Garson, Greer

born Sept. 29, 1904, Manor Park, London, Eng.

died April 6, 1996, Dallas, Texas, U.S.

British-born U.S. film actress.

A stage actress in England from 1932, she was acclaimed in her first U.S. film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and later in Mrs. Miniver (1942, Academy Award). Known for her portrayals of women of moral courage and virtue, she starred in films such as Pride and Prejudice (1940), Madame Curie (1943), and Mrs. Parkington (1944). She retired around 1955 but returned to the screen as Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960).

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▪ 1997

      Irish-born actress (b. Sept. 29, 1903?, County Down, Ire.—d. April 6, 1996, Dallas, Texas), represented an ideal of courage with her portrayal of a British wartime housewife in Mrs. Miniver (1942). She received an Academy Award for her performance and was nominated for an Oscar a total of seven times throughout her career. Garson received a scholarship from the University of London and worked for Encyclopædia Britannica and a market research firm before turning to acting. Her stage debut in 1932 was highly praised. Film mogul Louis B. Mayer saw her in London in the late 1930s and signed her to a one-year contract with MGM. Garson was cast as the young wife who died in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and received her first Oscar nomination. Her next film was Remember? (1939), and she was subsequently cast opposite Laurence Olivier in Pride and Prejudice (1940) and Ronald Coleman in Random Harvest (1942). She received Oscar nominations for Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945). Her image was one of elegance, poise, and virtue, and her roles seldom varied from that type. Her career lost ground after World War II and did not recover. She starred with Clark Gable in Adventure (1946) and appeared in Desire Me (1947), but neither film was successful. That Forsyte Woman (1949) did appeal to the public, but The Miniver Story (1950), a sequel to her earlier film, failed to lure audiences into the theatre. In 1949 Garson married Texas oil millionaire E.E. ("Buddy") Fogelson. The couple maintained residences in Dallas and Los Angeles and a ranch near Santa Fe, N.M., where Garson turned her attention to philanthropic work in the performing arts. She continued to work sporadically, and her later efforts included a lively performance as Auntie Mame on Broadway in 1958. She garnered another Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960).

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▪ British-American actress

in full  Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson 

born September 29, 1904, Manor Park, London, Eng.

died April 6, 1996, Dallas, Texas, U.S.

      motion-picture actress whose classic beauty and screen persona of elegance, poise, and maternal virtue made her one of the most popular and admired Hollywood stars of the World War II era.

      Garson often claimed to have been born in County Down, Ireland, where her grandparents lived and which she happily visited as a child, but she was, in fact, born and raised in London. Although she would have liked to have studied acting, Garson won a scholarship to the University of London and her practical-minded family encouraged her to pursue a teaching career. After graduating with honours, Garson worked briefly for Encyclopædia Britannica and a London advertising firm but continually tried to get her foot into a backstage door. In 1932 she made her debut with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, playing a middle-aged schoolteacher in Elmer Rice (Rice, Elmer)'s Street Scene. Later that year she toured in George Bernard Shaw (Shaw, George Bernard)'s Too True to Be Good, billing herself as Greer (a maternal family name) for the first time. Garson soon established herself as a popular ingenue and leading lady in London's West End. In 1938 Louis B. Mayer (Mayer, Louis B), head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), caught her performance in Old Music and signed her to a contract with his studio.

 After suffering through a discouraging first year in Hollywood, Garson returned to England to film the small role of Mrs. Chips in MGM's Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). Her portrayal of the beloved schoolteacher's charming wife endeared her to the American public and set her career in motion. It was the first in a series of roles in which Garson would play women of great loyalty, refinement, and wifely or motherly strength. Garson's other significant films of the period include Pride and Prejudice (1940), Blossoms in the Dust (1941, the first time she was teamed with her frequent costar Walter Pidgeon), Random Harvest (1942), and Madame Curie (1943), but the film that cemented her reputation and image was Mrs. Miniver (1942). Filmed during World War II and tailor-made for the times, Mrs. Miniver extolled the strength and spirit of the British home front and was one of the year's biggest hits. Garson's grace-under-pressure portrayal of a courageous wife and mother, the personification of British fortitude, not only won her an Academy Award but was credited with bolstering American support for the war.

      Following the war Garson's career faltered. The public rejected her attempts to reforge her image to that of a more fun-loving, less noble heroine in such films as Adventure (1946) and Julia Misbehaves (1948). During the 1950s she appeared in several unexceptional films and television dramas and starred on Broadway as Auntie Mame. Her remarkably convincing portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt (Roosevelt, Eleanor) in Sunrise at Campobello (1960) was widely praised and earned her a seventh Oscar nomination, but Garson performed only occasionally thereafter, devoting most of her time to philanthropic causes, including the endowment of scholarships for theatre students at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the construction of a campus theatre.

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