SIHR Blog Andy Shearer – Montreal Victorias captain and estranged Hollywood dad

[sr edler]

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Andrew “Andy” Shearer was born on January 26, 1864 in Montreal, Quebec to James Traill Shearer and Eliza Shearer (née Graham). His father, who was a carpenter and a lumber manufacturer by trade, was an immigrant from Caithness in northern Scotland, whereas his mother was born in Montreal.

As an adult Andrew Shearer would also work as a lumber manufacturer, alongside his older brother James Jr., in the James Shearer Company and the Shearer Brown Company.[1] He had also a keen interest in outdoor activities, and as a young adult in 1883–84 he became a member of the Victoria Hockey Club, colloquially known as the Montreal Victorias, one of the earliest organized ice hockey clubs in Canada.

No formal league play had yet been organized, but over the course of the 1883–84 season the Montreal Victorias would instead go on to win the annual Montreal Winter Carnival ice hockey tournament, where they competed against McGill University, Montreal Crystals, Montreal Wanderers (not the same team as the one from the early 1900s) and the Ottawa Hockey Club.

For the 1886–87 season the new Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC) was formed, with the Montreal Victorias, McGill University, Montreal Crystals, Montreal AAA and Ottawa Hockey Club as participants, and 23-year old Andrew Shearer found himself holding down one of the forward spots on the Victorias.

The AHAC in 1886–87 ran a challenge format instead of a straight series, so even though the Victorias managed to hold the best overall record at the end of the season among the participating teams, they still managed to lose the final championship deciding game on March 11, 3 goals to 2 against the Montreal Crystals at the Victoria Rink in Montreal, with Jack Arnton scoring twice for the Vics.[2] Other notable players on the Montreal Victorias during the 1886–87 season were forward “Dolly” Swift (loaned from the Quebec Hockey Club), cover point Jack Campbell and goalkeeper Tom Arnton.

Andrew Shearer finished the inaugural AHAC season with 2 goals in 6 games.

Montreal Victorias in 1888 with Andy Shearer standing in the middle of the back row
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For the 1887–88 AHAC season the Ottawa men were no longer to be seen, which made the league an entirely Montreal based experience. The championship race turned out a contest between the Montreal Victorias and the Montreal AAA, with both teams finishing with five wins and one loss each in the standing, forcing a deciding playoff game between the two teams on March 15 at the Crystal Rink in Montreal.

The Montreal Victorias had to play the championship deciding game without two of their best players, Jack Arnton and Frederick Ashe, as they were both injured, but they still managed to give the Montreal AAA a good run for their money, eventually losing out 1-2, with cover point Jack Campbell scoring the lone tally for the Vics.[3] The loss marked the second consecutive season with the Vics just falling short of the AHAC championship.

In 1893 the nucleus of the 1887–88 Montreal AAA team would carry off the first ever Stanley Cup championship, then known as the Dominion Challenge Cup.

Andrew Shearer scored a total amount of 4 goals in 7 games over the course of the 1887–88 AHAC season, which would stand as his last season until he came back for a brief two game stint with the Montreal Victorias in 1890–91. Over the course of both the 1886–87 and 1887–88 AHAC campaigns, Shearer would take turns captaining the team.

1887 and 1888 AHAC championship deciding games
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In the 1890s a new generation of Montreal Victorias players took over the reins from the older one, including players such as Mike Grant, Graham Drinkwater, Bob MacDougall, brothers Shirley and Cam Davidson, and Russell Bowie. And during the latter half of the decade the team experienced its glory days, winning the Stanley Cup in 1895, 1897, 1898 and 1899, often competing for the prize against the Winnipeg Victorias of the Manitoba Hockey Association.

During the mid 1890s Andrew Shearer didn’t seem to have an overly active role with the Montreal Victorias, but he did figure as an umpire in the AHAC during the 1895–96 season, and he was also an umpire when the Vics successfully claimed the Stanley Cup on December 30, 1896, winning 6 goals to 5 against the Winnipeg Victorias at the Granite Rink in Winnipeg.[4]

In 1899 Andrew Shearer married Toronto native Edith Mary Fisher with whom he had three children: Douglas (b. 1899), Athole (b. 1900) and Norma (b. 1902). But the couple had wildly different personalities, which came to strain the relationship, with Andrew being the calm and reserved one whereas Edith had a tough and outgoing personality:

“I get whatever placidity I have from my father. But my mother taught me how to take it on the chin.”[5]

– Norma Shearer on her parents Andrew and Edith
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During the early 1900s, the Shearer family lived in a nice two-story house at Grosvenor Avenue in a well-to-do neighborhood in Westmount, Montreal. But in 1919, at the tail end of World War I, the Canadian economy fell into a temporary slump and Andrew felt he had to sell the family lumber business, losing most of the family money in the deal. And when Andrew had to move his family to a more modest part of Montreal, as a result of their financial situation, his flamboyant wife Edith had finally had enough and promptly took her two daughters with her to New York, to find work for them in the film and modeling industries, leaving Andrew and Douglas behind in Montreal.

Edith and her youngest daughter Norma eventually found their way from New York to Hollywood, with the help of producers Irving Thalberg (who Norma would later marry) and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) co-founder Louis B. Mayer. Under the guidance of Thalberg Norma Shearer soon found her niche in the Hollywood pre-Code era playing roles of sexually liberated ingénues, and in 1930 she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in Robert Z. Leonard’s drama film The Divorcee.[6]

Norma’s older siblings Douglas and Athole eventually joined their younger sister in Hollywood, Athole also as an actress whereas Douglas instead would work himself up as a sound engineer and recording director with MGM. Douglas Shearer, much like his sister Norma, enjoyed a highly successful career in the film industry, and he would go on to win a total amount of seven Academy Awards over the span of his career for his pioneering sound work, working on films such as Tarzan the Ape Man and The Wizard of Oz.

Douglas and Norma Shearer
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Athole Shearer on the other hand struggled professionally, and her career on the big screen never really took off, a contributing factor being her long-standing struggle with bipolar disorder, a disorder her previously hockey playing father Andrew quite possibly also could have suffered from. According to Norma Shearer: A Life, a biography on Norma Shearer written by Gavin Lambert and published in 1990, Andrew Shearer was prone to manic depression and Norma described how her father “moved like a shadow or a ghost around the house.”[5]

Andrew Shearer would eventually join his family in California, although his marriage to Edith was never repaired. He died in Los Angeles on February 6, 1944, at an age of 80.

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Sources:

[1] Men of Canada. Cooper, John Alexander (1901–1902)
[2] Montreal Gazette, Mar. 12, 1887
[3] Montreal Gazette, Mar. 16, 1888
[4] Montreal Gazette, Dec. 31, 1896
[5] Norma Shearer: A Life. Lambert, Gavin (1990)
[6] Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World. Shen, Ann (2016)


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[Theokritos]

Now that's a story you don't often hear. How did you get from Montreal Victorias player Andy Shearer [the soccer fan in me had initially typed 'Alan Shearer'] to Hollywood actress Norma Shearer and sound engineer Douglas Shearer? The former, of course, easily falls into your area of interest in hockey research, but the connection to the latter two (provided one would even be aware of them) wouldn't seem obvious to anyone who doesn't know their biographies.

 

[sr edler]

Now that's a story you don't often hear. How did you get from Montreal Victorias player Andy Shearer [the soccer fan in me had initially typed 'Alan Shearer'] to Hollywood actress Norma Shearer and sound engineer Douglas Shearer? The former, of course, easily falls into your area of interest in hockey research, but the connection to the latter two (provided one would even be aware of them) wouldn't seem obvious to anyone who doesn't know their biographies.

I think it just came up while I was researching that 1888 Vics team a few years back, and trying to grab some info on its members. Sometimes stuff falls into your lap a bit accidentally too, if you're just stubborn. On the team photo above, I've only identified 3 player by appearance so far, which are Shearer, Frederick Ashe (in the small cap) and John Crathern (sitting below Ashe).

1880s in general still has its holes, but around this time hockey was still mostly a bit 'upper society', or at least somewhat, so one has to look a bit around those parts regarding the AHAC, and just follow the few leads available. Sometimes in newspapers, sometimes genealogically. Andy Shearer's brother Cresswell, for instance, 10 years his junior, was a semi famous/well known zoologist who had studied in England, Italy and at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore where he had played hockey briefly with William Bisnaw, who I've covered as a Baltimore hockey pioneer, in the late 1890s.

 

[Sanf]

Lot of great information!

Did not know basically anything about Andy Shearer (Yep did write Alan first) outside his hockey career. I knew Norma Shearer, but couldn´t in million years guessed that they are related.

Shearer was also the (last challenge) champion with Victorias on that lesser known 1885-1886 season. He also was part of the game between "first team" and "second team" that was played before 1885 Winter Carnival. It was most likely a filler game thrown together to replace the first scheduled game that was cancelled. Not an All-Star game, but in the same spirit mixed teams (scratch match I believe was the term) of the best players in the city played an exhibition. (As side note Wikipedia seems way off with it´s info about the whole tournament)

 

[sr edler]

Lot of great information!

Did not know basically anything about Andy Shearer (Yep did write Alan first) outside his hockey career. I knew Norma Shearer, but couldn´t in million years guessed that they are related.

Shearer was also the (last challenge) champion with Victorias on that lesser known 1885-1886 season. He also was part of the game between "first team" and "second team" that was played before 1885 Winter Carnival. It was most likely a filler game thrown together to replace the first scheduled game that was cancelled. Not an All-Star game, but in the same spirit mixed teams (scratch match I believe was the term) of the best players in the city played an exhibition. (As side note Wikipedia seems way off with it´s info about the whole tournament)

View attachment 482111

Great input, as usual.

What do you think about the overall zeitgeist regarding 1880s hockey? My general impression is that it was a bit milder than what it would become in the 1890s (especially the latter half of the 1890s) with a lot of rough play and violence bubbling up.

Now I obviously wouldn't use just one guy as mirror into the whole thing, but it almost seems Shearer's apparent mild manners and placidity were a bit symptomatic of that decade in hockey, in a sense that you weren't supposed to be an on-ice hoodlum but more of a gentleman, right?

 

[Sanf]

Definitely it wasn´t as violent yet IMO. And it is hard to get complitely on the heads of the people wathing and writing about hockey because often things like offsides were considered unsportsmanlike (in a way it can be but then again it often isn´t deliberate). But rough play did occure somewhat even then.

One team that was often blaimed (atleast my observation) from rough playing was the renewed Crystals. After Cameron, Stewart etc. was left. Now not that long ago Morey Holzman presented his book about Jimmy Stewart and hockey of that time. He brought up that Crystals were more of working class team that drew players from working class area.

Now I don´t know the background of those players, but have wondered could there be something in there. Obviously it is possible that if they did not come from upper class/elite they were easier targets to writers to criticize? Or maybe they actually brought less gentlemanly tactics or atleast made it more often used. Or maybe it just coincidence.

Few clips from my notes...

The Gazette 5 Feb 1887
Play was not long commenced when it was seen, that the Crystals were playing on the defence, and during the progress of the game several of their team played a very ungentlemanly game, the most noticeable in the respect being Dowd and McGoldrick...

The Gazette 16 Feb 1988
The sixth match in the hockey championship series was played in the Crystal rink last evening, before a rather spare turnout of spectators, who, it is sad to say, were called upon to witness the roughest match of the season. One of the teams was prepared and showed a desire to play hockey, but there were some men on the opposing team who gave early proof of what was their intention after going on the ice. They cannot plead ignorance of the rules of the games, as they have played long enough to be thoroughly conversant with tem and that their actions were a direct violation of the rules which govern the game. If the public are to be called upon to witness many matches as played last evening the end of attending hockey matches is near at hand....

The Gazette 4 Feb 1889
The result of this stubborn resistance, unfortunatelly, was the beginning of continual offside play by Brown and McQuisten, which seems pity, they being such fine players; the former, too, loses his head occasionally and bats wildly with his stick to find it on somebody´s head or legs, always on the opposite side....

...."Nit desperandum" was expressed on the Montrealers faces, though, and they went to work with a will, playing better together than before and mor effectually, but the tripping (not fouling, oh! no) of the Crystals centre man played fell havoc with McNaughton and Finlay. What a shame it is that such practices should be resorted to when all the players are such genuinely fine hockeyists. Off side often occurs accidentally, but losing one´s head and looking for it by foulin vigorously all around with the stick, also tripping, are offences which should be done away with any game...

 

[sr edler]

Yeah, that's right. And I think the use of the word "ungentlemanly" in the first passage is pretty telling, as in the 1890s and the early 1900s the dirty tactics would become so normalized that that kind of language kinda phased out a bit from the papers, and weren't used as often.

It could also be that serious/hardened rivalries just hadn't formed yet, and when the Crystals came in, as somewhat of a underdog, they wanted to show the "big clubs" they were the real deal.

 

[Staniowski]

I'd heard of Norma Shearer...but didn't know she was the daughter of a hockey player.

Her boss, Louis B. Mayer, was also Canadian - born in Eastern Europe but grew up mostly in Saint John, NB.

 

[sr edler]

Her boss, Louis B. Mayer, was also Canadian - born in Eastern Europe but grew up mostly in Saint John, NB.

It was Mayer who scouted Greta Garbo and brought her over to the States, after he had seen her in The Saga of Gösta Berling, and prior to that he had also brought over Swedish director Victor Sjöström. Sjöström then directed Norma Shearer in the silent film He Who Gets Slapped, in 1924, based on a Russian play. I think Sjöström's most famous for the 1921 Swedish silent film The Phantom Carriage though, which was Ingmar Bergman's and Charlie Chaplin's favorite film.

 

[sr edler]

Shearer was also the (last challenge) champion with Victorias on that lesser known 1885-1886 season. He also was part of the game between "first team" and "second team" that was played before 1885 Winter Carnival.

Yeah, it seems not too much are on record regarding those few seasons. In 1886 they even moved the annual carnival thing to Burlington, Vermont, but I can't really remember why off the top of my head. I wonder if the whole smallpox thing from the previous spring (1885) had anything to do with it?

 

[Sanf]

Yeah, it seems not too much are on record regarding those few seasons. In 1886 they even moved the annual carnival thing to Burlington, Vermont, but I can't really remember why off the top of my head. I wonder if the whole smallpox thing from the previous spring (1885) had anything to do with it?

I think Wikipedia gives that as the reason for Burlington Winter Carnival. I need to admitt that I can´t remember reading about it so can´t confirm. It has either slipped from my memory or my research.

I remember when I was going through that 85-86 season and had to check the dates of the papers few times because I thought that such organized season with "challenge cup" wasn´t held before AHAC. But there isn´t much difference between 85-86 and first AHAC season. Could not find anything from anywhere, but in here noticed that Iain Fyffe mentioned that forgotten season few times (probably talked about it few times can´t remember. He has disappeared from the forum).

 

[sr edler]

I think Wikipedia gives that as the reason for Burlington Winter Carnival. I need to admitt that I can´t remember reading about it so can´t confirm. It has either slipped from my memory or my research.

I remember when I was going through that 85-86 season and had to check the dates of the papers few times because I thought that such organized season with "challenge cup" wasn´t held before AHAC. But there isn´t much difference between 85-86 and first AHAC season. Could not find anything from anywhere, but in here noticed that Iain Fyffe mentioned that forgotten season few times (probably talked about it few times can´t remember. He has disappeared from the forum).

Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, Iain's not been posting here for years now. It could be interesting to build that season, but then you have to do it without a league framework, which then makes it more on a team-by-team basis in either exhibition game form or challenge cup form, or both parallel with each other.

 

[Sanf]

I was going through my notes and notice that in the game that was played between Victoria Skating Club and Montreal Foot Ball Club in 1876. Victoria Skating Club had player named Shearer. Do you know if there was any relation?

Game report has also one of my favourite bits...
The Gazette 7. Feb 1876
A scramble, the puck is away and glides to the feet of two young ladies, who smilingly watch the sport, a rush for the coveted object and a youth of lengthy proportions stumbles, with the greatest possible awkwardness into one of the young ladies laps- shock No.2- but no casualties to record. She blushes, he reddens, the spectators laugh, and he is away, to fresh fields and pastures new...

 

[sr edler]

I was going through my notes and notice that in the game that was played between Victoria Skating Club and Montreal Foot Ball Club in 1876. Victoria Skating Club had player named Shearer. Do you know if there was any relation?

Game report has also one of my favourite bits...
The Gazette 7. Feb 1876
A scramble, the puck is away and glides to the feet of two young ladies, who smilingly watch the sport, a rush for the coveted object and a youth of lengthy proportions stumbles, with the greatest possible awkwardness into one of the young ladies laps- shock No.2- but no casualties to record. She blushes, he reddens, the spectators laugh, and he is away, to fresh fields and pastures new...

Interesting find, but I don't know about any relation. Andy Shearer had an older brother named James Traill Shearer Jr., born in 1853, so in 1876 he would have been 22–23 years old which fits age wise at least. It could be him, but it could also obviously be someone else too, either another relative or just someone with the same name. But it's possible it could be his older brother.

And yeah, that language is typical for the era and pretty funny. It's pretty old school, because if you read just around the 1890s or early 1900s, most of that Victorian type of language is toned down quite a bit.

 

[moreyhockey]

I think Wikipedia gives that as the reason for Burlington Winter Carnival. I need to admitt that I can´t remember reading about it so can´t confirm. It has either slipped from my memory or my research.

I remember when I was going through that 85-86 season and had to check the dates of the papers few times because I thought that such organized season with "challenge cup" wasn´t held before AHAC. But there isn´t much difference between 85-86 and first AHAC season. Could not find anything from anywhere, but in here noticed that Iain Fyffe mentioned that forgotten season few times (probably talked about it few times can´t remember. He has disappeared from the forum).

It was entirely the reason. The reason the Winter Carnival was started was to attract Americans to Montreal during the winter. The train companies were the major financiers, and the smallpox epidemic in Montreal started because the trains carried a couple infected with smallpox into a city where the French Catholic population did not believe in vaccines.

Burlington was started as an opportunistic ploy, and a jaunt from Montreal for the hockey players was short enough to participate.. I wrote about that tournament at length in The Odd Fellow's Heart.