Girls on Film: How The Thin Man's Nora Charles became Hollywood's 'perfect wife'

By diverging from the norms of the 1930s, The Thin Man introduced a female icon that has lost none of her power

The Thin Man
(Image credit: (John Springer Collection/CORBIS))

The Thin Man's Nora Charles turns 80 this month. At first glance, it seems strange that Myrna Loy's fur-clad, drink-guzzling, and less-than-maternal Nora would have been toasted as the "perfect wife" by Tinseltown. As the actress is often quoted: "Some perfect wife I am... I've been married four times, divorced four times...have no children and can't boil an egg."

Nevertheless, the heroine of the 1934 classic was framed as the ideal — and it was a beautiful contradiction that changed how we think about women in cinema.

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Monika Bartyzel

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.