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Taylor, Elizabeth(2/27/1932- ): Starred in the remake of Norma's A Free Soul, titled The Girl Who Had Everything (1953).
Taylor, Robert(8/5/1911-6/8/1969): Norma’s pretty boy costar of Escape (1940) and Her Cardboard Lover (1942). [He was no match for her talent, even in the final disaster.] Probably his first major assignment was in Clarence Brown’s production of Joan Crawford’s 1936 film, The Gorgeous Hussey. The following year he was paired with Garbo Camille (1937), by the time he costarred with Norma, he was big.
Thalberg, Henrietta: Norma’s mother-in-law from hell. Incredibly fussy and over-obsessive with Irving, Henrietta put Norma through hell and back in her years married to Irving. When Norma and Irving married, they remained in Henrietta’s home and were treated like children until Norma discovered she was pregnant. She demanded Irving find a home for both of them. He agreed, but told Norma she would have to break the news to Henrietta. She did, and the moved into a house designed for them by Cedric Gibbons.When Norma insisted on making Let Us Be Gay (1930) during her pregnancy, Henrietta threw out her usual criticisms. Norma listened carefully, and then informed her mother-in-law that she was a grown woman, and was going to make the decisions of her life for herself.
Thalberg, Irving(5/30/1899-9/14/1946): Brought Norma out to Hollywood in 1923 after viewing her in The Stealers (1920) and Channing of the Northwest (1922). When they first met, a confused Norma thought he was an office boy, and continued to treat him so until she demanded to see Irving Thalberg. He turned his head to her and said, “I am Mr. Irving Thalberg.” Sometime around 1925 they started dating, but it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, as most sources claim. It wasn’t really up until 1927 when things started getting serious. They were married on September 29, 1927. Louella Parsons said of their wedding:"Never has Norma Shearer looked lovelier. Many, many times she has been called upon to play the role of a bride, but yesterday she gave her most realistic performance. Her gown of soft ivory velvet was particularly becoming. The severity of the plain white was relieved by a yoke of hand-made point lace studded with pearls and an occasional rhinestone. Her veil, edged with lace, was thrown back from her face in soft, gathered folds instead of the conventional bridal cap. She carried a bridal bouquet of white and tinted lavender orchids with pale yellow roses. Pinned to the bodice of her dress was a diamond pin-the gift of the bridegroom."
One of the greatest producers in Hollywood history, Thalberg started his career over at Universal Studios, where his greatest claim was probably The Hunchback of Notre Dom (1923)- the massive Lon Chaney epic. Despite almost every other claim, Norma didn’t become a star because of her marriage to Thalberg. She was the number one leading lady at MGM as early as 1925, and her first films after their marriage, The Latest From Paris, The Actress, and A Lady of Chance, weren’t different from anything she had previously done.
At birth, doctors claimed that Irving Thalberg wouldn’t live past thirty when they realized he was born with a defective heart, and a lack of oxygen to the blood. Opposite to rumors on the MGM lot, there were no problems in the Thalberg marriage. “Norma was a conservative when it came to men,” Joan Crawford claimed, “That’s why she chose Thalberg- he was a mama’s boy if there ever was one, and his frail health brought out Norma’s maternal instincts.” That was definitely true, as the boy doctors claimed wouldn’t live past thirty, lived until he was thirty seven.
Though throughout the 1930s, Irving Thalberg was the most respected producer, his 1936 Norma vehicle, Romeo and Juliet, was a major bomb at the box office. (Losing close to a million dollars.) He had planned to follow that up with Marie Antoinette (1938), which did happen, but Thalberg died two years before filming started.
In 1929, Thalberg worked out a deal which gave him a percentage of all films he produced. When he died in 1936, Norma refused to sell MGM back the stocks, which enabled her to pocket some of the money from re-releases of Thalberg films, and when television came, Norma received a percentage of the cost it took to air the movies on TV. The stocks kept Norma a wealthy woman until her death.
Mark Vieira's Thalberg page. IMDB info.
Thalberg, Irving Jr.(8/25/30-1987): As a mother Norma was inept. She only had children for Irving, and when he died, she felt abandoned with the sole responsibility of nursing kids she really didn’t want. But she was not an abusive parent, just neglectful. However, neglecting can do equal emotional damage to a child as physical abuse does. Irving and Katherine handled their mother’s distance in separate ways. Katherine virtually withdrew herself from all communication from Norma, while Irving always stated that their disagreeing on everything only sealed their relationship.Norma certainly didn’t understand how to relate to an independent person such as Irving Grant Thalberg Jr. During her Hollywood years, all decisions were rested upon a man with one foot in the grave. After he died, her career tapered off. By the time her son had reached his late teens and early twenties, Irving Thalberg Jr. was living on a beach, while his glamour queen mother resided in a luxurious Beverly Hills hotel.
Irving’s life was spent thumbing his nose at the materialism of Hollywood life, and devoting his time to political issues which drew up immediate interest in him. He was educated at the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and Stanford University in America. He spent most of his adult life teaching philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and published his first book, Enigmas of Agency, in 1972, and his second, Perception, Emotion & Action, in 1977. Click here to look at a picture of Irving by his former beach he called home. Click here to look at a picture of him and wife Deborah.
Thalberg, Katherine: see Katherine Stirling.
Their Own Desire: Directed by E. Mason Hopper, stars Norma, Robert Montgomery, and Lewis Stone. Their Own Desire was a step back from what she had accomplished with her two previous talkies, The Trial of Mary Dugan, and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (both 1929). The predictable box office ending didn't work, as the film was poorly received, and Norma hated the movie. A critic in the Exhibitor's Herald-World said, "I hoped Miss Shearer had gotten away from scripts like this." A newcomer named Robert Montgomery played Norma's leading man. He later said:
I was only twenty-five at the time and I was still green in films, and she was the soul of kindness and helpfulness. But she was very strong minded and wanted her way in certain things. I remember she was always arguing with Bill Daniels about camera setups and she told me privately that she thought the script was terrible and that actors could only manage to be as good as script and direction allowed. She didn’t care for our director, either, considered him a hack, said he didn’t understand the new medium. (SNS)
Torchy's Millions(1920, silent short): A lost short subject that stars Johnny Hines and Dorothy Mackaill (star of 1931's Safe In Hell). Norma’s part is undetermined. (Believe it or not, that is Norma on the left side of the picture.)
Tower of Lies, The(1925, silent): Directed by Victor Seastrom. Stars Norma, Lon Chaney, and Billie Haines. Based on a novel by Selma Lagerlof. Supposedly one of Norma’s best silents, but it is a lost film.(Though Gavin Lambert’s Norma Shearer: A Life describes certain scenes in the movie, including beautiful, open landscapes and scenery, Michael F. Blake’s The Films of Lon Chaney states that The Tower of Lies is one of three movies Chaney made for MGM which is lost.)
Trial of the Law, The(1924, silent): Written and directed by Oscar Apfel, stars Wilfred Lytell and Norma. Made by Producer’s Security Corporation.The Trial of the Law movie page.
Trial of Mary Dugan, The (1929): Directed by Bayard Veiller and based on his play of the same name. Stars Norma and Lewis Stone. Norma’s talking debut. Production of the film was a disaster, with little knowledge of editing sound mixes, certain scenes in Mary Dugan run as long as ten minutes, with actors having to get their lines perfect in single takes. (The production nightmare was written in 1951’s Singin’ In the Rain. “We went to some of the older people working at the studio who told us about a lot of stories that happened on certain sets, and we acquired them into the film,” Gene Kelly later said.) Surprisingly, the film was a major critical and commercial success, with Norma easily making her way into sound films.
The Trial of Mary Dugan was released as a silent in smaller towns, where the theaters were not equipped for sound.
The Trial of Mary Dugan movie page.