Background and career
Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active in film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women, appearing in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare. Shearer was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee (ultimately nominated six times in all) and won Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).
In reviewing Shearer's work Mick LaSalle called her a feminist pioneer, or "the exemplar of sophisticated modern womanhood and ... the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen".
