Encyclopedia Page H
Haines, William: Gay silent star who appeared with Norma in The Tower of Lies & A Slave of Fashion (both 1925). A naturally gifted comedian, Haines scored big in the late 1920s appearing in films with Joan Crawford and Gwen Lee. His friendship with Norma and Irving Thalberg couldn’t save him when he was arrested for picking up a sailor and bringing him to the YMCA where they were found engaging in homosexual activities. Haines was forced out of Hollywood, but he got the last laugh when he became a highly successful interior designer.
Hamilton, Neil: Norma's Strangers May Kiss (1931) co star.
Harlow, Jean(3/3/1911-6/7/1937): Top box office draw for MGM and friend of Norma. In 1932, Harlow married Thalberg’s friend, producer Paul Bern. His suicide weeks before the release of Harlow’s Red Hust (1932), was hush-hushed by William Randolph Hearst and Louis B Mayer. (See the Paul Bern entry for more information.) Harlow died in 1937 during the making of Saratoga (1937).
He Who Gets Slapped(1924, silent): Metro Goldwyn Mayer's first movie. Directed by Victor Seastrom. Based on the play by Leonid Andreyev. Stars Lon Chaney, Norma, and Robert Montgomery. In the film, a scientist, Lon Chaney, who joins a circus. There he falls in love with a beautiful bareback rider, played by Norma, who loves another man, John Gilbert. Norma said of the film:"The girl in He Who Gets Slapped, my first role at MGM, the boy and girl were two children in love. It was a fresh dawning kind of love, with timorous gropings and shy responses. But with a very definite undercurrent of young sex."
He Who Gets Slapped movie page
Henley, Hobart: Director of Norma's 1924 film, His Secretary.
Hepburn, Katharine(5/12/1907-6/29/2003):
Her Cardboard Lover(1942): Norma's last movie. Directed by George Cukor. Based on the play by Jacques Deval and John Collier. Stars Norma, Robert Taylor, and George Sanders. A major financial disaster, Norma soon left Hollywood, unofficially, for good after reading the reviews.The film had "loser" written all over it from preproduction. When Norma called mayer and told her she wanted to make the film, he replied, "This is 1942, Norma! 1942! Not 1926!" She slammed the phone down, and refused to make anything else. Mayer agreed to make the film, and advised everyone to keep the budget as low as possible. Robert Taylor later said of the film:
I didn’t think I was all that hot in it. The war was on by then, and I had more serious things on my mind. Of course George [Cukor] was a great help, and he was kind enough to tell me that he liked my work. Norma? She was as perfectionist as ever. I was surprised when she asked for me as leading man; I felt she didn’t care for her Escape experience with me. She could be very gracious when she was in the mood, but I often felt I exasperated her in some of the trickier comedy moments; comedy was of that high-style kind was never really my thing. I fell I was a stick in it from start to finish.(SNS)
Production associates at MGM later claimed that, "Norma’s name on a marquee isn’t quite so hot unless there’s a strong leading man next to her." She was offered MGM’s prestige assignment of 1942, Mrs. Miniver, and would have been phenomenal in the part, but turned it down and was absolutely right when she later claimed, "I have no one but myself to blame for that one."
Her Cardboard Lover movie page
His Secretary (1925, silent): Directed by Hobart Henley. Stars Norma, Lew Cody, Willard Louis, and Karl Dane. Based on the story by Carey Wilson.
Hitchcock, Alfred (8/13/1899-4/29/1980): One of the most famous movie directors of all time, but only Hitchcock's Rebecca(1940) won a Best Picture Oscar, and Hitchcock himself never recieved an Academy Award. Hitchcock was suppossed to, and was thrilled to, direct Norma Shearer in Escape (1940), but backed out because he wasn't thrilled to work at the MGM studios. Later on, Hitchcock would be quoted by remarking on the lack of movie queens in Hollywood, "Where are the Norma Shearers?"
Howard, Leslie(4/3/1893-6/1/1943): British actor who played in A free Soul (1931), Smilin' Through (1932), and Romeo and Juliet (1937) with Norma Shearer. Leslie Howard gave Humphrey Bogart his first big break in The Petrfied Forest(1936), in return, Bogart named one of his children Leslie. Howard is mostly remembered as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939). He died when his plane was shot down by the Nazis, and there are some reports of Howard being involved in a secret mission for the British Government. What Norma later said of his work in Romeo and Juliet (1936):
"I can't think of anyone who could have played it with that inimitable charm and grace and restraint, who could have made it so tender without losing his manliness. When he reads the lines, they seem to belong to him, they sound as if no one in the world had ever said them before. You're going to love his Romeo-every woman who sees it is going to love his Romeo."
Lynn's Leslie Howard Classic Movie Page
Hurrell, George: Genius Hollywood photographer whose prime years between the late 1920s and early 1940s played a major part in the creation of Hollywood glamour in the town’s most glittering years. Ramon Novarro gave Norma the address to Hurrell’s studio on the set of 1929’s Their Own Desire. There she took a series of sexy portraits which landed her the part of Jerry in The Divorcee (1930), the picture which she won her only Oscar. His daringly dramatic poses continue to fascinate admirers to this day. Hurrell was placed under contract with MGM, where he began his most famous collaborations with legends such as Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Jeanette MacDonald, and his personal favorites, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. His 1929 shoot with Norma was not only the launching ground for his career, but she was also the one who defended him when the studio wanted to give him the axe.
(My note: If there ever was a list of people who helped create the Norma Shearer image, George Hurrell, Adrian, William Daniels, and Douglas Shearer would undoubtedly top the list.)
Photographer Mark Vieira, also author of Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits, models much of his photography after the Hurrell style. Click here to view his George Hurrell chronology, and then click here here to view his Starlight Studio website.