Norma Shearer, whose fans once adored her as the elegant brunette film star, now often sat, wheelchair-bound and white haired in her small room, a permanent patient in the hospital wing of the Motion Picture Country House.
Norma Shearer was born Aug. 15, 1902, in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec. She had an older brother Douglas, and a sister Athole. Norma was a slightly wall-eyed, sickly child, and her mother persuaded her to learn the piano as a career. The young girl, however, could not be convinced to stay home. Norma, though slightly wall-eyed, entered and won a beauty contest at age 15, and her mother then decided that her daughter should pursue the theater.
In early 1920, Mr. Shearer's construction business was failing, and his wife fled with her daughters and son to New York City where she was determined they would find their fortune. Unable to find work on the stage, they became extras in silent films, and both sisters appeared in D.W. Griffith's famous Way Down East (1920). Athole decided to abandon her career, and later she married and divorced famed director Howard Hawks. Douglas went on to win many Academy Awards for his achievements in the sound department of MGM Studios.
After a few years of minor film parts and modeling, Norma was discovered and signed by MGM Studios, and packed off to California. There she starred in films that include The Man Who Paid (1922), He Who Gets Slapped (1924), A Slave of Fashion (1925), The Waning Sex (1926), and The Devil's Bride (1927).
On Sept. 29, 1927, she married MGM second-in-command Irving Thalberg, with whom she had two children. Norma lived lavishly, and her status as a star continued to grow during the marriage. In 1929, she proved she could make the transition to talking pictures with The Trial of Mary Dugan. Then, glamorizing herself with a new extensive wardrobe, cosmetics, and the magic of George Hurrell's photography, she secured the lead role in The Divorcee (1930), and won an Academy Award. Norma accumulated Oscar nominations for films including A Free Soul (1931), The Barrets of Wimpole Street (1934), and Romeo and Juliet (1936) (in which she was an over-aged Juliet). Shearer's life suddenly changed when her husband died a premature death from a bad heart and other ailments in 1936.
Norma considered retirement, but forged ahead, honoring her contract. In 1938, she filmed MGM's most costly movie, Marie Antoinette, and it is considered by many to be her best performance. That same year she filmed Idiot's Delight with Clark Gable. In 1939, she won the role of Mary Haines in The Women, an extraordinary, well-written, funny movie with an all-star cast of only women, which included Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and Norma's rival Joan Crawford, who openly despised her.
In 1942 Shearer filmed her last movie, Her Cardboard Lover. On Aug. 23, 1942, Norma married a ski instructor, Marti Arrouge, who was 12 years her junior. They lived in the fabulous home she once shared with Irving. In 1950, she unfortunately rejected the role that returned silent star Gloria Swanson to her former glory—that of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. In 1960, their fortunes dwindling, the two moved to a more modest abode, continuing to travel and ski.
In the late '60s, Norma began experiencing panic attacks which had once plagued her sister and had caused Athole to suffer many nervous breakdowns. Depressed from realizing her social position had greatly diminished, and her lifestyle was so much less than she had become accustomed to years before, Norma underwent shock treatments to help her adjust. In 1970, Shearer attempted to throw herself from the window of a dentist's office on the top floor of a Los Angeles skyscraper.
In September of 1980, old, frail, white-haired Norma became a resident in the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, Calif. The shock treatments had reduced her depression, but also made her confused, and damaged her memory. Still married to Marti, often she would wander the halls in her nightgown and bathrobe, stopping men to ask 'Are you Irving?'
Norma Shearer died June 12, 1983, of bronchial pneumonia.
Sources The Movie Stars Story edited by Robyn Karney; They Had Faces Then by John Springer; and Jack D. Hamilton's Hollywood Book of Death by James Robert Parish
Steve Starr is the author of Picture Perfect—Art Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published by Rizzoli International Publications. A designer and artist, he is the owner of Steve Starr Studios, specializing in original Art Deco photo frames, furnishings, and jewelry, and celebrating its 36th anniversary in 2003. Visit the glamorous studio at 2779 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, where adorning the walls is Steve Starr's personal collection of over 950 gorgeous frames filled with photos of Hollywood's most elegant stars.
Photo of Steve Starr, July 25, 2002, by Albert Aguilar. You may email Steve at SSSChicago@ameritech.net
