Author: [20th Century Photographer]
Title: Robert Montgomery and Norma Shearer
Description: London: [Hollywood Studio], [Ca. 1930s]. Original hand colored real photograph issued as a postcard. 5.5 x 3.5 inches. Very Good. Printed on verso: "Film Partners" Series, 85, Long Acre, London; No. PC 27. Made in Great Britain. Scarce. Robert Montgomery (born Henry Montgomery Jr.; May 21, 1904 – September 27, 1981) was an American film and television actor, director, and producer. He began his acting career on the stage, but was soon hired by MGM. Initially assigned roles in comedies, he soon proved he was able to handle dramatic ones as well. He appeared in a wide variety of roles, such as a weak-willed prisoner in The Big House (1930), an Irish handyman in Night Must Fall (1937) and a boxer mistakenly sent to Heaven in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). The last two earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor. During World War II, he drove ambulances in France until the Dunkirk evacuation. When the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, he enlisted in the Navy, and was present at the invasion at Normandy. After the war, he returned to Hollywood, where he worked in both films and, later, in television. He was also the father of actress Elizabeth Montgomery. Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingénues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill and William Shakespeare, and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting, winning Best Actress for her performance in The Divorcee (1930). Reviewing Shearer's work, Mick LaSalle called her "the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood .. exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards". As a result, Shearer is celebrated as a feminist pioneer, "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen.

Keywords:


See more books from our catalog: Ephemera