Norma Shearer
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| Norma Shearer | |
 in the trailer for The Women (1939) |
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| Birth name | Edith Norma Shearer |
| Born | August 10, 1902 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | June 12, 1983, age 80 Woodland Hills, California |
| Spouse(s) | Irving Thalberg (1927 - 1936) (his death) 2 children Martin Arrougé (1942 - 1983) (her death) |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Actress 1930 The Divorcee |
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Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 (some sources indicate 1900) - June 12, 1983) was an Academy Award-winning Canadian-born Hollywood actress.
Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in the world from the 1920s until her retirement in 1942. Her early films cast her as the girl-next-door, but after her 1930 film The Divorcee she played sexually liberated women in sophisticated contemporary comedies and dramas, as well as several historical and period films. Strikingly beautiful in the face, Shearer played a wide variety of roles that most admired actresses could only dream about.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born in Montreal, Quebec, she was the daughter of a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman and actress Edith Shearer. She would describe her childhood as "a pleasant dream"[citation needed] until the age of 16 when the success of her father's business fell through. Edith then took herself, Norma, and daughter Athole to New York to find jobs in the entertainment industry. One of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, she began her career as a fashion model and film extra in 1920, but later that year she received her first supporting part in The Stealers, attracted the attention of a young producer named Irving Thalberg. A series of small films followed, but Norma Shearer won praise from critics for her small, forgettable films of that era. Then in 1924 Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios was established, and there Shearer was placed under contract by Thalberg.
[edit] Stardom
After she signed to MGM, Norma Shearer became a star in her own right. He Who Gets Slapped, Lady of the Night, (1925) and His Secretary, all helped her become one of Hollywood's top five box office stars from 1925 until 1930, after which the number of films she made a year dropped. Many of her silent films are considered lost. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) marked Shearer's first prestige production, and the film scored well with critics and audiences. Later that year, she married Irving Thalberg, with whom she would later have two children.
Despite great success in her early talking films, The Trial of Mary Dugan, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and Their Own Desire (all 1929), Shearer knew the public would soon tire of her "good girl" image, and took the advice of friend and costar Ramon Novarro to visit to an unknown photographer named George Hurrell. There she took a series of sexy portraits which convinced her husband that she could play the lead in MGM's racy new film, The Divorcee (1930). Shearer won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work, and a series of highly successful pre-code films followed. Shearer was considered one of Hollywood's most versatile actresses, playing sexy roles in films like A Free Soul (1931), and was acclaimed for her dramatic abilities in such films as the period drama Smilin' Through (1932), which co-starred Fredric March, and was one of the most successful films of the year. After the enforcement of the production code in 1934, Shearer moved into more period dramas. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) was one of her most successful period dramas. The production costs of Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Marie Antoinette (1938) proved too great for a profit at the box office, though their elaborate sets and costumes helped make the films popular with audiences.
[edit] The actress
Shearer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress on six occasions, winning for her role in The Divorcee in 1930. This was one of a series of roles Shearer played in sophisticated yet racy pre-Code dramas. She was nominated the same year for her role in Their Own Desire, in 1931 for her role in A Free Soul, in 1934 for The Barretts of Wimpole Street, in 1936 for Romeo and Juliet, and in 1938 for Marie Antoinette which was reportedly her favorite role. Marion Davies later recalled that Shearer came to a party at San Simeon in her costume, which required removing the door so she could enter, and four chairs so she could sit at the table.
Shearer was photographed with great care because she had a lazy eye, however George Hurrell, who remained one of her favorite photographers, compensated by photographing her looking upwards. [1] Her earlier successful roles were generally those of "modern" sexually uninhibited women. She was highly regarded for her performances that ranged from comedy to tragedy, but later in her career she preferred to play noble characters, and after Thalberg's death was well received in more unusual roles such as Idiot's Delight (1939), her last of three films with Clark Gable.
The Women followed and was a substantial success, but a group of younger actresses, along with Shearer's long time rival Joan Crawford, received the best reviews. Shearer's marriage to Thalberg gave her a degree of power in Hollywood that was resented by rivals such as Crawford who complained that Shearer would always be offered the best roles and best conditions, with the comment, "After all, she's sleeping with the boss."[citation needed] Shearer and Crawford acted only once together, as bitter rivals in The Women. Critics praised the suspenseful atmosphere in Shearer's next film, Escape (1940). The movie centered around a Nazi officer's mistress who helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp. With increasing interest of the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but by this time Shearer had lost interest in her career. She turned down the leading roles in Gone with the Wind (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942), and Now, Voyager (1942). Shearer later starred in two romantic comedies which did little for her, We Were Dancing and Her Cardboard Lover (both 1942). Shearer later spoke of her regret at ending her career, and expressed a desire to return to films.
[edit] Later life
After Thalberg's death, Shearer embarked on romances with actors George Raft and James Stewart, among others.
She retired from acting in 1942 after public indifference to her last few films, and married Martin Arrougé, a ski instructor twenty years her junior. Confounding the skeptics, they were still happily married at the time of her death (from pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease) at 80 or 82 years old, although in her declining years she reportedly called Martin "Irving".
Shearer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6636 Hollywood Boulevard. She is entombed in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in a crypt marked Norma Shearer Arrouge, between her friend Jean Harlow and her first husband Irving Thalberg. Thalberg's crypt was engraved, "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer.
[edit] Filmography
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| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Mary Pickford for Coquette |
Academy Award for Best Actress 1930 for The Divorcee |
Succeeded by Marie Dressler for Min and Bill |
Note: In an era when checking births was not easy, film studios and actors frequently altered their birth year to make them younger. Some sources, such as Shearer biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, state 1900 as Shearer's year of birth. Quirk is the nephew of Photoplay editor James Quirk, who aided the actress in her early career, and knew Shearer personally from 1919 until his death in 1932 (Source: Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988).
[edit] References
Quirk, Lawrence: "Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer" Lambert, Gavin: "Norma Shearer: A Life"
[edit] External links
- Norma Shearer at the Internet Movie Database
- Norma Shearer at the TCM Movie Database
- Norma Shearer at Golden Silents
- A Norma Shearer Encyclopedia
- Diva Norma Shearer
- Photographs of Norma Shearer
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shearer, Norma |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shearer, Edith Norma |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 10, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 12, 1983 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Woodland Hills, California |
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1983 deaths | Best Actress Academy Award winners | American actors | American silent film actors | Canadian film actors | Canadian Americans | Converts to Judaism | Deaths by pneumonia | Deaths from Alzheimer's disease | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Naturalized citizens of the United States | People from Montreal | American models | Canadian models
