First off, let's erase a wild misconception about our Star of the Month for November, the elegant Norma Shearer. For many years Norma was touted as the "First Lady of MGM," reigning as the Queen of that legendary studio for the first 18 years of it's existence (1924-40). She was indeed Queen Norma, but not for the reason her most vocal rival Joan Crawford always gave. According to Joan, Norma got all the best parts "because she was sleeping with the boss." To give Joan her due, that was partially true: Norma indeed bedded down with the boss, MGM's head of production Irving Thalberg, but did so legitimately--she was Mrs. Irving Thalberg.

However, if her films hadn't consistently made big profits and pulled big lines at movie box-offices around the country no one, not even the brilliant Thalberg, would have been allowed by studio investors and shareholders to continue giving her the starring roles in so many of the studios most important and costly projects; in Norma's case, those films included the movie versions of such award-winning plays as Private Lives, Strange Interlude, Smilin' Through, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet, Idiot's Delight and The Women.

Would a studio head, even in Hollywood's golden days, be able to push someone off on the public solely based on a personal interest? No way. Examples: in the 1930s, 20th Century-Fox head honcho Darryl F. Zanuck spent a great deal of moola attempting to interest moviegoers in paying to see French bon-bon Simone Simon; the public's response was nil and she quickly disappeared from the Fox payroll. Also in the '30s, independent producer Samuel Goldwyn spent millions trying to turn Russian-born Anna Sten into a popular star in America. The public so consistently cold-shouldered her it was soon "do svidaniya, Anna."* In the 1940s, the head of Republic Pictures, Herbert Yates, tried to turn his wife, ex-Ice Capade skater Vera Hruba Ralston, into a movie star--an uphill battle for Yates from the get-go. Even casting her opposite such top box-office names as John Wayne and Fred MacMurray didn't help. It resulted in Yates himself being ousted from the studio he had created, all because those films he insisted must star wife Vera consistently tanked.

Norma Shearer's situation was quite the opposite. Her films, except for her final two, brought in big profits for MGM, a primary reason the MGM bosses treated her as they did after Thalberg's death in 1937, first going ahead with a Shearer project spearheaded by Thalberg, 1938's Marie Antoinette, the most expensive film MGM had made up to that time. Soon after, Norma was the first actress offered the leads in such important MGM projects as Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Miniver, both of which she chose to not do. But it's not just her grosses but her work that is the real proof of why she was such an immensely important star, and every Tuesday this month on TCM you can see 22 grand examples of that work.

Few have been more radiant or more loved by a motion picture camera than she. And if you're not already a Norma Shearer devotee, I'll wager you will be long before the month is over.

*"bye, bye, Anna."

by Robert Osborne