Volume III: Biographies

NORDEN, Virginia *

Actress (1912)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Virginia Norden was an actress with Thanhouser in 1912.

Biographical Notes: Virginia Norden, born in England, spent her youth in Washington, D.C., and was one of six daughters of Major William N. Dalton and Olivia Williams. The Dalton sisters became well known in local society for their talents and accomplishments. Virginia was educated in Washington and also spent some time studying in a convent, after which she went on stage in New York City and, around the same time, did some motion picture work for Thanhouser, appearing in films in 1912. She adopted a family name, Norden, as her stage and screen surname.

Seeking to develop her talent, Miss Norden enrolled in the Empire School of Dramatic Acting and the related American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, with which the DeMille brothers, William C. and Cecil B., were affiliated. Among her appearances at the Empire Theatre, in connection with the school, were roles in The Thief of Destiny (February 28, 1913), An Unfinished Play (by the DeMille brothers; staged March 6, 1913), and Sympathetic Souls (March 6, 1913). While acting the role of Mithka Rosefsky, a poor Jewish tenement girl in An Unfinished Play, she became interested in the problems of poor working girls in the city. The New York Morning Telegraph, May 3, 1913, carried a lengthy article about her concern for the sweatshop "slaves," and how she proposed to devote time to studying the situation.

Virginia Norden made her Broadway debut in the 1912-1913 season at the Hudson Theatre with Viola Dana in Eleanor Gates' Poor Little Rich Girl. At first her role in the play was a small one, but by September 1913, when the play was in its second season and had been transferred to the Grand Opera House, the actress had moved up to the part of the mother, a role which had been created by Laura Nelson Hall during the play's earlier run. In the meantime, in private life Virginia Norden was the wife of a New York City businessman.

Miss Norden's Philosophy: An article by Marie Louise Wright, in the New York Evening Mail, October 9, 1913, gave Miss Norden's philosophy of life: "Don't be too beautiful if you would charm the world. Nor too vivacious. Nor exclamatorily interested in everything. Nor overly elegant in the choice of food and clothing. In short, avoid superlatives in everything, but especially in beauty. For the twentieth century has grown suspicious of the extremely beautiful woman. A woman, like an automobile, has got to 'go' well to be popular. A merely lovely body climbs no hills. The age of the strictly ornamental has passed, and to be successful nowadays a girl must be intelligent; a wife practical....

"A too-beautiful woman is like a splendid cake - one enjoys looking at it, but hesitates to take a bite. One fears, or should fear, the quality of its composition. The loveliness is always only skin or icing deep, and the indigestion, either spiritual or actual, lasts a long, long time. It would be silly to say a woman should not be beautiful. But her beauty should be comparative; never superlative. Nothing ever escapes the law of compensation. If a woman spends her entire time and thought upon the beautification of her person, she gains one asset and loses another...

"Soon a rational era will come, when women fully realize that superlative beauty is not desirable. They will revert to simple clothes, stop daubing their faces with cosmetics so obvious that one wonders if all women make their toilettes in dark rooms, and use the time thus saved to cultivate heart and mind qualities. When that happens, marriages will be more numerous and divorces fewer, men's clubs will be less crowded, and women's pillows not so often wet with tears. Children will be better educated, automobile accidents will not stare at us from every morning paper, homes will not be merely places to go when you happen to be in the neighborhood, and mothers will apologize for the loveliness of their daughters, adding 'she has a wonderful mind and heart, even if she is so beautiful.'"

A 1913 Biographical Sketch: An article by Cora Moore in The New York Globe, June 7, 1913, told of the actress and her career: "Perhaps some among those whose good fortune it has been to see The Poor Little Rich Girl at the Hudson Theatre this season have been constrained to inquire why there is so much talk about Virginia Norden, why her photograph so frequently appears in the precious space allotted to dramatic editors, when her part in the cast, though an integer, to be sure, of that delightful, indefinite 'they,' is undeniably small and inconspicuous.

"Well, here is the answer. It is because it is in the theatric air that Miss Norden is what the thespian prophets are pleased to call a 'comer.' She is hailed by some of the more enthusiastic as the 'coming actress' - even a possible successor to the adored Bernhardt - and the rumors afloat are based on the opinions of such authorities as managers who have seen much more of the young woman's work than has the general public, and are able to recognize the makings of a great artist in her personality, her ambition, her beauty and grace, her natural ability, her magnetism, and perhaps, above all, in her infinite capacity for hard work.

"Work is her watchword, and she seems to be one of those rare individuals who know how to work, which is to say she wastes no time in aimless endeavor, but makes every effort count for a stride ahead in her chosen profession. 'Work,' says this talented actress, 'hard work, too, is pleasure to me, but I don't see how anyone can hope to succeed along any line whatever without it, for, it seems to me, there must always be so much to learn and put into practice, always some little corners to round off or rough places to polish. If,' she continued, 'I am successful, as the managers have been good enough to say, it is due to the fact that I have put my whole heart and soul into my work and, in any role, however small, I have been thoroughly interested in it. But, of course, I am aiming for versatility. I want to be able to play different types and already, you know, I have had some little practice - enough, indeed, to give me some little encouragement that I may just possibly attain my aim.'

"Another asset besides her capacity for work and her undoubted ability has this lucky Miss Virginia Norden, for, not only is she scheduled to become a bright, particular star in the theatrical firmament, but it is more than likely that fate has in store for her a reputation as a stage beauty. Tall, light-haired, she has a face of such forceful attractiveness that she has been called an ideal 'Viking's daughter,' and certainly hers are the 'blue, victorious eyes' of those conquering heroes who came down triumphantly from the stormy north. Yet she herself, by a strange inversion, is from the South, one of the half-dozen daughters of the late Major W.N. Dalton of Washington, D.C., where each of the sisters was noted for her beauty and accomplishments.

"She is typically an outdoor girl, revelling in the open, and, like most persons who love the outdoors more than normally, is a keen sportswoman, with a decided penchant for motoring and yachting. She has a high-powered car which she drives herself, and every moment she can conscientiously spare from her beloved study is spent in it, tooling it to or from one or another of the beaches or about the country homes of some of her many friends. In summer she divides this interest with a splendid yacht which she handles with equal dexterity.

"From a child, it seems, she was not stagestruck, as the disease overtakes many young girls, but thoroughly in earnest, and she never wavered in her determination to foreswear society, to which she had been born, for the profession for which it appears likely to turn out, she was also born. Accordingly, her training has been of the best, because it has been free and untrammelled. She knows herself, her limitations, and her possibilities and is as conscientious in making progress as the most exacting of taskmasters could expect.

"It was at a play given in the Empire Theatre by members of the Empire Dramatic School a few months ago that Miss Norden first attracted attention on the stage. She took the part of Mithka Rosefsky, a Jewish sweatshop worker, and she 'proved' herself, and the ability to play different types, for generally during her school training she had played society parts. The role was a difficult one even for a seasoned actress, but Miss Norden played it with such rare skill and finish that the critics were unanimously agreed they must 'keep an eye' on her. Such natural talent and apt conception as she displayed, they said, could not but develop into something splendid. They prophesied they should in time see her name in electric lights; they are still watching will full confidence the fulfillment of their prophecy.

"As was to be imagined of a young woman of Miss Norden's wide sympathies and understanding, she could not allow her interest in the sweatshop and other ill-paid and unfortunate workers to stop when she had appropriated what of their lives she needed, for the benefit of her art, so the thoughtless 'other woman' now playing in The Poor Little Rich Girl company is a generous and practical friend of thousands of poor little poor girls of the city, and doing what she can to forward the Big Sister idea. As concrete evidence of the managerial ability of Miss Norden it may be stated that she has been engaged as leading woman for an important production which is to be staged next fall by Arthur Hopkins, rehearsals for which will begin in August, all of which is extremely gratifying; but it must be remembered that, as in the case of any actress of importance, it was necessary for her, like Kipling's ship, to 'find herself' before any one else could discover her."

On the Stage and Screen: Although Virginia Norden was best known for her work on the stage, she maintained her screen activities. On June 23, 1913 she appeared in person at the Boston Theatre in Chicago in connection with the showing of one of her films, Ancient Blood, released by the General Film Co. She told Mildred Joclyn, a reporter for The Chicago Post, in an interview published the same date, that she had played many varied roles for the screen, ranging from a vampire (temptress) in The Destroyers, to a sweet and innocent mountain maiden in Ancient Blood. "She 'vamps' in a perfectly natural way, giving to the public a characterization that does not draw upon the imagination through melodramatic tendencies. Her actions are not superficial and her own lovable character is brought out in each instance by the very naturalness of her acting," Joclyn wrote.

During the first part of 1914 she spent some time in England, returning to New York City on the White Star liner Oceanic on July 2nd. A story in the New York Morning Telegraph, July 3, 1914, related that while in London she was a costume designer for the short-lived stage play, Adele. The most memorable experience of her trip involved an aeroplane ride with Lieutenant Gamble, an aviator in the British army, who took her aloft in his $15,000 biplane. No sooner did they take off and reach an altitude of about 1,000 feet than something happened to the fuel line, the propellers stopped, the machine headed earthward at a frightening rate, and the sortie terminated with a fortuitous landing in a haystack. That night Miss Norden and her aviator friend showed up backstage at the performance of Adele and were the subjects of joking comments from her co-workers. In September 1914, Virginia Norden was seen on the stage in New York City in Guy Bolton's The Rule of Three.

Her Later Career: In the autumn of 1915 Virginia Norden joined Vitagraph, for whom she appeared in such films as Peter God and The Dawn of a New Day, according to notices in the February 12 and April 15, 1916 issues of The Moving Picture World. In early 1916 she was working under the direction of Ralph Ince at Vitagraph's Bayshore, Long Island studio.

An article in The Toledo Blade, February 23, 1916, told of a motion picture players popularity contest sponsored by the New York American, in which Clara Kimball Young came in first, followed by Anita Stewart, and Virginia Norden. Mary Pickford was fourth, Florence LaBadie 10th, and Lillian Gish 12th. A notice in the June 3, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World called her "statuesque, fine-featured, and good to look at."

In April 1916 she went to Balboa. An article in The Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1916, noted: "Virginia Norden, just engaged by Balboa to star in emotional roles, is personally of an ultra emotional temperament, with a penchant for poultry. There is a legend current that having one day acquired certain ducks for whom the surrounding scenery provided no suitable pond, she was so affected by their sad plight that she wept tears until the ducks were comfortably fixed."

Note: Her surname appeared as "Nardon" in some publicity.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1912: Baby Hands (8-6-1912), For the Mikado (10-18-1912)

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