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That Imp Constance
Talmadge the Second, comedienne delicieuse, and a young person of some importance
By Katharine Hilliker
THE job of smile vendor is not always a smiling proposition. Being a comedienne has clouds that do not appear on the screen and the sunshine is largely manufactured. This I learned from Constance Talmadge, comedienne delicieuse, whose sole claim to fame ten months ago lay in the fact that she was Norma's sister, and had been chosen by David Wark Griffith to play "the mountain girl" in his great spectacle, "Intolerance." Today she is a star in her own right with electric signs on Broadway big enough to come under the Fuel Administration's curb. With her rare gift for comedy interpolations, her charming mannerisms and bubbling youth, she is become a young
■"^ .
D. W. Griffith chose Constance Talmadge for The Mountain Girl in "Intolerance"; and she bounded right into fame.
person of importance, and her popularity is largely due to the magnetic friendliness of her smile and the sheer gayety of her presence.
I went to call on her the other day and landed in the middle of a seismic upheaval preparatory to her departure for the West. Wardrobe trunks, hat boxes, portfolios and suitcases occupied the range of vision and most of the furniture. Miss Talmadge dispossessed a couple of the boxes and gave me their chair, then retired to a fat motherly couch in the corner and curled up like a tired child. She grinned at me over a sofa pillow tucked under her chin. "Shoot!" she said laconically. I dragged my chair closer.
"You talk," said I, "like a director and not like a sweet, young — "
She sat bolt upright with considerable energy. "Don't call me a 'sweet young thing'!" she cried. I feel as old as Methuselah's mother, and as for sweetness!" She subsided in despair. "Nothing that's been rained on as steadily as I've been for the past six weeks could retain any flavor." She shook a tousled mane at me. "Look at my hair! They turned the hose on me again today."
My outraged indignation matched hers, and the impish Talmadge smile flashed out at me. She hugged the pillow and leaned nearer. "I don't mind telling you," she confided, "that I am going to poison the next person who wishes a reel full of rain scenes on me. For the last six weeks I've wallowed through miles of mud and ruined every dress I possess. When it was impossible to find enough rain outside, we retired to the studio and turned on the faucets." She made a gaminesque face at me. "It's made a woolly anarchist of me! I'll never take another bath as long as I live!"
Thereupon she delivered her soul of accumulated grievances and told me some of the watery woes and tribulations that had all but washed the smile off.
The production of "The Honeymoon," one of Miss
Talmadge 's recent releases, called for Niagara settings
and the company left New York in a blaze of glorious
Indian summer weather, confident that very little time
would be needed for the trip. The night of their
arrival at the Falls, however, a cold driving rain set in,
Norma, tragedienne; Constance, comedienne — no longer "Norma's little sister." They're stars of equal magnitude now.
Witzel
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