Norma Shearer

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Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian American actress and Hollywood star from 1925 through 1942.

Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues.

She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting, winning Best Actress for her performance in the 1930 film The Divorcee.Reviewing Shearer's work, Mick LaSalle called her "the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood ... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards".

As a result, Shearer is celebrated as a feminist pioneer, "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen".

Early life

Shearer was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent. Her childhood was spent in Montreal, where she was educated at Montreal High School for Girls and Westmount High School. Her life was one of privilege, due to the success of her father's construction business. However, the marriage between her parents was unhappy. Andrew Shearer was prone to manic depression and "moved like a shadow or a ghost around the house", while her mother Edith Fisher Shearer was attractive, flamboyant, and stylish. Young Norma was interested in music, as well, but after seeing a vaudeville show for her ninth birthday, she announced her intention to become an actress. Edith offered support, but as Shearer entered adolescence, she became secretly fearful that her daughter's physical flaws would jeopardize her chances. Shearer herself "had no illusions about the image I saw in the mirror". She acknowledged her "dumpy figure, with shoulders too broad, legs too sturdy, hands too blunt", and was also acutely aware of her small eyes that appeared crossed due to a squint in her right eye. By her own admission, though, she was "ferociously ambitious, even as a young girl", and planned to overcome her deficiencies through careful camouflage, sheer determination, and charm.

The childhood and adolescence that Shearer once described as "a pleasant dream" ended in 1918, when her father's company collapsed, and her older sister, Athole, suffered her first serious mental breakdown. Forced to move into a small, dreary house in a "modest" Montreal suburb, Shearer found her determined attitude was only strengthened by the sudden plunge into poverty: "At an early age, I formed a philosophy about failure. Perhaps an endeavor, like my father's business, could fail, but that didn't mean Father had failed."

Edith Shearer thought otherwise. Within weeks, she had left her husband and moved into a cheap boarding house with her two daughters. A few months later, encouraged by her brother, who believed his niece should try her luck in "the picture business", then operating largely on the East Coast, Edith sold her daughter's piano and bought three train tickets for New York City. Also in her pocket was a letter of introduction for Norma, acquired from a local theatre owner, to Florenz Ziegfeld, who was currently preparing a new season of his famous Ziegfeld Follies.

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Career

The three Shearer women arrived in New York in January 1920, each of them dressed up for the occasion. "I had my hair in little curls," Shearer remembered, "and I was so excited and proud." "There was one double bed, a cot with no mattress, and a stove with just one gas jet" in their rented apartment. The communal bathroom was located at the end of a long, dimly lit hallway. Both Athole and I took turns sleeping with mother in the bed, but sleep was impossible, considering that the elevated trains rattled right past our window every few minutes."

Ziegfeld's inception was also disastrous. Shearer blasted her at her apartment after reportedly calling her a "dog" and mocking her crossed eyes and stubby legs. "I learned that Universal Pictures was looking for eight pretty girls to act as extras." She continued on the rounds with her determination and determination: "I discovered that Universal Pictures was looking for eight pretty girls to be extras." Athole and I arrived and discovered 50 girls ahead of us. We were looking at an assistant casting director who walked up and down looking at us. He skipped the first three and picked the fourth from the first three. The fifth and sixth were unattractive, but the seventh would do, and so on, down the line until seven were chosen, and he was still some ten feet ahead of us. I did some quick thinking. I coughed vociferously, and when the man appeared in the direction of the cough, I stood on my tiptoes and smiled at him. He chuckled openly and walked over to me, acknowledging the trite ruse to which I had resorted and said, 'You win, Sis.' "You're Number Eight."

D. W. Griffith's directed Way Down East also had additional scenes in the series, including one in Way Down East. Shearer, who was aiming for a break in filming and standing shrewslessly near a powerful arc light, approached Griffith and expressed her aspirations for actressdom. "The Master looked down on me, studied my upturned face in the arc's glare, and shook his head." Eyes are not positive, he said. In close-up, a cast in one and far too blue; blue eyes were still blank; blue eyes were also largely empty. You'll never make it," the narrator announced, and turned completely away."

Shearer, a pioneer in the field of strabismus, was unconcerned, risking some of her funds on a talk with Dr. William Bates, a pioneer in the treatment of strabismus. He wrote down a series of muscle-strengthening exercises that would eventually mask Shearer's cast for lengthy stretches of time on film. She spent hours in front of the mirror, stretching her eyes, and striking poses that concealed or enhanced the physical appearances that were not presentable in Ziegfeld or Griffith. In the evening, she sat in the galleries of Broadway theatres, studying Ina Claire, Lynn Fontanne, and Katharine Cornell's entrances.

Shearer resorted to some modeling work, which was fruitful. "I could smile at a cake of laundry soap as if it were dinner at the Ritz," she said about her modeling career. I posed with a strand of imitation pearls. I posed in dust-cap and house style with a common mop for dental paste and soft drink, and I was holding my mouth in a squeezing fashion until it all but stopped that way." She was the latest model for Kelly-Springfield Tires and was depicted inside a tire's rim and smiling down at passing traffic from a large floodlit billboard.

And then, a year after her arrival in New York, she got a break in film: fourth billing in a B-movie called The Stealers (1920). Shearer's debut was accepted by Louis B. Mayer Pictures, a studio in Northeast Los Angeles owned by a small-time designer, Louis B. Mayer. Irving Thalberg had been to Louis B. Mayer Pictures as vice president on February 15, 1923, but Shearer's rep had already sent a letter asking her to come to the studio. She discovered herself signing a job after three years of suffering. It was expected to cost $250 a week for six months, with renewal options and a screening for a leading role in a major film called The Wanters.

Shearer left New York about February 17. As her train neared Los Angeles, she became "dangerously sure of herself" as her mother was accompaled. She was not accepted even an hour after her arrival, and she knew that there would not be no celebrity treatment in her new studio. Edith was allowed to hail a taxi, but she was dispirited.

Shearer went to the Mayer Company on Mission Road in the morning to speak with Thalberg. Shearer was temporarily shocked by their confused introduction but soon discovered herself "impressed by his dispassionate warmth, his calm self-possession, and the almost black, impenetrable gaze in a pale olive face."

Shearer was less impressed with her first screen test: "The custom then was to use flat lighting to shed a great deal of light from all directions in order to eliminate all shadows that might be caused by wrinkles or blemishes." However, the bright lights on either side of my face made my blue eyes almost white, and I'm almost certain that removing my nose made me look cross-eyed. The end was hideous.

Photographer Ernest Palmer found Shearer frantic and trembling in the hallway the day after the screening had been conducted for Mayer and Thalberg. She was struck by her "most raging surprise," and after going through the procedure herself, she agreed that she had been "poorly handled." A second experiment was conducted and judged a success by Palmer's own control. The lead in The Wanters seemed to be hers until the film's producer objected, finding her "unphotogenic." Shearer was going to be dissatisfied with her appointment to a minor role.

"I was absolutely clear that if I didn't turn up in this picture, I was through." Things weren't looking promising after just a few days of shooting. Shearer was enduring. The film's producer argued to Mayer that he could get nothing out of the young actress, and when summoned to Mayer's office, she immediately expects the axe to fall: she's apprehensions.

Shearer returned to the set and stepped into an emotional scene. "I took the scene lock, barrel, fur, fins, and feathers," she recalled, her respect for her producer and her studio. Thalberg's reward for her role in six films in eight months.

Shearer did a good job with the apprenticeship. Louis B. Mayer Pictures, 1924, was merged with Metro Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company to create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the studio's first official production, Shearer appeared with Lon Chaney and John Gilbert. The film was a great success and contributed to the company's meteoric rise and Shearer's fame. She was filming her own films by late 1925, making her one of MGM's most popular attractions, a bona fide celebrity. She started a new career; it was $1,000 a week and would increase to $5,000 over the next five years. At 2004, she and Edith bought a house on Vine Street, which was located under the Hollywoodland sign.

Shearer's new challenge was to remain a student. Many other talented actresses were in the studio, and she knew she'd have to work really hard to stay ahead of the pack. Greta Garbo, a spectacular newcomer, was on a mission to Thalberg, where she "demanded to be recognized as one of a different sort." It was just one of many trips she paid to his office, most often to plead for more detail and better parts. Thalberg would wait patiently, then insist she stick to the line, that MGM knew better, and that the movies she screamed for made her a well-known actress. Shearer would burst into tears occasionally, but this seemed to be "no more impression than rain on a raincoat."

Thalberg was pleasantly surprised by Shearer's privates. Thalberg shook his head as he was suggested to him for the role of a girl threatened with rape, and he said, "She seems too young to take care of herself."

Shearer, who played a part, was attracted to her manager's increasing attraction toward her manager. "Something was understood between us, an indefinite feeling that neither of us could analyze." Thalberg's appeal was not purely sexual. Shearer's most notable feature was his commanding presence and steely grace, as well as the suggestion that he held that wherever he sat, he was always the table's chief. Thalberg became a father figure to the 23-year-old actress despite his youth – he was only 26 years old at the time.

Shearer's secretary called her at the end of a working day in July 1925, asking if she would accompany Thalberg to the premiere of Chaplin's The Gold Rush. They made their first appearance as a couple that night. Shearer returned to Montreal a few weeks later to visit her father. "Norma leant in across the table at noon, at the end of lunch, over coffee." She yelled, 'I'm madly in love.'

'Who with?'

I asked. She replied, 'With Irving Thalberg,' she chuckled. When I asked Thalberg, I asked how he felt. 'I want to marry him,' Norma said, and then, with the reassurance that I remembered so well, I think I will.'

Both Shearer and Irving saw others over the next two years. "I held a dinner party sometime in 1926," Louise Brooks remembered. All the place cards at the dinner table were books. Dreiser's Genius appeared in front of Thalberg's house, and I wrote The Difficulty of Being Married in front of Norma's house. Irving stepped straight into Genius and sat down, but Norma kept walking around, so it was so funny. She would not be allowed to appear in front of The Difficulty of Being Married – No way!"

Shearer had made 13 silent films for MGM by 1927. Each had been manufactured for under $200,000 and had been a huge box-office hit, with some studios even profiting from the studio's $200,000+. She was rewarded for her continuing success by being cast in Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince, her first prestige film, for a budget over $1,000,000. Shearer had been summoned to Thalberg's office while finishing The Student Prince. She opened to discover Thalberg at his desk before a tray of diamond engagement rings. She was allowed the freedom to choose her own ring, but she picked out the most expensive. It was revealed in August 1927 that they were engaged in the Hollywood wedding of the year following weeks of rumors prompted by wearing the ring. Shearer had two children with Thalberg, Jr. (1930–1987) and Katherine (1935–2006). Shearer converted to Judaism before marrying Thalberg.

The Jazz Singer was released a week after the wedding. It was the first feature-length motion picture with sound, and it forever changed the cinematic landscape and herded the end of the silent motion-picture era. It also put an end to several careerless ones, and Shearer was certain that hers would not be one of them. Douglas Shearer, her brother, was instrumental in MGM's sound system, and every effort was taken to prepare her for the microphone.

The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), her first talkie, was a huge success. "Medium-pitched, fluent, flexible Canadian accent, not quite American, but not at all foreign," shearer's "medium-pitched, clear, and subsequently imitated by other actresses, who were anxious about her talks. Despite the success of her subsequent talking films, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and Their Own Desire (both 1929), Shearer feared that the public would soon tire of her "good girl" image, so she took the advice of friend and co-star Ramón Novarro to visit an unknown photographer named George Hurrell. She did a series of sensual portraits there, convincing her husband that she might be starring in MGM's racy new film, The Divorcee (1930).

Shearer received an Academy Award for her role in The Divorcee (1931), A Free Soul (1931), A Free Soul (1931), and Strange Interlude (1932). Both of these were box-office hits, putting Shearer in contention with Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Jean Harlow as MGM's top actress for the remainder of the decade.

"How can I compete with Norma when she's sleeping with the boss?" Shearer's marriage to Thalberg gave her a degree of autonomy in Hollywood that was resented by rivals like Crawford, who threatened that Shearer would always be given the best jobs and best conditions.

The pre-Code films by Shearer included period dramas and theatrical adaptations. Smilin' Through (1932), starring Fredric March, was one of the first commercial films of the time. An adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's four-hour experimental Strange Interlude (1932), which also starred Clark Gable, was a disappointing O'Neill, but not a major hit.

Shearer was compelled to abandon her celebrated "free soul" image and pursue exclusively in period dramas and "prestige" photographs after the 1934 enforcement of the Production Code. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), one of the series's most popular at the box office, made the most money in part because the film contained elements that had not been included in the newly introduced Production Code. She appeared in a film in which Katharine Cornell played a role. Shearer also took on another play popularized by Cornell in Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her first film of the 1930s was too expensive for the studio to lose money), and Marie Antoinette (1938) (a budget of over $2,500,000 was also too high for the studio to hope for a return) but audiences were still enjoying the films.

On six occasions, Shearer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but she only received one in 1930 for The Divorcee. In 1931, the Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet, and Marie Antoinette were nominated the same year for Their Own Desire, a Free Soul in 1931. Marion Davies said Shearer appeared to a party at San Simeon wearing a Marie Antoinette costume; Davies said she was not going to open the door to Shearer so she could enter; so Norma made her grand entrance through wider doors leading to another room. Four chairs were arranged so she could sit at the table in her voluminous skirts.

This character portrait of the actress was provided by George Cukor, who helmed Shearer in Romeo and Juliet.

Sherwood played Delight, a dark comedy adapted from Robert E. Sherwood's 1936 appearance in 1939. After A Free Soul (1931) and Strange Interlude (1932), Shearer's three films with Clark Gable came to an end. The Women (1939) sequel followed, with a wholly female cast of over 130 speaking roles.

Shearer was also one of the many actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara (1939). However, she expressed no concern, joking, "Scarlett is a thankless job." Rhett is the one I'd love to play.

Critics applauded the suspacious atmosphere in her forthcoming film, Escape (1940), where she played the lover of a Nazi general who assists an American in escaping from a concentration camp. The film, which attracted growing interest in the European war, did well at the box office, but Shearer stayed on to act in critically acclaimed films Now, Voyager, and Mrs. Miniver (1942), which both failed at the box office. Shearer officially retired from acting in 1942.

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