Norma Shearer Week was a success!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their support and encouragement with Norma Shearer week. I'm really happy with the results and the feedback. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank a few folks in particular.

Jennifer Z. ~ For being the ultimate Norma Shearer fan!

Jonas @ All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing! ~ For supporting this and all my other crazy ideas.

Kate Gabrielle @ Silents and Talkies ~ For her superb Norma Shearer painting and allowing me to do a guest post for Norma Shearer week on her site.

Carrie @ Classic Montgomery - For helping me with info on Robert Montgomery and his relationship with Norma Shearer. She also posted an ad for A Free Soul on her site.

Laura @ Laura's Miscellaneous Musings - She plugged Norma Shearer Week in her review of Lowell Sherman's Bachelor Apartment (1931).


Thank you goes out to these folks for their encouragement on Twitter and elsewhere:

Wendymoon @ Movie Viewing Girl
Casey @ Noir Girl
Operator 99 @ Allure
Tommy @ Pluck You Too
Cliff @ Vintage Meld -> who Tweeted every post!
Nicole @ Classic Hollywood Nerd
Mercurie @ A Shroud of Thoughts

... and everyone who commented!

Norma Shearer week got some links:

Fox News & Chicago Sun-Times ~ Posted my From Montreal to Hollywood: Norma Shearer's Story.
Large Association of Movie Blogs (L.A.M.B.) ~ My fellow LAMBs (baa) helped me plug Norma Shearer week.
Deliberate Pixel ~ The editor thought Norma Shearer week was going to be on TCM. Oops!
Turner Classic Movies ~ With Norma Shearer week I have a lot more Norma content on this blog, so I submitted my label link Queen Norma Shearer as a fan site for her TCM page and got accepted!

I leave you now with an anecdote from Gavin Lambert's Norma Shearer biography. Enjoy.

Saturday, January 23, 1936. The annual Mayfair Club Ball... It took place in the Garden Room at the Victor Hugo restaurant, a supreme example of Beverly Hills posh, designed like a Roman atrium with a rounded glass roof, fake Appian Way statuary, genuine flowering vines, and an oval carpet of grass-green wool. The official hostess, Carole Lombard, had asked all the ladies to come dressed in white. Fairly late, two couples arrived together, Norma and Irving and Merle (Oberon) and David Niven. Merle looked decorous in protocol white, but Norma was a study in strapless and backless scarlet.

Lombard managed a polite greeting, then turned away and made the rounds of other guests, expressing her opinion of Mrs. Thalberg in her usual pungent, four-letter-word style. "Sheer ego" was Eleanor Boardman's verdict, but John Houseman had a different slant. He knew Norma only slightly at the time but later noticed "her occasional compulsion to assert herself publicly by refusing to conform." This seems close to the mark, for a photograph of the event shows Norma looking openly pleased with herself, as if enjoying the effect of not giving her expected, perfect social performance.

That's so Norma!

A Lady of Chance (1928)

In her last silent film, Norma Shearer stars as Dolly Morgan, a telephone operator who tricks wealthy men out of their money by using her devious feminine wiles. Dolly once known as "Angel Face" used to work worked with fellow con-artists Brad (Lowell Sherman) and Gwen (Gwen Lee) on the same racket, but escaped by them by changing her look and going independent. Brad and Gwen find her and try to hoodwink her out of a scam of $10k but she hoodwinks them right out of the same money! Not happy with being one-upped, Brad and Gwen follow Dolly on her biggest scam yet, a newly made millionaire, Steve Crandall (Johnny Mack Brown) who is falling head over heels in love with Dolly. They marry and when he takes her home Dolly realizes that Steve is only a millionaire at heart. Dolly is at first thrown off by this but finds herself falling in love with Steve. She wants to protect him from Brad and Gwen but also doesn't want him to know about her sordid past. Things become wonderfully complex as Dolly tries to make things right.

In 1928, various other studios were already full-speed ahead making part-talkies and all-talking pictures while MGM was still dragging their feet. They had been so successful with their silent pictures that they didn't want to throw out a good thing. The change to talkies was inevitable, as even poor-quality talkies were proving to be box-office gold as the novelty of the form drew crowds to the theaters. A Lady of Chance (1928) started off as a silent film and then talking scenes were spliced in making it a part-talkie. Norma Shearer didn't partake in the talking scenes so Norma fans only got to hear her voice in MGM's first talking picture The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929). I have only ever seen the version TCM has shown of A Lady of Chance which is all silent.

I consider this film a silent-talkie hybrid. It works very well as a silent. All of the characters have their own dualities, they are not what they seem to be. They are all putting up fronts whether deviously or on subconsciously. This relegates a lot of expression in their faces which we read in order to understand what's going on. The form of the story and how it flows is very much like talkies from the early '30s and less like the silents from the early to mid '20s. It seems less theatrical and staged and more fluid.

Dolly: I had no idea a big business man could be so tender.
Steve: It's easy to be tender with you.

This is by far my favorite Norma Shearer film. Norma is at the height of her natural beauty and because this is a silent film, she still uses plenty of her vibrant facial expressions and characteristic hand movements which suit the movie and her character. Hunky former college football star Johnny Mack Brown complements her very well and I think they made a very good-looking onscreen couple. Also, this film is just fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a romantic comedy with a good amout of dramatic tension. The only thing I don't like is that there are a couple racist moments, but I concede it's 1928 and in comparison to some other silents this one is pretty tame.

Johnny Mack Brown & Norma Shearer on set (at the beach) with Director Robert Z. Leonard

A Lady of Chance is not available on DVD but my fingers are crossed that the Warner Bros. Archive will make it available for a made-to-order DVD-R very soon (they own all pre-1986 MGM films). If not, Turner Classic Movies shows this film once in a blue moon, usually at some ungodly hour or on their regular Silent Sunday nights feature.

I hope you enjoyed Norma Shearer week!

The Many Loves of Queen Norma

Now for Norma Shearer's leading men offscreen...

Victor Fleming ~ The director and Norma Shearer had a very passionate love affair which fizzled rather quickly. He was Shearer's first great affair and it's uncertain if she was in love with him. If she was, she kept it secret. Fleming quickly moved on to Clara Bow who was also seeing Gary Cooper. (If you've read the new Fleming bio and there is any Shearer info in there let me know!)

Monta Bell ~ The director and Norma Shearer dated for a few years and were seen out in public regularly but their romance was very lukewarm. Shearer respected Bell and enjoyed his company but her feelings for him weren't as strong as his were for her. There is a great picture of them both on the set of Upstage (1926) wearing each other's clothes. I wish could find it! (Monta Bell picture from Divas: The Site)



Irving Thalberg ~ Thalberg and Shearer married in 1927. They shared mutual love, respect and admiration for one another. The Thalberg-Shearer union was a mixture of love and business. They were both shared similar work ethics and were very goal-oriented. Thalberg helped her get roles but she also had to fight him for other ones she wanted. Thalberg had a weak heart and she doted on him. She put forth great effort to be the model wife and even had a son and daughter at Thalberg's request, even though she had no natural desire to be a mother. Norma wasn't a saint but she deeply cared for Thalberg. Thalberg died of pneumonia in 1936 at the age of 37 leaving Norma a widow.


Jimmy Stewart ~ In the TCM film guide, Leading Couples, it reads Actress Norma Shearer was so impressed by James Stewart's romantic performance in The Shopworn Angel (1938) that she set her sights on him. The affair reportedly lasted six weeks. Oh Norma! That's just the sort of thing she'd do and I don't blame her, Stewart was a hunk! She paraded him proudly around Tinseltown but Stewart really wasn't into it and was still pining for Margaret Sullavan (who I like refer to as a Stinky McStinkface). So that was the end of that. They did make a very good-looking couple though, didn't they? (Picture from Google/LIFE Archive).



Mickey Rooney ~ Yes they had an affair. It was a fling and it didn't last very long. He was 19, she was 39 and Louis B. Mayer put an end to it quickly thereafter. According to one report, Rooney was a sex fiend and according to Rooney, Shearer pursued him relentlessly. Whatever you do, please do not read Rooney's account of this affair in his autobiography. Unfortunately, I did and now am scarred for life.





George Raft ~ Norma met George Raft at one of Charles Boyer's dinner parties. They were instantly smitten with each other and immediately delved into a hot and heavy affair. Norma had class and George aspired to class, so they were a match. However, George was still married to actress Grayce Mulrooney, who refused to give him a divorce without a hefty sum of money in return so he settled for a separation. After a brief but torrid romance, Norma ended it because she knew they could never make a life together. I'm sure George Raft's shady mob connections had something to do with it too. (Picture from Lady of the Night)


Martin "Marti" Arrougé~ French, first-generation American, Arrougé was a ski instructor when he met Norma Shearer. He had that Mediterannean look that Norma liked and he was almost a stronger more athletic version of Thalberg. They married in 1942 and she left her acting career behind to be his wife. She still wanted to be a Queen and couldn't let go of being Mrs. Thalberg, and Arrougé seem perfectly okay with that. She wanted to be adored and he wanted to adore her. They traveled, partied, vacationed, skiied and spent many happy years together. Arrougé was devoted to her to the bitter end. Norma really lucked out with him! (Picture from Google/Life Archive)