Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer · Converts to Judaism
First Jewish woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (1930); converted to Judaism in 1927 and kept the faith until her death
11 August 1902, Montreal, Quebec, Canada — 12 June 1983, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
Canada and United States of America
Norma Shearer is recognized among Jewish contributors to Converts to Judaism — First Jewish woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (1930); converted to Judaism in 1927 and kept the faith until her death
Origins and early life
Edith Norma Shearer grew up in Montreal, in a household made comfortable by her father's construction business and unhappy by her parents' marriage; she announced at nine, after a vaudeville show, that she would be an actress, and she was clear-eyed about what she saw in the mirror — a figure she thought dumpy, small eyes, a cast in the left one — and ferociously ambitious in spite of it.
Work and career
She acted in films from 1919 to 1942, often as spirited, independent women, appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill and Shakespeare, was the first performer nominated five times for an acting Academy Award — six in all — and won for The Divorcee in 1930. The critic Mick LaSalle called her a feminist pioneer, the first American film actress to make it acceptable on screen to be single and not a virgin.
Personal life
By 1927 she had made thirteen silent films for MGM, each of them profitable, and in September of that year she married the studio's head of production, Irving Thalberg, having converted to Judaism before the wedding; they had two children.
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Source: Wikipedia — Norma Shearer
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First Jewish woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (1930); converted to Judaism in 1927 and kept the faith until her death
Source: Wikipedia — Norma Shearer
