Editing Norma Shearer (section)

== Early life ==
Shearer was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent. Her childhood was spent in [[Montreal]], where she was educated at [[High School of Montreal|Montreal High School for Girls]] and [[Westmount High School]].{{sfn|Lambert|1990|p=15}} Her life was one of privilege, due to the success of her father's construction business. However, the marriage between her parents was unhappy. [[Andrew Shearer (lumber merchant)|Andrew Shearer]] was prone to [[manic depression]] and "moved like a shadow or a ghost around the house."{{sfn|Lambert|1990|p=14}} Her mother was Edith Mary (née Fisher) Shearer.<ref>
*https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-newark-advocate-obituary-for-edith-f/43612050/
*https://www.newspapers.com/article/21596557/mother_of_norma_shearer/
</ref> Young Norma was interested in music, but after seeing a [[vaudeville]] show for her ninth birthday, she announced her intention to become an actress. Edith offered support, but as Shearer entered adolescence, she became secretly fearful that her daughter's physical flaws would jeopardize her chances. Norma Shearer "had no illusions about the image I saw in the mirror". She acknowledged her "dumpy figure, with shoulders too broad, legs too sturdy, hands too blunt", and was acutely aware of her small eyes that appeared crossed due to a [[Strabismus|cast]] in her left eye. By her own admission, she was "ferociously ambitious" even when she was young.<ref>{{cite book |last1=LaSalle |first1=Mick |title=Complicated Women"Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood |date=2014 |page=13 |quote=At the height of her stardom, she described herself as a young woman: 'I was ferociously ambitious.'}}</ref>

The childhood and adolescence that Shearer once described as "a pleasant dream" ended in 1918 when her father's company collapsed, and her older sister [[Athole Shearer|Athole]] suffered her first serious mental breakdown. Forced to move into a small, dreary house in a "modest" Montreal suburb, Shearer found her determined attitude strengthened by the sudden plunge into poverty: "At an early age, I formed a philosophy about failure. Perhaps an endeavor, like my father's business, could fail, but that didn't mean Father had failed."<ref>{{cite book|last=Wayne|first=Jane Ellen |title=The Golden Girls of Mgm: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others|year=2003|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=0-7867-1303-8|page=36}}</ref>

Edith Shearer thought otherwise. Within weeks, she had left her husband and moved into a cheap boarding house with her two daughters. A few months later, encouraged by her brother, who believed his niece should try her luck in "the picture business", then operating largely on the East Coast of the United States, Edith sold her daughter's piano and the family dog.<ref name="Obit"/> In her pocket was a letter of introduction for Norma, acquired from a local theatre owner, to [[Florenz Ziegfeld]], who was preparing a new season of his famous ''[[Ziegfeld Follies]]''.{{Citation needed |date=May 2024}}