Norma Shearer
Acting
- Born:
- 1902-08-10
- Died:
- 1983-06-12
- Place of birth:
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Biography
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.
Known For
Filmography
1939: Secrets of Hollywood's Golden Year
Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn
Vito
Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood
Judy Garland: By Myself
Checking Out: Grand Hotel
Complicated Women
Sports on the Silver Screen
Joan Crawford: Always the Star
Legends in Light: The Photography of George Hurrell
That's Entertainment! III
You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story
The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
Hollywood
That's Entertainment!
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
Brasileiros em Hollywood
Anniversary
MGM Parade
Twenty Years After
Her Cardboard Lover
We Were Dancing
Escape
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
Hollywood: Style Center of the World
The Women
From the Ends of the Earth
Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 8
Idiot's Delight
Marie Antoinette
Hollywood Goes to Town
Another Romance of Celluloid
The Romance of Celluloid
Romeo and Juliet
Master Will Shakespeare
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Riptide
Going Hollywood
The Film Parade
Strange Interlude
Smilin' Through
The Movie Album
The Christmas Party
Private Lives
We’re Switching to Hollywood
A Free Soul
The Stolen Jools
Strangers May Kiss
Let Us Be Gay
The Divorcee
Their Own Desire
The Hollywood Revue of 1929
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
The Trial of Mary Dugan
A Man's Man
A Lady of Chance
The Actress
The Latest from Paris
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
After Midnight
The Demi-Bride
Upstage
The Waning Sex
The Devil's Circus
His Secretary
The Tower of Lies
Pretty Ladies
A Slave of Fashion
1925 Studio Tour
The End of the World
The End of the World
Waking Up the Town
Lady of the Night
Excuse Me
He Who Gets Slapped
The Snob
Married Flirts
Broken Barriers
Empty Hands
Broadway After Dark
Blue Water
The Wolf Man
The Trail of the Law
Lucretia Lombard
The Wanters
Pleasure Mad
The Devil's Partner
Man and Wife
A Clouded Name
Channing of the Northwest
The Taming of the Shrewd
The Bootleggers
The Man Who Paid
The Restless Sex
Torchy's Millions
The Stealers
Way Down East
The Flapper
The Star Boarder