46 Facts About Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942.

Norma Shearer appeared in adaptations of Noel Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee.

Norma Shearer's childhood was spent in Montreal, where she was educated at Montreal High School for Girls and Westmount High School.

Norma Shearer's life was one of privilege, due to the success of her father's construction business.

Andrew Norma Shearer was prone to manic depression and "moved like a shadow or a ghost around the house", while her mother Edith Fisher Norma Shearer was attractive, flamboyant, and stylish.

Young Norma Shearer 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 Norma Shearer entered adolescence, she became secretly fearful that her daughter's physical flaws would jeopardize her chances.

Norma Shearer "had no illusions about the image I saw in the mirror".

Norma Shearer acknowledged her "dumpy figure, with shoulders too broad, legs too sturdy, hands too blunt", and was acutely aware of her small eyes that appeared crossed due to a squint in her right eye.

The childhood and adolescence that Norma 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.

In January 1920, the three Norma Shearer women arrived in New York, each of them dressed up for the occasion.

Norma Shearer turned Shearer down flat, reportedly calling her a "dog", and criticized her crossed eyes and stubby legs.

Norma Shearer passed up the first three and picked the fourth.

Still undeterred, Norma Shearer risked some of her savings on a consultation with Dr William Bates, a pioneer in the treatment of strabismus.

Norma Shearer wrote out a series of muscle-strengthening exercises that after many years of daily practice would successfully conceal Shearer's cast for long periods of time on the screen.

Norma Shearer spent hours in front of the mirror, exercising her eyes and striking poses that concealed or improved the physical flaws noted by Ziegfeld or Griffith.

In desperate need of money, Norma Shearer resorted to some modeling work, which proved successful.

In January 1923, Shearer received an offer from Louis B Mayer Pictures, a studio in Northeast Los Angeles that was run by a small-time producer, Louis B Mayer.

Norma Shearer was momentarily thrown by their confused introduction, but soon found herself "impressed by his air of dispassionate strength, his calm self-possession and the almost black, impenetrable eyes set in a pale olive face".

Again, Norma Shearer was to be disappointed, relegated to a minor role.

Norma Shearer accepted her next role in Pleasure Mad, knowing "it was well understood that if I didn't deliver in this picture, I was through".

Norma Shearer staged an alarming outburst, screaming at me, calling me a fool and a coward, accusing me of throwing away my career because I couldn't get on with a director.

Norma Shearer was cast with Lon Chaney and John Gilbert in the studio's first official production, He Who Gets Slapped.

Norma Shearer signed a new contract; it paid $1,000 a week and would rise to $5,000 over the next five years.

Norma Shearer bought a house for herself and Edith at 2004 Vine Street, which was located under the Hollywoodland sign.

Norma Shearer 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 over $1,000,000.

Norma Shearer entered to find Thalberg sitting at his desk before a tray of diamond engagement rings.

Norma Shearer granted her the option to choose her own ring; she picked out the biggest.

Norma Shearer's "medium-pitched, fluent, flexible Canadian accent, not quite American, but not at all foreign", was critically applauded, and thereafter widely imitated by other actresses, nervous about succeeding in talkies.

Norma Shearer took on another play popularized by Cornell in Romeo and Juliet, and Marie Antoinette, though their elaborate sets and costumes helped make the films immensely popular with audiences.

Norma Shearer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress on six occasions, winning only for The Divorcee in 1930.

Norma Shearer was nominated the same year for Their Own Desire, for A Free Soul in 1931, The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1934, Romeo and Juliet in 1936, and Marie Antoinette in 1938.

Marion Davies later recalled that Shearer came to a party at San Simeon in her Marie Antoinette costume; Davies said she was not about to remove the door so Shearer could enter, so Norma made her grand entrance through wider doors leading from another room.

Norma Shearer becomes so engrossed in her work, so keyed up with a kind of taut, nervous energy, that she is apt to overtax her strength.

The greatest joy of working with Miss Norma Shearer comes from her complete lack of vanity.

Norma Shearer was one of the many actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

Nevertheless, Norma Shearer's contract was renewed for six films at $150,000 each.

On June 12,1983, Norma Shearer died of bronchial pneumonia at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California, where she had been living since 1980.

Norma Shearer is entombed in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in a crypt marked Norma Arrouge, along with her first husband, Irving Thalberg.

Norma Shearer was rediscovered in the late 1950s, when her films were sold to television, and in the 1970s, when her films enjoyed theatrical revivals.

Norma Shearer's work was seen anew, and the critical focus shifted from her "noble" roles to her pre-Code roles.

Norma Shearer's work gained more attention in the 1990s through the publication of a series of books.

Norma Shearer was noted not only for the control she exercised over her work, but for her patronage of Hurrell and Adrian, and for discovering actress Janet Leigh and actor-producer Robert Evans.

In 2015, a number of Norma Shearer films became available in high-definition format, authored by Warner Home Video, in most cases, from the nitrate camera negatives: A Free Soul, Romeo and Juliet, Marie Antoinette, and The Women.

Norma Shearer is portrayed in director David Fincher's film Mank by actress Jessie Cohen.

Norma Shearer was the first person to receive five Academy Award nominations for acting.