Later Life & Legacy

 

Originally, Irving left a total of ten-million dollars to be divided amongst Norma, Irving Jr., and Katherine. Within days the estate dropped to only seven million, and then it dropped to only $4,469,013 around November 1936. After probate costs and claims from the IRS, the estate was reduced to a meager $2,244,000 –leaving Norma barely a million for herself. While she felt cheated of the estate, Norma knew that she could profit off of Irving’s share of MGM profits. An agreement had been made by Irving, Louis B. Mayer, and Robert Rubin in 1924, which gave each man a total of four percent of all studio profits. The percentage had been increased, from Mayer’s own pocket, to six percent in 1929. But when Irving Thalberg died, Mayer and Rubin claimed his share for themselves, and had the backing of legal power to do so.

For immediate pay, Norma wrote a letter to Edwin Loeb, which demanded Irving’s percentage of Camille, A Day at the Races, and The Good Earth. In a letter to Charles Feldman, an MGM executive, she announced news that shook up the entire studio; she had no intentions of making Marie Antoinette, or any other MGM movie for that matter. Her letter to Mayer, which terminated her contract, sealed the deal. Norma’s attorneys were able to get her ownership of Irving’s percentage deal with MGM, but she knew if she wasn’t going to be working for MGM anymore, she was going to have to find work somewhere else, and fast.

Around that time, both Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick had offered Norma work. As did Jack Warner, a personal acquaintance of Norma’s who had just sabotaged the career of Kay Francis, another actress who took her studio to court, but unsuccessfully. But could she go work for producers who, in reality, were the equivalent of Thalberg? Obviously Not; Norma’s sentimental personality limited her to returning to Metro Goldwyn Mayer, thus completing Marie Antoinette. Whatever was going to happen after that was up in the air. She encountered difficulties when Mayer, profiting off of Norma’s emotional loss, would only offer her a six picture contract. She had no choice but to accept.

Upon her return to the studio, there was a new camp of Norma Shearer haters. This time, however, it was not composed of wannabe starlets and jealous actresses on the lot, but rather the top executives of the studio, who kept a close eye on Norma’s every move. They waited for Norma to show some signs of difficult behavior, which would give them the excuse they would need to terminate her contract. Robert Morley, Norma’s Marie Antoinette costar, remembered being in a makeup test for the film, in which the makeup artist told him, “You’ll come out of this very well, unlike Miss Shearer.”

For such a prestigious film, Marie Antoinette was shot in only a brief ten weeks. The disaster of Romeo and Juliet (1937) signaled to many that Norma’s Hollywood days were numbered, but when Marie Antoinette was released in August 1938, the film grossed an outstanding three million, providing Norma her triumphant screen comeback. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but was robbed of the award from Bette Davis, who won that year for Jezebel.


Norma followed Marie Antoinette with Idiot’s Delight (1939), the successful film adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood’s legendary play. Next it was on to the Tara Plantation in Gone with the Wind (1939). Norma had not only successfully tested for the part, but she also felt comfortable in the guidance of David O. Selznick, the man who had once been promoted as her late husband’s rival. On June 24, 1938, the New York Times made the official announcement:

SHEARER TO STAR IN GONE WITH WIND; Selznick Casts Her in Part of Scarlett O'Hara, With Gable as Rhett GEORGE CUKOR TO DIRECT

Norma was more than enthusiastic to follow up the epic Marie Antoinette with another prestigious production. But when thousands of letters from fans flew in from all across the country with strong disapproval, Norma was forced to decline on the project. That was a decision she would regret for the rest of her life.

After that, Norma became disillusioned about her career. Nothing like that had ever happened to such a major star in Hollywood before, and Norma didn’t understand how to deal with the rejection. The success of Idiot’s Delight, The Women (1939), and Escape did prove to Mayer that she still was a star. Even without Thalberg, Norma could bring in money for the studio by starring in commercially safe films. From now on, as Mayer decided, there would be no more Strange Interludes or Romeo and Juliets; there was no need to hype her up as “The First Lady of the Screen.” Norma Shearer would return to her position as the number one studio money maker, and nothing more. Mayer’s new plans for Norma would fail, but because of a series of setbacks.

After being given permission to star in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1940; a vehicle Thalberg had originally purchased for Norma back in 1936) with Lawrence Olivier in England, Norma was shocked when Mayer kicked her out of the project and cast Greer Garson in the part instead. Mayer had personally discovered Garson in an English play, and brought her out to Hollywood to become his next prestigious star. Almost immediately after her arrival in America, Garson began to receive the prestigious films originally offered to Norma, but Garson wasn’t entirely to blame. MGM began hyping a new roster of stars as early as 1937. In fact, Norma’s former MGM rivals, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, became virtually forgotten by their public over night, and labeled “Box Office Poison” in 1938, while Norma was making her prestigious comeback in Marie Antoinette. Norma had not been personally affected by rising starlets because of her position as Queen of the Lot. However, she was about to turn forty in two years, and it would be virtually impossible for anyone to maintain stardom forever, including Norma Shearer. Not sure about what exactly would be her next career move, Norma focused on her personal life.

Since 1938, Norma had become sexually free. She was linked to David Niven, Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney, and George Raft. With the latter, it was more than just sex. Norma and George Raft had met at a part thrown by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Boyer. Raft was a popular film star, but also had notorious connections to the mafia underworld. The relationship, however, was virtually without problems. George not only romanced Norma, but won the acceptance of her children as well. As a mother, Norma never spent quality time with her children without the company of a nurse at all times. George could provide Irving Jr. and Katherine the attention and affection that Norma could not. He had already bonded with Irving Jr. by taking him to ball games, and Katherine also warmed up time when he built her a playhouse.

But Norma’s close friends found the entire romance “embarrassing.” For nearly two years, Raft made numerous attempts to find a settlement with his wife, but when she refused to give him a divorce, Norma and George had no choice but to end their relationship.

Norma turned back to finishing up her contract with MGM. Her first choice was to star in the film version of Noel Coward’s “Tonight At 8:30” titled, We Were Dancing (1942). Ten years earlier, Norma had starred in the movie version of Coward’s “Private Lives.” Her choice now seemed to be only youth oriented, but she was far too old to play a seductress who captures the attention of every many who lays eyes on her. The film bombed at the box office. Next she foolishly turned down the leads in Now, Voyager and Mrs. Miniver for Her Cardboard Lover (1942). Voyager became Bette Davis’ biggest hit of the decade, while Miniver grossed over four million, was voted the greatest movie ever made, and won Greer Garson the Academy Award for Best Actress. Norma’s Her Cardboard Lover tanked. The film finished Norma’s six-picture deal with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. When Louis B. Mayer contacted Norma about her future with the studio, she told him she could make no promises. He did offer her another six picture deal, but she turned it down. Later that year she drove herself to the lot and personally cleaned out her dressing room.

Norma’s move sent shock waves all throughout MGM. Greta Garbo was the next to terminate her contract, and then Joan Crawford, Jeanette MacDonald, and Myrna Loy also left by 1943.

In a way, Norma did have a graceful retirement for her first few years. She was introduced to Martin Jacques Arrouge in June 1942, who fulfilled both her romantic and sexual desires, and, unlike George Raft, was a free man. Arrouge was twelve years Norma’s junior, and when they married on August 23, 1942, many speculated that he was only interested in Norma’s money. But that is ridiculous, and Norma sealed the deal by having Martin sign a prenuptial agreement –something completely unheard of at the time, although practically a requirement of marriages today.

Almost immediately after the ceremony, Martin enlisted in the service, entering the Aviation Branch of the U.S. Navy. Norma spent her time completing daily exercises, spending a small amount of time with the children, and began to wonder about future career possibilities. Edwin Schallert, who interviewed Norma in 1943 about her future career possibilities, remembered, “Probably 10 times during our conversation did tears well into the eyes of Norma.”

With the exception of a deal in 1946 with Enterprise Pictures (a division of Warner Brothers) which fell through, Norma had no more serious intentions about continuing her career. She was considered and offered parts in some legendary films from Hollywood such as All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard (both 1950), which showed that she was still being thought of by producers nearly ten years after retirement. But Norma lacked the boldness of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, though they eventually lingered too long on the screen; Norma didn’t remain long enough. Obviously the woman still had a good ten years left in her movie career, but Norma became far too youth obsessed, and her fear of failure without Irving Thalberg to protect her caused her to decide against all offers.

When Norma began writing the story of her life in 1955, the regrets about her past life marked the beginning of her mental downfall. She suffered from serious attacks of insomnia, and spent most of the night writing, rewriting, and rewriting manuscripts. When she wasn’t working on her autobiography, she maintained an exhaustive exercise routine and became obsessed with the increasing lines on her face. While stopping at a local drug, Norma was recognized, without makeup, as the former First Lady of the Screen. To a crowd of onlookers, Norma ably denied her own identity.

For years Athole and Andrew Shearer were the skeletons in Norma’s closet, but now she had become her own worst enemy. She was obsessed with her aging face, and powdered it until her complexion was completely white. A friend of Norma’s remembered seeing her get out of a bathtub and remarked that the face and the body looked like each belonged to completely different people. “She had the body of a young girl,” the friend remembered. While waiting in a high-rise dentist office around 1960, Norma tried to throw herself out the window. Martin finally decided that it was time for Norma to get some sort of treatment, and brought her to Las Encinas –the hospital where Athole had undergone severe mental shock therapy for years. After undergoing shock therapy herself, doctors concluded that there was a suicidal pattern in the Shearer family. After the treatment is when she started getting the memory blocks. Eventually she began referring to Martin as Irving, and had difficulty remembering certain moments from her past.

As a result of the mental downfall, Norma virtually became a recluse. When she did feel like going to public appearances, not only did she arrive hours late, but still felt the need to include a dramatic entrance as well. To her friends, Norma consistently brought up Marie Antoinette, even offering to screen it for them. But by the late 1970s, Norma’s health went into serious decline. Not only did the mental shock therapy leave her with severe memory loss, but she also started losing her eyesight. When Martin finally checked Norma into the Motion Picture Country Hospital in 1980, she weighed less than eighty pounds. Patients remembered seeing Norma wandering around the hospital with absolutely no grip on reality. Her health continued to decline when she contracted phenomena in early 1983 and died of it on June 12 of that year.

That Norma Shearer deserves to be remembered along the front lines of Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman is a given. No star put more effort into achieving great performance as did Norma Shearer. Around the 1960s was when critics felt the need to express hostility towards her. Some even tore her excellent performance at the end of 1938’s Marie Antoinette to shreds. In reality, the film and performances are far superior to Bette Davis’s Oscar winning Jezebel; released that same year.

To the public, Norma drifted into oblivion at the same time. While the films of Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Greta Garbo, and Bette Davis were shown regularly on television, one didn’t see any of Norma’s films. Since she did have partial ownership of her films, Norma refused to have them released to the public probably for critical reasons. With the exceptions of Romeo and Juliet (1937) and the previously mentioned Marie Antoinette, Norma didn’t have fond memories of her films, as Gavin Lambert gave an example of in his Norma Shearer: A Life:

When we began to talk about her performances, I mentioned one of my favorites, Idiot’s Delight. She was surprised and not entirely pleased. The eyes, very small but very blue, narrowed until they became luminous slits. “You like it more that Marie Antoinette?”

There would be virtually no Norma Shearer fan base today without the airing of Turner Classic Movies in 1994. Within months of the channel’s debut, they relaunched films like The Trial of Mary Dugan, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, and Let Us Be Gay -films of Norma’s which hadn’t been publicly viewed since their initial release. Not only did she garner thousands of new fans, but also was given wider critical acclaim. For years, critics dismissed her work without viewing much of it; but now everyone had the chance to finally analyze, and realize, how well Norma’s performances had withstood the test of time.

In 1988 and 1990, two Norma Shearer biographies were released. Back in 1976 The Films of Norma Shearer garnered much needed attention to the diminished icon, but Mick LaSalle’s Complicated Women: Sex and power in pre-Code Hollywood, released in 2000, not only reanalyzed her films from a positive, yet honest, perspective, but it finally gave Norma an image: Sexy Seductress of Pre-Code Hollywood. LaSalle’s books served as the most important thing to happen for Norma since the airing of Turner Classic Movies.

If Classic Hollywood will remain immortal, then Norma Shearer can never fully die. As the years go by and thousands of fans anticipate the news from Warner Home Video regarding the release of new Norma Shearer DVDs, it only proves that Norma, along with her fellow rival, Joan Crawford, has been blessed with the most loyal fan base of them all. Not one Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis site features a gallery such as Norma’s on Divas: The Site. Nor has anyone set out to make an Ingrid Bergman or Lauren Bacall Encyclopedia.

The loyalty proves that Norma is here to stay. Long live Hollywood’s Queen Norma Shearer: First Lady of the Screen.

---Michael O'Hanlon, 2007