Many people wrongly believe that Talmadge Street is named for silent screen actress Norma Talmadge (1894-1957). They claim that when Vitagraph, the movie studio that made Talmadge famous, opened its lot on Prospect in 1915, its executives christened the cross-street after their big star. It’s a swell idea, but the truth is that a chunk of Hoover was renamed Talmadge in April 1911 – while Vitagraph was still settling into its first West Coast digs in Santa Monica and Norma Talmadge was just a teenage bit player in New York. So who or what does this street honor? Shrug. The name change was decreed by city ordinance, and civil engineers typically pulled new street names out of a big impersonal file, so there’s no clear answer. Some have suggested the city of Tallmadge, Ohio, but note spelling. P.S. Norma Place in West Hollywood wasn’t named for Norma Talmadge either, but the Talmadge neighborhood in San Diego definitely was.
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