A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.

Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through (1922),[3] but she also scored artistic triumphs teamed with director Frank Borzage in Secrets (1924) and The Lady (1925).

One Christmas morning, Fred Talmadge left the house to buy food, and never came back, leaving his wife to raise their three daughters.

[7] Peg took in laundry, sold cosmetics, taught painting classes, and rented out rooms, raising her daughters in Brooklyn, New York.

After she told her mother about a classmate from Erasmus Hall High School who modeled for popular illustrated song slides (which were often shown before the one-reeler in movie theaters so the audience could sing along), Mrs. Talmadge decided to locate the photographer.

However, scenario editor Beta Breuil, attracted by Talmadge's beauty, arranged a small part for her as a young girl who is kissed under a photographer's cloth in The Household Pest (1909).

Her first real success came with Vitagraph's three-reel adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities (1911), in which she played the small role of the unnamed seamstress who accompanies Sidney Carton to the guillotine.

She continued to play roles from leads to extras, gaining experience and public exposure in a variety of characters—from a colored mammy to a clumsy waitress to a reckless young modern.

[11] That same year, she was assigned to Van Dyke Brooke's acting unit, and throughout 1913 and 1914, appeared in more films, frequently with Antonio Moreno as her leading man.

For eight months, she starred in seven features for Triangle, including the comedy The Social Secretary (1916), written by Anita Loos and directed by John Emerson, which gave her an opportunity to disguise her beauty as a girl trying to avoid the unwelcome attentions of her male employers.

Before long, women around the world wanted to be the romantic Norma Talmadge and flocked to her extravagant movies filmed on the East Coast.

[citation needed] Talmadge's first film for her studio, the now lost Panthea (1917), was directed by Allan Dwan with assistants Erich von Stroheim and Arthur Rosson.

In 1918, she reteamed with Sidney Franklin, who directed The Safety Curtain, Her Only Way, Forbidden City, The Heart of Wetona, and 1919's The Probation Wife.

Between 1919 and 1920, Talmadge's name appeared on a regular monthly fashion advice column for Photoplay magazine; her publicist was Beulah Livingstone.

[citation needed] Throughout the 1920s, Talmadge continued to triumph in films such as 1920's Yes or No, The Branded Woman, Passion Flower (1921), and The Sign on the Door (1921).

After Smilin' Through, Schenck closed the New York studios and Norma and Constance moved to Hollywood to join Keaton and Natalie.

Her film Secrets (1924), directed by Frank Borzage, marked the pinnacle of her career, with her giving her best performance and receiving the best reviews.

[18] Talmadge and Anna May Wong turned the first spadeful of earth using a gold-plated shovel at the groundbreaking ceremonies for Grauman's Chinese Theatre on January 5, 1926.

Despite his personal feelings, he was not going to break up a moneymaking team and continued casting Roland in Talmadge's next three films released by United Artists.

By the time Woman Disputed (1928) was released, the talking film revolution had begun, and Talmadge began taking voice lessons in preparation.

With incompetent direction and Talmadge's inexperience at a role requiring very demanding vocal acting, the film was a failure, in spite of the elaborate sets by William Cameron Menzies.

On March 29, 1928, at the bungalow of Mary Pickford, United Artists brought together Talmadge, Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, John Barrymore, Dolores del Río, and D.W. Griffith to speak on the radio show The Dodge Brothers Hour to prove that Griffith could meet the challenge of talking movies.

In late 1930, Samuel Goldwyn announced he had bought the film rights to Zoë Akins' comedy play The Greeks Had a Word for It for her.

"[10][11] Some time before late 1932, Talmadge decided against marrying Gilbert Roland, as he was 11 years her junior and she feared he would eventually leave her.

Schenck's business acumen and her mother's watchful ambition for her daughters had resulted in a huge fortune for Talmadge, and she never wanted for money.

Increasingly crippled by painful arthritis[4] and reported to be dependent on painkilling drugs,[7] she moved to the warm climate of Las Vegas for her final years.

According to Anita Loos' memories of Talmadge, the drug addiction came first which caused arthritis and was the basis of Norma's interest in her physician husband.

[citation needed] For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Norma Talmadge has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street.

A New York Times article from March 14, 2010, says that Talmadgeis misremembered, having inspired two unfair caricatures that have lived on in a pair of popular films.

Nearly all other writers regard both Norma Desmond and Lina Lamont as fictional composite characters, each mirroring some aspects of various faded silent stars, but neither of them primarily a disguised portrait of anyone in particular.