Greer Garson

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Greer Garson

in the Random Harvest film trailer (1942)
Birth name Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson
Born September 29, 1904
London, England, UK
Died April 6, 1996 aged 91
Dallas, Texas, USA
Academy Awards
Best Actress
1942 Mrs. Miniver

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson, CBE (September 29, 1904 - April 6, 1996) was an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning actress, most known for being the leading lady in many pictures co-starring Walter Pidgeon.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Known in childhood as "Eggy", she was born in Manor Park, London, England in 1904. She was the only child of George Garson (1865-1906), a clerk born in London but with Scottish lineage, and his Irish wife, Nancy ("Nina") Sophia Greer.

She was educated at the University of London, where she earned degrees in French and 18th-century literature. She intended to become a teacher, but instead began working with an advertising agency, and appeared in local theatrical productions. She also appeared on television during the earliest years of its existence, in the 1930s, most notably in a thirty-minute production of an excerpt of Twelfth Night in May 1937, alongside Peggy Ashcroft. This was the first known instance of a Shakespeare play being performed on television.

[edit] Career

Garson in 1942
Garson in 1942

Greer Garson was discovered by Louis B. Mayer while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM and appeared in her first American film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, in 1939. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind. She did receive critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1940 film, Pride and Prejudice.[1]

Garson became a major box office star in 1941 with the sentimental Technicolor drama Blossoms in the Dust which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938-1942 record, a record that still stands in the category. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother surviving in the midst of World War II, in Mrs. Miniver. She was also nominated for Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945).

from the trailer for the film Julius Caesar (1953)
from the trailer for the film Julius Caesar (1953)

She had been America's most popular dramatic actress for several years when she was teamed with Clark Gable in his first film since returning from war service in 1945 entitled Adventure. The film was advertised with the now-classic catch-phrase "Gable's back and Garson's got him!" Garson's popularity dropped somewhat in the late 1940s, but she remained a popular film star until the mid 1950s.

In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. After her MGM contract expired in 1954, she made only a few films. In 1958, she received a warm reception on Broadway in Auntie Mame, replacing Rosalind Russell, who had gone to Hollywood to make the film version. In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for BUtterfield 8.

Garson's last film was 1967's The Happiest Millionaire, although she made infrequent television appearances. In 1968 she narrated the children's television special The Little Drummer Boy which went on to become one of the classic children's Christmas television programs and which has been broadcast annually every year since 1966.

[edit] Personal life

The actress was married three times:

  • Her first husband, whom she married on September 28, 1933, was Edward Alec Abbot Snelson (1904-1992), later Sir Edward, a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian and Pakistani affairs. The actual marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but was not formally dissolved until 1943.
  • Her second husband, whom she married in 1943, was Richard Ney (1915-2004), the young actor who played her son in Mrs. Miniver. They divorced in 1949, with Garson claiming that Ney had called her a "has-been" and belittled her age. Ney eventually became a respected stock-market analyst and financial consultant.
  • That same year (1949) she married a millionaire Texas oilman and horse breeder, E. E. "Buddy" Fogelson (1900-1987), and in 1967, the couple retired to their "Forked Lightning Ranch" in New Mexico. In 1971 they purchased the U.S. Hall of Fame champion Thoroughbred Ack Ack from the estate of Harry F. Guggenheim and were highly successful as breeders. They also maintained a home in Dallas, Texas where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theater facility at Southern Methodist University (SMU).

Greer Garson died from heart failure in Dallas on April 6, 1996, at the age of 91. She is interred there in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery.

[edit] Academy Awards and Nominations

Awards
Preceded by
Joan Fontaine
for Suspicion		 Academy Award for Best Actress
1942
for Mrs. Miniver		 Succeeded by
Jennifer Jones
for The Song of Bernadette
Preceded by
Elizabeth Taylor
for Suddenly, Last Summer		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1961
for Sunrise at Campobello		 Succeeded by
Geraldine Page
for Summer and Smoke

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Trivia

  • Garson donated millions for the construction of the Greer Garson Theater at the University of Santa Fe on three conditions: 1) That the stage be circular, 2) That the premiere production be William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and 3) That it have large ladies' rooms.[1]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ TCM Film Guide, p 83

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] References

  • TCM Film Guide, "Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era", Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 2006
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