Hollywood Couples: Irving Thalberg And Norma Shearer

The word most often associated with MGM producer Irving Thalberg is "legendary," so much so that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named an award after him to recognize "[c]reative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production."

Born in New York City to German immigrants, Thalberg contracted rheumatic fever as a boy and suffered from a weak heart for the remained of his life. Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Studios, hired Thalberg right out of high school and by the age of twenty-one, Thalberg was producing movies. Thalberg later joined Louis B. Mayer Productions, which after mergers with Metro Pictures and Goldwyn Pictures became MGM, for years the dominant studio in Hollywood.

Thalberg preferred to remain uncredited which is why you don't see his name on such Katie winners as Greed, The Big Parade, Flesh and the Devil, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, The Crowd, Laugh, Clown, Laugh and Anna Christie, but he was widely recognized as the best producer in Hollywood and was responsible for every high-profile picture to come out of MGM between 1924 and 1933. He also rescued the Marx Brothers from oblivion after Paramount dropped their contract and (again, without credit) produced A Night at the Opera, arguably the best Marx Brothers movie ever (Katie-Bar-The-Door certainly thinks so; I'm a Duck Soup man, myself).

Thalberg married actress Norma Shearer in 1927 after a two year courtship conducted mostly by Thalberg's secretary over the telephone. Joan Crawford, Shearer's chief rival at MGM and history's primary source of anti-Norma quotes, was mystified at the attraction. "I don’t get it. She’s cross-eyed, knock-kneed, and she can’t act worth a damn. What does he see in her?" Writer Anita Loos opined, "Norma was intent on marrying the boss and Irving, preoccupied with his work, was relieved to let her make up his mind."

Or maybe they just fell in love. It happens.

If Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were Holly- wood's number one power couple during the Silent Era, the "Boy Genius" and "The Queen of MGM," as Thalberg and Shearer were known, were the Power Couple of the Early Sound Era. They had two children together, Irving Jr. and Katherine.

After Thalberg suffered a heart attack in 1932, Mayer replaced him as head of MGM production with rising stars David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger, reducing Thalberg to a unit producer. Despite the demotion, motivated many have said by Mayer's jealousy, Thalberg continued to produce MGM's best movies including Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth.

Always in poor health, Thalberg died suddenly in 1936 of pneumonia. He was thirty-seven years old.

Some say Shearer wanted to retire immediately after Thalberg's death but MGM pressured her to sign a six-picture deal to cash in on her popularity. Others suggest Shearer signed the deal after discovering her share of Thalberg's estate was a mere $1 million, no more than an 1/8th of what she had initially expected to receive. In any event, she made two of her best remembered pictures, Marie Antoinette and The Women, and then retired from the screen permanently in 1942.

Shortly thereafter, Shearer remarried, to a ski instructor twelve years her junior named Martin Arrouge, and remained married to him until her death in 1983. From all accounts, Arrouge was a pretty accommodating guy and it was a happy marriage.

In later years, he even let her call him "Irving."