An incredible gallery of photos of Norma Shearer on one of my favorite sites: It'll take the snap out of your garters. I love that site because it's so generous ... Look at the number of unbelievable photos she has dug up - many of which I have never ever seen.
LOVE it.
Academy Award winner Norma Shearer had a very interesting life (more here) - actually, that whole Shearer family is interesting. Athole Shearer - Norma's sister - married Howard Hawks - which is how I came to know so much about her, from all of my reading about him. She was bipolar - and many of the stories surrounding Athole are heart-wrenching. Because of the era - such things as bipolar disorder were barely understood, let alone discussed - and Athole had a torment of a time.
But Norma married Irving Thalberg (talk about interesting people!) - there's something about her face that is quite distinct for me. It's pretty - but it's also not perfect. It is flawed - like most of us are flawed. She looks real, even with all the pancake makeup on. She always looks like herself (in the way that modern-day actresses usually look like themselves.) Unlike many other actresses at that time, who can seem generically glamorous - Shearer doesn't. The studios owned you, then - they controlled your look, your persona, and armies of makeup artists worked to make you look like an MGM star, as opposed to a Warner Brothers star - etc - each studio had its own THING ...
But Norma Shearer, with her drooping eyes, and interesting smart face, is definitely somehow set apart. And she was before she married Thalberg, too - lest anyone cry favoritism!!
Anyway, go check out the amazing gallery.
Posted by sheila | TrackBackWhat? No Barrets of Wimpole Street?
This is fabulous- you always find the best links!
I like her precisely because of that slightly reserved quality. There's something there that she's not going to divulge.
Wasn't it Beatrice Lillie who referred to her as "the one with the tiny little eyes"?
she was the most cross-eyed actress until Karen Black ruled the 70's..i love her for that...i love the pic of her and Crawford facing off..i would buy that in poster form..Crawford was very jealous of the attention Shearer got at MGM..bitter to the end Joan was.
Posted by: mitchell at September 22, 2007 11:51 AMSpeaking of cross-eyed actresses:
"Papppaaaaaaaa ....
watch meeeeeeeeeeeeeee ....
FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"
I love the ones with her and Joan Crawford too - I didn't know Joan was bitter about that! Seems to me that Crawford's reputation has survived longer than Shearer's - like, who - outside of old movie buffs - really knows Norma Shearer's name?