the world could I have made the money; had the fun and thrill and excitement I have had in pictures. And I have now the only thing in the whole world that really matters – independence. And by that, I mean, in one word – money. Money is the thing that has always counted with me. I never fooled myself – or anybody else – -about that. I never went about goofing about my ‘Art.’ But I never kidded myself about ‘Art for Art’s sake.’ I was in it for the money I made.”