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Davies, Marion(1/3/1897-9/22/1961): Norma played an extra in the 1920 Marion Davies epic, The Restless Sex. Davies started her career as a showgirl, even making it into the Ziegfeld Follies. For years overshadowed by her affair with William Randolph Hearst, within recent decades, Marion Davies has become more appreciated as a comedienne. William Haines, costar of Norma's 1925 film, The Tower of Lies, summed up Davies' career best when he told Lawrence Quirk, "The sad thing about it all was that Marion was just delightful in certain parts and could have made the grade if she had never laid eyes on Hearst, but his insistence on artificially inflating her image, often in inappropriate roles, resulted in her becoming, at least so far as her career went, a Hollywood joke."
When Irving Thalberg purchased the screen rights to The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Norma wasn't sure if she could excel in the portrayal of the invalid poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Hearst asked to let Marion have the part, then Norma changed her mind and Louis B. Mayer told Hearst there was no way Marion could have the part. Then when production was delayed for Marie Antoinette due to Norma's second pregnancy, Hearst demanded that the role be given to Marion. Mayer agreed, but only if Hearst would finance the entire production from his own pocket. (Davies was a big loser at the box office.) For the very much insulted Hearst, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. He moved his Cosmopolitan studios over to Warner Brothers in 1934, and instructed his journalism empire to give Norma the silent treatment in for the rest of 1934 and '35.
Norma and Marion were socially introduced around 1925, when Norma was just starting to date Irving Thalberg. Though they weren’t exactly best friends, there was almost no extravagant San Simeon party that the Thalbergs didn’t attend. Years later in her autobiography, published after her death, The Times We Had, Marion said she never did quite understand Norma, “Irving always did say Norma has ‘something funny back there’.”
de Mille, Agnes: Choreographed the dances for Romeo and Juliet (1937).
Demi-Bride, The(1927, silent): Directed by Robert Z. Leonard; Stars Norma, Lew Cody and Lionel Belmore; Based on a story by F. High Herbert.
Devil's Circus, The(1926, silent): Directed by Benjamin Christiansen; Stars Norma, Charles Emmett Mack, and Carmel Myers; Based on a story by Benjamin Christiansen. The film does exist and is a must-see for Norma fans. (It can be seen at various repatory houses.)The Devil's Circus movie page.
Divorcee, The(1930): Directed by Robert Z. Leonard; Stars Norma, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, and Robert Montgomery; Based on the novel, Ex-Wife, by Ursula Parrott. Norma’s Oscar-Winning performance as Jerry, the adulterous wife, shocked the world, and was the launching ground of what we know today as the “precode” Hollywood years. The ultimate ingénue of the 1920s, with Divorcee, Norma changed her good girl image into sophisticated sexually modern, and set the ground for other actresses to follow in her footsteps.The Shearer determination was never more evident than in Divorcee. Originally purchased for Joan Crawford, Norma went to a then unknown photographer named George Hurrell, where he took several sexy, seductive portraits. A convinced Irving Thalberg gave her the part, but was still reluctant, “I knew MGM owned the rights to the story, and that MGM was considering borrowing someone from another lot to play it. I was on the lot. I was under contract. I felt in my heart I could do it. But Irving laughed at me when I told him I thought I could do Divorcee, it was utterly different from the type of thing which I'd always been associated. But I was determined to prove to him it wasn't ridiculous. It was a big risk, but it was worth it.”
Returning a profit of over $300,000, Norma showed Irving that she was more intact to what her fans wanted of her than he originally thought. The film made critics sit up and take notice of Norma more than they had ever done before. Fan magazines of the day prove it:
Miss Shearer has turned into an American Garbo; she is a worldly young lady who marries for love, gets into difficulties and then goes about living her own like in a big, ambitious way. You’ll gasp at Norma’s portrayal of The Divorcee (Screenland, from Complicated Women)
Douglas, Melvyn: Norma's costar in We Were Dancing (1942).
Dressler, Marie: Norma's costar in Let Us Be Gay (1930).