Norma Talmadge was the eldest of the three daughters and the first pushed by their mother to look for a career as a film actress. Mother and daughter traveled to Vitagraph Studios in Flatbush, New York, just a streetcar ride from her home. They managed to get past the studio gates and in to see the casting director, who promptly threw them out. 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).