Forget Me Not: the Lives, Careers, and Legacies of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford

Abstract

This project looks at the lives and careers of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford and their contributions to Hollywood. Both actresses were popular in the golden age of Hollywood, but only one woman's career is remembered today. Joan Crawford is remembered for her roles in films like Mildred Peirce and Whatever Ever Happened to Baby Jane? While Shearer is rarely written about for her daring films of the early 1930s. Both contemporaries at the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer these women had ambition and sex appeal and both brought in millions for the studio. By referencing film scholars such as Jeannine Basinger, Lawrence Quirk, and Gavin Lambert, this project looks into why some women are forgotten and why some become icons even with a checkered personal history. The personal history of Shearer and Crawford is explored for reasons that one is remembered and the other is not. In addition, the influence of the studio system at Metro Golden Meyer is explored as a determiner of women’s careers. Magazines such as Photoplay and personal letters are used as primary sources to show how the studio shaped these women’s careers, and how they themselves shaped and responded to studio influences.