Norma Shearer

Acting

Born Aug 10, 1902

From Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Died Jun 12, 1983

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s. Her early films cast her as the girl next door, but for most of the Pre-Code film era, beginning with the 1930 film The Divorcee, for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress, she played sexually liberated women in sophisticated contemporary comedies. Later she appeared in historical and period films. Unlike many of her MGM contemporaries, Shearer's fame declined steeply after retirement. By the time of her death in 1983, she was largely remembered at best for her "noble" roles in The Women, Marie Antoinette, and Romeo and Juliet. Shearer's legacy began to be re-evaluated in the 1990s with the publication of two biographies and the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) 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. Shearer is widely celebrated by some 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, were released on DVD. Description above from the Wikipedia article Norma Shearer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Norma Shearer

Known For

The Women

Marie Antoinette

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

That's Entertainment!

Judy Garland: By Myself

Sports on the Silver Screen

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

Escape

You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story

Filmography — Acting

The Women

Marie Antoinette

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

That's Entertainment!

Judy Garland: By Myself

Sports on the Silver Screen

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

Escape

You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story

The Divorcee

Hollywood: Style Center of the World

He Who Gets Slapped

From the Ends of the Earth

The Stolen Jools

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

Idiot's Delight

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound

We’re Switching to Hollywood

Private Lives

That's Entertainment! III

The Trial of Mary Dugan

Hollywood Goes to Town

Twenty Years After

Their Own Desire

The Romance of Celluloid

Complicated Women

Romeo and Juliet

Going Hollywood

Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 8

A Free Soul

Riptide

Let Us Be Gay

The Flapper

Smilin' Through

Joan Crawford: Always the Star

Upstage

Way Down East

Checking Out: Grand Hotel

The Actress

We Were Dancing

A Slave of Fashion

Another Romance of Celluloid

Strangers May Kiss

1925 Studio Tour

The Devil's Circus

Lady of the Night

The End of the World

Married Flirts

The Film Parade

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

The Tower of Lies

Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood

Pretty Ladies

Strange Interlude

The Christmas Party

A Lady of Chance

The Demi-Bride

The Wolf Man

Empty Hands

Her Cardboard Lover

The End of the World

Excuse Me

Broken Barriers