Encyclopedia Page F
Douglas Sr.: Silent Screen Legend, who was also a close acquaintance of Norma’s. Pickfair, the legendary home of Douglas and his wife, Mary Pickford, was filmdom’s royal estate of the 1920s. “To be invited to Pickfair, that meant you had made it in Hollywood,” director Vincent Sherman later recalled. Norma and Irving were frequent guests at the home, and when Pickford and Fairbanks divorced, a night at the Thalberg house became the new hotspot. When Fairbanks married Lady Sylvia Ashley a few years later, she became another close acquaintance of Norma’s.
Fairbanks hit his stride in the late 1910s and early 20s in his swashbuckler roles. When the talkies came, his career came to a close after the failure of 1929’s The Taming of the Shrew.
Doug Jr.: Norma was introduced to him via Pickfair, but she became more acquainted with Doug during his marriage to Joan Crawford (1929-1933). At the end of the 1930s, however, he and Norma became extremely close after Thalberg’s death, but it is doubted that their relationship ever turned sexual. A columnist said of their closeness, “You can stake you last dollar on Norma’s being entirely aware of what appearing in public with young Doug in tow must be doing to Joan.”
Douglas Jr. had a notable career in films, and could have been more successful had he been remotely interested. His distaste for movie acting is widely known.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott(9/24/1896-12/22/1940): Author of “Crazy Sunday,” which was based on a party given by the Thalbergs, and “The Last Tycoon,” his unfinished novel based on Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald tried working for MGM as a screen writer, but his scripts either never made it onto the screen, or if they did, were re-changed to drastically one could hardly call it his. Norma always admired him though, because secretly, they both shared a personal bond. Athole, like Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, was mentally ill. Gavin Lambert discussed a conversation he had with Norma in his biography:
I then quoted Fitzgerald’s remark about the golden bowl and Norma became suddenly very alert. “At least it was golden,” she repeated, making it sound like a line from one of her movies, with a throb of suppressed emotion. She caught her breath again and tears began to form in the blue eyes in the white, strained face. “It was golden,” she said again, but there was a distance in her voice now, and I knew she wasn’t thinking of Fitzgerald anymore.
Flapper, The(1920, silent): Directed by Alan Crosland; Stars Olive Thomas and Warren Cook; Original story by Frances Marion (future writer for MGM). Norma has an uncredited part, but it's her first appearance onscreen.
Fleming, Victor(2/23/1889-1/6/1949): Directed Norma and Jack Holt in 1924’s Empty Hands. A hard drinker, worker and womanizer, it’s odd that Norma would fall for him, but Fleming helped Norma get intact with her sexual side. Actually, Irving Thalberg, Norma’s future husband, always interested in Fleming’s lifestyle because he was too fragile to live like that himself, knew all about Norma’s wild sexual adventure with him. Within months however, when Fleming made it clear he was only interested in a physical relationship, he ended it with Norma, and moved onto Clara Bow.
Forest Lawn: Norma’s burial location. She can be found next to Jean Harlow and Irving Thalberg.
Official Site. Wikipedia info.
Forster, Wilhelm Meyer: Author of "Old Heidelberg" which was one of two stories Norma's 1927 film The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg was based on.
Francis, Kay: She really doesn’t have anything to do with Norma, but I like her anyway and added her to my site.The highest paid actress from 1937-1938, Kay Francis reigned as the original Queen of Warner Brothers Studios. Getting her start in Hollywood’s early talking years, Francis started at Paramount, and went to Warner’s sometime around 1934. Despite often being placed on Hollywood’s best dressed list, Francis was more than a clothes horse. To call her one of the great actresses is definitely overrating her, but she’s excellent in Mandalay and Dr. Monica (both 1934), and Confession (1937). After taking Warner Brothers to court after refusing their promise to give her the lead in Tovarich, the studio decided to sabotage her career. With her box office virtually diminished in less than a year, Francis freelanced thereafter, and retired from films in 1946 and moved to the stage. Other stars like Norma, Joan Crawford, or Bette Davis, would have been bitter the rest of their lives, but Kay Francis was the opposite. Having more than enough money, there was no need for her to work, and when she died, she left her million dollar estate to a The Seeing Eye of Morristown, NJ. (The money was for the training of dogs for the blind.) In 2006, two Kay Francis biographies were released. Click here to purchase Scott O'Brien's. Click here to purchase Lynn Kear's.
[Bette Davis biographies always write off Davis’ long rise to stardom because “Warner Brothers was a man’s studio,” –that’s incorrect. Davis lost all the prestigious female parts to Francis.]
Kay Francis bio. Kay Francis gallery.
The first two photos on this page have pictures of Kay and Norma.
One of the most controversial costumes in film history is Norma’s silk gown which leaves nothing to the imagination of her figure. Journalist Cal York wrote: “One of the main objects of conversation over the Hollywood tea-tables is the change that has taken place in Norma Shearer. Once the discreet little lady of the films, she is now appearing in gowns so sensational that they make even hard boiled Hollywood gulp a few gulps. When she is having her clothes designed for picture purposes she insists that they show as much as her anatomy as the law and Will Hays [head of Hollywood censorship in the 1930s] will allow.” (Complicated Women) Norma said of the film, "'Jan Ashe' in A Free Soul was as close to the primitive elemental sex-surge as any I have ever played. She was wasting no time to build up romance with Clark Gable." (The Films of Norma Shearer) Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Nick Schenck, Mr. and Mrs. Charles MacArthur, Lady Sylvia Ashley, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Basil Rathbone, John Gilbert, William Haines, Jean Harlow and Paul Bern, Jeanette MacDonald, Irene Mayer Selznick, and Fredric March and Florence Eldridge (March's wife). Norma also had an emotional connection to F. Scott Fitzgerald. “She trailed off, a silence fell, and it occurred to me that Norma might have felt, but never expressed, a private bond with Fitzgerald because Zelda [Fitzgerald’s wife], like Athole [Norma’s sister], was mentally afflicted,” Gavin Lambert wrote in Norma Shearer: A Life. 
Free Soul, A(1931): Directed by Clarence Brown, stars Norma, Lionel Barrymore, and Clark Gable. Free Soul was Norma’s definitive bad girl part, and one of the most notorious films of PreCode Hollywood. Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for his excellent performance as her alcoholic father, Norma won a nominated for Best Actress, and Clark Gable won millions of female fans. (It was the creation of his legend.) A major commercial success, Catholic organizations had a fit over the oversexed character Norma plays. “Picture goers who thrill to Norma Shearer… are getting a little fed up with her continued ‘free soul’ roles,” Photoplay wrote. (Complicated Women)
Friends of Norma: With the exception of Merle Oberon, who was Norma’s confidant for years, Norma never really had friends. She was no recluse, however. Norma preferred to have only acquaintances, anything more was too time-consuming. These acquaintances included: