Greer Garson (1904-1996)

         Greer Garson

Greer Garson was a beautiful English actress with flaming red hair who became one of Hollywood's major stars during the 1940's, known for her elegant and refined acting style. She received seven Academy Award nominations including a record five nominations in consecutive years. She became one of World War II's enduring images of middle-class resectability and the queit virtues of endurance, self possession, good-heartedness, and humility, when she played the title role in 'Mrs. Miniver' in 1942 for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

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Biography

She was born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson on 29 September 1904 in Manor Park in north east London. She was a bright child and her early aspitations were for the academic life and she was educated at King's College London and Grenoble University in France. She got the acting bug when she began to appear in local amateur theatrical productions, gaining a first class reputation as a talented actress, and she soon graduated to professional acting, starting in 1932 at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. She was one of the first actresses to appear on live television when she starred in an excerpt from 'Twelfth Night' in May 1937 as part of the BBC's original experimental service.

She already had a solid record of professional achievement behind her when she was seen by Louis B Mayer of MGM who was on a talent-spotting trip to London in 1937. He signed her up immediately and within just over a year, in 1939, she was appearing in her first Hollywood film, as the lively Katherine Chipping, in 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips', which won immediate critical acclaim and for which she received her first Academy nomination for Best Actress. The following year she was again highly praised for her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in 'Pride and Prejudice' and in 1941 she received her second nomination for her role as Edna Gladney in 'Blossoms in the Dust' .

In 1942 Greer won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role of 'Mrs. Miniver', a role with which she would forever be associated. Playing opposite the stolid, ruggedly handsome yet unthreatening Walter Pidgeon she achieved a phenomenal popularity in this idealized version of contemporary Britain. Equally capable of disarming with her charm a frightened German pilot or of winning the annual village rose contest, her lead character mediated between classes and exemplified the emotional strength required in wartime.

Greer was equally good as the scientist's wife who quietly refuses to take a backseat to her husband in 'Madame Curie' in 1943, for which she would get another nomination, and still another one the next year in 'Mrs. Parkington'. Then in 1945 she received yet another nomination for her role as Mary Rafferty in 'The Valley of Decision' After such a run of success it was hardly surprising when her next few films fared badly but she bounced back again with another hit in 1949 with 'That Forsyte Woman'. Her postwar film career was generally a disappointment, however, including 'The Miniver Story' in 1950, a misguided attempt to rekindle a then-bygone era of shared sacrifice and sentimentality. Her contract with MGM expired in 1954 and she appeared less and less frequently and her later screen roles were mostly minor.

An exception came in 1960 when she was cast in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in 'Sunrise at Campobello' a movie which many critics feel was her finest work and which brought her her seventh Academy Award nomination. Her final two movie appearances were in 'The Singing Nun' in 1966 as Mother Prioress and 'The Happiest Millionaire' in the following year and she continued thereafter to make occasional appearances on television.

Greer was married three times. Her first marriage was to Edward Snelson in 1933 but it did not last beyond the honeymoon, due, apparently, to his exceptional possessiveness and jealousy. the marriage was officially ended in 1943 when Greer married Richard Ney, an actor 11 years her junior, who had played her son in 'Mrs Miniver'. They divorced in 1947 and in the same year Greer married a Texan oil millionaire, E. E. "Buddy" Fogelson and the couple retired to their ranch in New Mexico to very successfully breed racehorses. Their marriage ended with Fogelson's death in 1987.

Greer Garson died in Dallas on 6 April, 1996 from heart failure. She was 91.