Norma Shearer
(1900 - 1983)
- Actress
- born Edith Norma Shearer on August 10, 1900, in Montreal, Quebec
- child model and bit player in New York-based films
- appearance in The Stealers (1920) caught the attention of producer Irving Thalberg
- Thalberg signed Shearer to a long-term contract with MGM in 1923 and married her in 1927, after which she had her pick of films, parts, and directors
- career faltered after Thalberg's death in 1936
- Lillian Hellman once said of her: "A face unclouded by thought."
- brother, Douglas Shearer (1899-1971), was a pioneering sound technician who won 13 Oscars and developed several key technical innovations
- films include:
- Their Own Desire (1929)
- The Divorcee (1930) for which she won an Oscar
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
- Romeo and Juliet (1936)
- Marie Antoinette (1938)
- Idiot's Delight (1939), a comedy with Clark Gable
- Escape (1940)
- filmography
- books:
- The films of Norma Shearer (1976) by Jack Jacobs and Myron Braum.
- Norma Shearer : a life (1990) by / Gavin Lambert.
- Norma : the story of Norma Shearer (1988) by Lawrence J. Quirk.
Clark Gable and Norma Shearer in Idiot's Delight
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