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Norma Shearer was the Oscar winning Queen Of MGM until she decided to leave Hollywood behind
She was born Edith Norma Shearer on August 10, 1902, in Montreal, Canada. Her family was wealthy and she was educated at Montreal’s high school for girls. After seeing the Dolly Sisters perform on stage she decided to become an actress. Sadly her father lost all his money and her parents divorced in 1918. Norma and her sister moved to New York City to pursue show business careers. She auditioned for the Ziegfeld Follies but was told she wasn’t beautiful enough to be in the show. Norma was able to get work as an extra in numerous films like The Flapper and Way Down East. Her big break came in 1924 when she was signed by MGM. She was given leading roles in the silent films He Who Gets Slapped, The Waning Sex and The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg. Norma quickly became one of the studio’s most popular stars and was earning $5000 a week. On September 29, 1927 she married MGM producer Irving Thalberg. The couple had two children – Irving Jr. and Katherine.
Unfortunately Norma was not very maternal and would have a distant relationship with them. Her first talkie, The Trial Of Mary Dugan, was a hit and she was easily able to make the transition to sound films. In 1930 she convinced Irving to cast her as a femme fatale in the pre-code drama The Divorcee. It was a success and she won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. During the 1930s she starred in some of MGM’s most prestigious films including A Free Soul, Private Lives, and Smilin’ Through. She often played feminist characters who explored their sexuality onscreen. Her nickname was “The Queen Of MGM”. Other actresses at the studio were jealous of her success and believed she only got the roles because she was married to Irving. Her brother, Douglas Shearer, became an Oscar winning sound engineer. Tragically in 1936 Irving died from lobular pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven. Norma was devastated by her husband’s death and took time off from making movies.
She returned to the screen in the 1938 epic Marie Antoinette. Her performance earned her another Oscar nomination. The following year she costarred with her longtime rival Joan Crawford in this hit comedy The Women. Norma was offered the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind but turned it down. She enjoyed romances with Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney, and George Raft. In 1942 she married Martin Arrouge, a ski instructor who was twenty years younger than her. By this time she had lost interest in her career and decided to retire. Her final film was the comedy Her Cardboard Lover. She spent a lot of her time traveling and enjoyed living life away from the spotlight. Sadly as she grew older she began suffering from insomnia and underwent electric shock treatments. Eventually she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and moved into the Motion Picture Retirement Home. On June 12, 1983 she died from pneumonia at the age of eighty. Norma is buried next to Irving at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
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