Norma Shearer

Canadian-American actress (1902-1983)

Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active in films from 1919 to 1942. She often played progressive, sexually liberated women and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee in 1930. Shearer was a feminist pioneer who made it acceptable for female characters to be single and not virgins on screen.

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Family Info

Siblings

Douglas Shearer

Athole Shearer

Spouses

Martin Arrouge

Children

Irving Thalberg, Jr.

Katherine Thalberg

About the Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearerwas a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noel Coward, Eugene O’Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).

Reviewing Shearer’s work, Mick LaSalle called her a feminist pioneer, or “the exemplar of sophisticated modern womanhood and … the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen”.

Frequently Asked Questions

Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active in films from 1919 to 1942. She often played spunky, sexually liberated women in her roles.

Norma Shearer often played progressive, sexually liberated women in her film roles. She appeared in adaptations of works by playwrights like Noël Coward, Eugene O’Neill, and William Shakespeare.

Norma Shearer was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, and she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in the 1930 film The Divorcee.

According to film critic Mick LaSalle, Norma Shearer was a ,feminist pioneer, who made it ,chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen,, setting a new standard for female characters in American cinema.

Norma Shearer was active on film from 1919 through 1942, spanning over two decades of her career as an actress in Hollywood.