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Norma Talmadge was an actress from the 1910s to the 1930s. Her father died when she was just 14, and her mother took in washing, and Norma got a job as a model, and helped take care of her younger sisters, Natalie and Constance. All three of the sisters broke into the movies in the 1910s, and Norma married studio executive Joseph Schenck in 1916, and Natalie married Buster Keaton in 1921, which caused her to quit acting, but Norma and Constance continued and were big stars in the 1920s, but both sisters abruptly quit the movies when talkies began, and the official story was that they wanted to retire "at the top", but it seems more likely that their harsh New York accents did not adapt well to sound movies, so they wisely retired. Norma passed away in 1957 at the age of 63.

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Important Added Info: Note that this poster, unlike the vast majority of personality posters, is printed on a thin paper, and not the heavy stock that the others are printed on. Perhaps that is because this poster does not have a studio name on it, just the name of Joseph M. Schenck, who worked at Metro Pictures at this time, and was the right hand man of Marcus Loew, and this poster is for Norma Talmadge, who surely not coincidentally was Schenck's wife, so many this was a special poster Schenck had made for his wife!

Note that starting in the very early 1910s (around 1912, when studios realized that people were more likely to go to a movie if it had a star they liked in it), studios created sets of special "personality" posters, which theaters that showed their movies could hang in their lobbies. These had a big advantage over posters for specific movies, because they could be used whenever a movie with that star was shown, which meant they could be used over and over! Because studios realized this, they made these posters on a high quality paper stock, sometimes with a "linen" texture, and sometimes with elaborate border designs, and almost always with great quality color printing. They almost always measured exactly 22" x 28", the same as "half-sheets" (which were then known as "displays", except that they were taller than they were wide, and that the images almost always had a "full bleed", meaning that there were no blank borders. They almost always showed a head and shoulders image of the star, and the image on these posters is often very close to actual life-size! They almost always have the name of the star and the studio they worked for at the bottom. Even though there were many sets of these from many studios over a period of approximately 30 years (they were rarely made after the early 1940s), very few survive, likely partially due to World War II paper drives, and partially due to the fact that they were never folded and the paper they were made of sometimes aged poorly. We at eMoviePoster.com were just consigned a very special collection of 99 of these "personality" posters, which we are auctioning in separate auctions. They were collected starting in the mid 1980s, and the collector who assembled this collection tried to "upgrade" condition whenever possible over the years, so many of them are in excellent condition (sometimes likely the best surviving example), and on the ones where they are in lesser condition, it is because the collector never could find one in better condition! Now he has consigned them to us, and they will find new owners. If they were kept together, they would surely make an incredible display for the walls of any place where lots of people gather, like a museum, a restaurant, or any similar place. Of course, it is more likely that these will find many, many separate new homes, but we hope that they end up publicly displayed wherever they end up!

Note that Metro Pictures became a leading Hollywood studio in the late 1910s and early 1920s, and remained in the forefront of Hollywood until they merged with Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924. They wanted to publicize their lineup of stars, and they created at least one set of personality posters to promote them. These posters are extremely rare as it is likely few theaters ordered them, and fewer still saved them, and in addition, they could be easily torn, and if they were not stored carefully, they would become fragile, and it is likely many were damaged and discarded for that reason! Note that the high quality paper stock these posters were printed on does not always age very well, and can become fragile (usually resulting in chips around the edges of the poster). Because of their fragile nature and their age, we intend to send all of these personality posters in large flat packages, and never roll them into tubes (unless the buyer insists)! PLEASE DO NOT BID ON THIS POSTER, UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY THE COST OF SHIPPING IT IN A LARGE FLAT PACKAGE!

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Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775