Edith Norma Shearer (Mont-real, Quebec, 10 d'agost de 1902 − Woodland Hills, 12 de juny de 1983) va ser una actriu quebequesa nacionalitzada estatunidenca. Va ser una de les actrius més populars a Amèrica del Nord des de meitat de la dècada de 1920 fins a la dècada de 1930. Va guanyar un Oscar a la millor actriu l'any 1930 per la seva pel·lícula The Divorcee. Shearer és àmpliament coneguda per ser una de les feministes pioneres en el cinema. En el seu novè aniversari, després de veure un vodevil, Norma anuncià la seva intenció de fer-se actriu. El gener de 1922 les tres dones de la família Shearer arribaren a Nova York. La presentació a Ziegfeld va ser desatrossa perquè trobaren lletja a Norma. Després acudí a Universal Pictures, on buscaven 8 noies maques per fer d'extres i ella va aconseguir ser la vuitena. Shearer es presentà ella mateixa al director, D. W. Griffith, i a conseqüència de l'entrevista va fer-se un tractament d'exercicis, amb un metge pioner en l'especialitat, per a corregir l'alineació incorrecta dels ulls i la seva visió deficient que tant Ziegfeld com Griffith li havien criticat. Finalment, un any després de la seva arribada a Nova York, aconseguí un paper en una pel·lícula de la sèrie B (The Stealers) quan encara eren pel·lícules mudes. El productor Hal Roach de Hollywood s'hi va fixar l'any 1923 i li va fer una oferta per treballar a la productora Louis B. Mayer Pictures, regida per Louis B. Mayer.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s. Her early films cast her as the girl next door, but for most of the Pre-Code film era, beginning with the 1930 film The Divorcee, for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress, she played sexually liberated women in sophisticated contemporary comedies. Later she appeared in historical and period films.

Unlike many of her MGM contemporaries, Shearer's fame declined steeply after retirement. By the time of her death in 1983, she was largely remembered at best for her "noble" roles in The Women, Marie Antoinette, and Romeo and Juliet. Shearer's legacy began to be re-evaluated in the 1990s with the publication of two biographies and the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and VHS release of her films, many of them unseen since the implementation of the Production Code some sixty years before. Focus shifted to her pre-Code "divorcee" persona, and Shearer was rediscovered as "the exemplar of sophisticated [1930's] woman-hood... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards".

Simultaneously, Shearer's ten-year collaboration with portrait photographer George Hurrell and her lasting contribution to fashion through the designs of Adrian were also recognized.

Shearer is widely celebrated by some as one of cinema's feminist pioneers: "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen". In March 2008, two of her most famous pre-code films, The Divorcee and A Free Soul, were released on DVD.

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