Happy Birthday Norma Shearer!Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was an Academy Award–winning Canadian-American actress.
Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in the world from the mid-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.
Unlike many of her MGM contemporaries, Shearer's reputation went into steep decline after her retirement. By the time of her death in 1983, she was in danger of being known only for her "noble" roles in the regularly-revived The Women and Romeo and Juliet or, at worst, as a forgotten star.
However, Shearer's legacy began to be re-evaluated in the 1990's with the publication of two biographies and the TCM and VHS release of her films, many of them unseen since the implementation of the Production Code some sixty years before. Focus shifted to her pre-Code "divorcee" persona, and Shearer was rediscovered as "the exemplar of sophisticated [1930's] woman-hood... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards". Simultaneously, Shearer's ten year collaboration with portrait photographer George Hurrell and her lasting contribution to fashion through the designs of Adrian were also recognized.
Today, Norma Shearer is widely celebrated as one of cinema's feminist pioneers: "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen".
Having become a star, Norma’s new challenge was to remain one. There were many other talented actresses at the studio and she realised she would have to fight hard to stay ahead of the pack. Seeing that sensational newcomer Greta Garbo was one of a kind, she went to Thalberg and "demanded recognition as one of another kind". It was just one of the many visits she paid to his office, always to plead for better material, better parts. Thalberg would listen patiently, then invariably advise Norma to keep toeing the line, that MGM knew best, and that the movies she complained about had made her a popular actress. Occasionally Norma would burst into tears, but this seemed to make “no more impression than rain on a raincoat”.
Privately, Thalberg was very impressed. He admired Norma as a person as well as an actress: responding to her ambition and her capacity for hard work, her intelligence and sense of humour. Most of all, he identified with her determination to overcome physical obstacles that most people would have considered insurmountable. In a story conference, when Norma’s name was suggested to him for the part of a girl threatened with rape, Thalberg shook his head and, with a wry smile, said: “She looks too well able to take care of herself.”
Norma, for her part, found herself increasingly attracted to her boss. “Something was understood between us,” she claimed later, “an indefinite feeling that neither of us could analyse.” Irving’s appeal was not primarily sexual — what attracted Norma was his commanding presence and steely grace; the impression he gave that wherever he sat was always the head of the table. In spite of his youth, Thalberg became a father figure to the 23 year-old actress — the first real candidate for the role in her life.
At the end of a working day in July 1925, Norma received a phone call from Irving’s secretary, asking if she would like to accompany Mr. Thalberg to the premiere of Chaplin’s The Gold Rush. Suspecting that Irving was listening silently on the line, Norma told the secretary she would be delighted. That night, she and Thalberg made their first appearance as a couple.
A few weeks later, Norma went to Montreal to visit her father. While there, she had a reunion with an old school friend, who remembered: “At the end of lunch, over coffee, Norma leant in across the table. “I’m madly in love,” she whispered. “Who with?” I asked. “With Irving Thalberg,” she replied, smiling. I asked how Thalberg felt. “I hope to marry him,” Norma said, and then, with the flash of the assurance I remembered so well, “I believe I will.”
This was no impulsive whim on Norma’s part: she had given the idea years of thought. Love aside, she realized that marriage to the boss was a unique opportunity for her career — her wedding to Irving would, essentially, be a double ceremony, also seeing her crowned Queen of the MGM Lot. She also realized she would have to work quickly, for Irving was not only the youngest member of Hollywood’s ruling class, but also its only bachelor. With the same formidable will that had made her a movie star, Norma began rehearsing for her next assignment, the most important role of her life: Mrs. Irving Thalberg.
She could not afford to be subtle about it. To Joan Crawford, whose humiliating first job at MGM was to double for Norma in 1925’s Lady of the Night, it was obvious that the star was playing up to the boss — and that he was responding. “I don’t get it.” Joan commented. “She’s cross-eyed, knock-kneed and she can’t act worth a damn. What does he see in her?” Possessed of similar ambition and drive, Crawford would go on to become Norma’s chief rival at the studio.
"It is impossible to get anything major accomplished without stepping on some toes. Enemies are inevitable when one is a ‘doer’.” — Norma Shearer
Over the next two years, both Norma and Irving would see other people, but Hollywood insiders knew it was something of a charade — she was just waiting for him to propose. Louise Brooks remembered: “I held a dinner party sometime in 1926. All the place cards at the dinner table were books. In front of Thalberg’s place was Dreiser’s ‘Genius’ and in front of Norma’s place I put ‘The Difficulty of Getting Married’. It was so funny because Irving walked right in and saw ‘Genius’ and sat right down, but Norma kept walking around. She wouldn’t sit down in front of ‘The Difficulty of Getting Married’ – no way!”
Perhaps writer Anita Loos made the most astute comment: “Norma was intent on marrying the boss and Irving, preoccupied with his work, was relieved to let her make up his mind...”
By 1927, Shearer had made a total of thirteen silent films for MGM. Each had been produced for under $200,000 and had, without fail, been a substantial box office hit, often making a $200,000+ profit for the studio. She was rewarded for this consistent success by being cast in Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg — her first prestige production, with a budget of over $1,000,000. Although it was her first film to lose money, it was well received by critics and the public. Today, it is the best remembered of Shearer's silent films (sadly, most of her silent work is considered lost).
While she was finishing ‘The Student Prince’, Norma received a call summoning her to Thalberg’s office. She entered to find Irving sitting at his desk before a tray of diamond engagement rings. Looking up with a smile, he asked her to choose the one she liked best. Norma picked out the biggest.
On 29 September 1927, Norma and Irving were married in the Hollywood wedding of the year.
Norma was married to Irving Thalberg from 1927-1936 and after Thalberg's death, Shearer embarked on romances with the then married actor George Raft, Mickey Rooney, and James Stewart.
Following her retirement in 1942, she married Martin Arrougé (March 23, 1914 - August 8, 1999), a former ski instructor twelve or fourteen 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 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, along with her first husband Irving Thalberg. Her friend Jean Harlow is in the crypt next door. Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer.
She would of been 106 years old, if she was still alive today. For more information about her life and career, please visit wikipedia.org! (which is also the resource of this entry).
Peg Entwistle (February 5, 1908 – September 16, 1931) was a Welsh-born stage actress and briefly a Hollywood film actress, who achieved notoriety following her suicide.
