Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1900 [some sources indicate 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 Roaring 20s 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.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, she was the daughter of a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman Andrew Shearer and actress Edith Shearer. She would describe her childhood as "a pleasant dream" until the age of 16 when the success of her father's business fell through. Edith then took herself, Norma, and daughter Athole to New York to find jobs in the entertainment industry. One of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, she began her career as a fashion model and film extra in 1920, but later that year, she received her first supporting part in The Stealers, attracting the attention of a young producer named Irving Thalberg. A series of small films followed, but Shearer won praise from critics for her small, forgettable films of that era. In 1924, Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios was established, and Shearer was placed under contract by Thalberg. In her book Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, screenwriter Anita Loos describes Shearer's beauty as "having several effects, among which were eyes that were small and rather close together . . . it is to Thalberg's credit that, by expert showmanship and a judicious choice of camera angles, he made a beauty and a star out of Mrs Thalberg".

After she signed to MGM, Shearer became a star in her own right. He Who Gets Slapped, Lady of the Night, (1925) and His Secretary, all helped her become one of Hollywood's top five box office stars from 1925 until 1930, after which the number of films she made a year dropped. Many of her silent films are considered lost. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) marked Shearer's first prestige production, and the film scored well with critics and audiences. Later that year, she married Irving Thalberg, with whom she would later have two children, Katherine and Irving Jr.

Despite great success in her early talking films, The Trial of Mary Dugan, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and Their Own Desire (all 1929), Shearer knew the public would soon tire of her "good girl" image, and took the advice of friend and costar Ramon Novarro to visit an unknown photographer named George Hurrell. There she took a series of sexy portraits which convinced her husband that she could play the lead in MGM's racy new film, The Divorcee (1930), and would feud with Joan Crawford as Hollywood's top actress through the remainder of the decadehttp://www.brightlightsfilm.com/16/norma.html. Shearer won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work, and a series of highly successful pre-code films followed. Shearer was considered one of Hollywood's most versatile actresses, playing sexy roles in films like A Free Soul (1931), and was acclaimed for her dramatic abilities in such films as the period drama Smilin' Through (1932), which co-starred Fredric March, and was one of the most successful films of the year. After the enforcement of the production code in 1934, Shearer moved into more period dramas. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) was one of her most successful period dramas. The production costs of Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Marie Antoinette (1938) proved too great for a profit at the box office, though their elaborate sets and costumes helped make the films popular with audiences.

Shearer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress on six occasions, winning for her role in The Divorcee in 1930. This was one of a series of roles Shearer played in sophisticated yet racy pre-Code dramas. She was nominated the same year for her role in Their Own Desire, in 1931 for her role in A Free Soul, in 1934 for The Barretts of Wimpole Street, in 1936 for Romeo and Juliet, and in 1938 for Marie Antoinette which was reportedly her favorite role. Marion Davies later recalled that Shearer came to a party at San Simeon in her costume, which required removing the door so she could enter, and four chairs so she could sit at the table.

Shearer was photographed with great care because she had a lazy eye, however George Hurrell, who remained one of her favorite photographers, compensated by photographing her looking upwards. Her earlier successful roles were generally those of "modern" sexually uninhibited women. She was highly regarded for her performances that ranged from comedy to tragedy, but later in her career she preferred to play noble characters, and after Thalberg's death was well received in more unusual roles such as Idiot's Delight (1939), her last of three films with Clark Gable.

The Women followed and was a substantial success, but a group of younger actresses, along with Shearer's long time rival Joan Crawford, received the best reviews. Shearer's marriage to Thalberg gave her a degree of power in Hollywood that was resented by rivals such as Crawford who complained that Shearer would always be offered the best roles and best conditions, with the comment, "...after all, she's sleeping with the boss." Shearer and Crawford acted only once together, as bitter rivals in The Women. Critics praised the suspenseful atmosphere in Shearer's next film, Escape (1940). The movie centered around a Nazi general's lover who helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp. With increasing interest of the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but by this time Shearer had lost interest in her career.

After Thalberg's death of pneumonia in 1936Shearer embarked on romances with the then married actor George Raft, then unmarried Mickey Rooney, and then unmarried James Stewart.

In 1942, after passing up roles in Gone With the Wind and Mrs. Miniver, and public indifference to her last few films, Shearer retired from acting.Later that year, 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 82 years old, although in her declining years she reportedly called Martin "Irving".

Two years after Norma's death, Martin married Michele Daphne Shinall on August 5, 1985, in Reno, Nevada.

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.

*The Flapper (1920) *Way Down East (1920) *The Restless Sex (1920) *Torchy's Millions (1920) (short subject) *The Stealers (1920) *The Sign on the Door (1921) *The Leather Pusher (1922) (undermined role) *The End of the World (1922) *The Man Who Paid (1922) *Channing of the Northwest (1922) *The Bootleggers (1922) *A Clouded Name (1923) *Man and Wife (1923) *The Devil's Partner (1923) *Pleasure Mad (1923) *The Wanters (1923) *Lucretia Lombard (1923) *The Trail of the Law (1924) *The Wolf Man (1924) *Blue Water (1924) *Broadway After Dark (1924) *Broken Barriers (1924) *Empty Hands (1924) *Married Flirts (1924) (Cameo) *He Who Gets Slapped (1924) *The Snob (1924) *1925 Studio Tour (1925) (short subject) *Excuse Me (1925) *Lady of the Night (1925) *Waking Up the Town (1925) *Pretty Ladies (1925) *A Slave of Fashion (1925) *The Tower of Lies (1925) *His Secretary (1925) *The Devil's Circus (1926)

*Screen Snapshots (1926) (short subject) *The Waning Sex (1926) *Upstage (1926) *The Demi-Bride (1927) *After Midnight (1927) *The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) *The Latest from Paris (1928) *The Actress (1928) *Voices Across the Sea (1928) (short subject) *A Lady of Chance (1928) *The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929) *The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929) *The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) *Their Own Desire (1929) *The Divorcee (1930) *Let Us Be Gay (1930) *Jackie Cooper's Birthday Party (1931) (short subject) *Strangers May Kiss (1931) *The Stolen Jools (1931) (short subject, released by Paramount Pictures) *A Free Soul (1931) *Private Lives (1931) *The Christmas Party (1931) (short subject) *Smilin' Through (1932) *Strange Interlude (1932) *Riptide (1934) *The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) *Romeo and Juliet (1936) *Marie Antoinette (1938) *Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject) *Idiot's Delight (1939) *The Women (1939) *Escape (1940) *We Were Dancing (1942) *Her Cardboard Lover (1942)

* * * Norma Shearer at Golden Silents * A Norma Shearer Encyclopedia * Diva Norma Shearer * Photographs of Norma Shearer