Children,
with Thalberg, Irving Jr. (b. 1930) and Katherine (b. 1935)
Sister of
Athole Shearer and twelve time Academy Award winning sound director Douglas Shearer
Daughter of
Edith Shearer
Even after
retirement, Norma maintained her interest in the film industry. While staying at a ski lodge, she noticed a photo of the receptionist's
daughter and recommended her to MGM - that girl, became the star known as Janet Leigh. She also discovered a handsome young businessman beside a swimming pool - now actor/producer
Robert Evans.
Interred
at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA,
in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Benediction.
Sister-in-law
of John Ward.
Sister-in-law
of Howard Hawks.
Former mother-in-law
of Richard Anderson.
At the
height of her career, she was earning $6,000 per week.
F. Scott Fitzgerald based one of his most famous stories, "Crazy Sunday", on a party hosted by Shearer,
who also inspired the story's main character, Stella Calman.
Six years
after the death of first husband Irving Thalberg, she married a ski instructor 20 years her junior and retired from the screen forever.
Turned down
the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the
Wind (1939) and the title role in Mrs. Miniver (1942).
Her
son died in 1988 of cancer. He was a philosophy professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Her
daughter died in 2006 of cancer. A vegan, she headed the Society for Animal Rights in Aspen,
Colorado from 1989.
Was
meticulous about her appearance. Early in her career, she spent money she could barely afford on the services on an eye doctor,
who trained her to strengthen a weak eye.
She
swam everyday, had massages to firm her figure, and dieted religiously. She experimented with makeup until she decided on
a light tone that would illuminated her face on screen.
Biography
in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 726-728. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
She
is one of the celebrities whose picture Anne Frank placed on the wall of her bedroom in the "Secret Annex" while in hiding
during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam.
She and her
brother Douglas Shearer were the first Oscar-winning brother and sister.
