Douglas Shearer

Sound Designer — Canadian sound designer and recording director

Born

1899

Birthplace

WESTMOUNT, QUEBEC

Citizenships

Canadianness Score

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

5.0/ 5

Weighted across 2 scored criteria

Designation

Bleeds Maple Syrup 🍁

Born, raised, and still says “out for a rip” unironically.

Scorecard

Path A — born on Canadian soil

I. Origin

Born on Canadian soil

WESTMOUNT, QUEBEC

Canadian parentage

Both parents Canadian

Citizenship on record

Automatic by birth

II. Residency

Formative years spent in Canada

Raised — Quebec

Lived in Canada by choice

Residency on record as an adult

Worked or filmed in Canada

Credits filed north of the 49th

III. Cultural evidence — not scored

Section III is recorded for the file only. Birth on Canadian soil already settles the matter.

Publicly claims to be Canadian

Has never brought it up

Canada claims them back

No claim lodged

Fun fact

Brother of actress Norma Shearer, he revolutionized movie sound recording and won his first Oscar at 30, for 1929's The Big House.

The verdict

Won multiple Academy Awards for sound engineering and technical achievement — among the most Oscar-decorated Canadians in history — but did it all from Hollywood after leaving Montreal in his mid-twenties. Canada gave him his start, but MGM gave him his legacy, and he never really looked back.

Adjudicated by

The Standings Committee

Status

Final — appealable