 Shearer won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in "The Divorcee", and a series of highly successful pre-Code films followed, including "Let Us Be Gay" (1930), "Strangers May Kiss" (1931), "A Free Soul" (1931) with Leslie Howard and Clark Gable, "Private Lives" (1931), and "Strange Interlude" (1932).All of these were box-office hits, placing Shearer in competition with Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Jean Harlow as MGM's top actress through the remainder of the decade.Shearer's marriage to Thalberg gave her a degree of power in Hollywood that was resented by rivals such as Crawford, who complained that Shearer would always be offered the best roles and best conditions