Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1900 - 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 1920's 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. bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201402103&sr=1-1" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Gowns-Adrian-MGM-Years-1928-1941/dp/0810908980/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201402103&sr=1-1
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" .
In March 2008, two of her most famous pre-code films, _The Divorcee and A Free Soul, will be released on DVD. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000YRY7VC/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3DTXQSUYIJ006&colid=K0PG217XLJYI
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies" but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to correct her cross-eyed stare caused by a muscle weakness. Irving Thalberg had seen her early efforts and, when he joined Louis B. Mayer in 1923, gave her a five year contract. He thought she should retire after their marriage, but she wanted bigger parts. In 1927 she insisted on firing the director Viktor Tourjansky because he was unsure of her cross-eyed stare. Her first talkie was in Trial of Mary Dugan, The (1929); four movies later she won an Oscar in Divorcee, The (1930). She intentionally cut down film exposure during the thirties, relying on major roles in Thalberg's prestige projects: Barretts of Wimpole Street, The (1934), Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her fifth Oscar nomination). Thalberg died of second heart attack in September 1936, aged thirty-seven. Norma wanted to retire but MGM more-or-less forced her into a six-picture contract. David O. Selznick offered her the part of Scarlett O'Hara, but public objection to her cross-eyed stare killed the deal. She starred in Women, The (1939), turned down the starring role in Mrs. Miniver (1942), and retired in 1942. Later that year she married Sun Valley ski instructor Martin Arrouge, twenty years younger than she (he waived community property rights). From then on she shunned the limelight; she was in very poor health the last decade of her life.
