Greer Garson

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on 29 September 1904 in Manor Park, East Ham, then in Essex and now part of Greater London, the only child of Nancy Sophia Greer and George Garson, a commercial clerk in a London importing business. Her father was London-born of Scottish parentage, while her mother came from Drumalore, a townland near Belturbet in County Cavan, Ireland. The surname Greer is a contraction of MacGregor, a family name on her mother's side. Her maternal grandfather, David Greer, originally from Kilrea, County Londonderry, served as an RIC sergeant before becoming a land steward to the Annesley family in Castlewellan, County Down. Garson pursued French and eighteenth-century literature at King's College London and completed postgraduate studies at the University of Grenoble. Before establishing herself as an actress, she worked as head of the research library at LINTAS in the marketing department of Lever Brothers, where her colleague George Sanders later credited her with encouraging him to pursue an acting career.

Garson began her professional stage career at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932. In 1936 she appeared in the West End in Charles Bennett's play Page From a Diary and in Noël Coward's Mademoiselle. She also appeared on television during its earliest years, most notably in a 1937 BBC production of an excerpt from Twelfth Night broadcast from Alexandra Palace, considered the first known instance of a Shakespeare play performed on television. Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while scouting talent in London and signed her to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in late 1937. During her first eighteen months at the studio she suffered a back injury while awaiting a suitable role and came close to being released from her contract.

Her film debut came with Goodbye, Mr. Chips, begun in late 1938, which earned her a first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She followed that with the romantic comedy Remember? in 1939 and the period drama Pride and Prejudice in 1940, in which she played Elizabeth Bennet to critical acclaim. Garson then achieved major box-office prominence with the Technicolor drama Blossoms in the Dust in 1941, the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying a record previously held by Bette Davis. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Mrs. Miniver in 1942, in which she played a British wife and mother navigating the Second World War alongside co-star Walter Pidgeon. Mrs. Miniver was the highest-grossing film of 1942, and The Guinness Book of World Records credited Garson with the longest Oscar acceptance speech on record at five minutes and thirty seconds, a record she held until it was surpassed at the 97th Academy Awards eighty-two years later. Also in 1942, she starred in Random Harvest opposite Ronald Colman, a drama that received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor, and which the American Film Institute later ranked thirty-sixth on its list of 100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time.

Her subsequent Oscar nominations came for Madame Curie in 1943, Mrs. Parkington in 1944, and The Valley of Decision in 1945. Garson co-starred with Walter Pidgeon in eight films in total, including Blossoms in the Dust, Mrs. Miniver, Madame Curie, Mrs. Parkington, Julia Misbehaves, That Forsyte Woman, The Miniver Story, and Scandal at Scourie. She starred opposite Clark Gable in Adventure in 1946, promoted with the catchphrase "Gable's back, and Garson's got him." That same year, while filming Desire Me in Monterey on 26 April 1946, a wave knocked Garson and co-star Richard Hart from rocks during rehearsal; a local fisherman and a film extra pulled her from the surf, and the resulting back injury required multiple surgeries over the following years.

Garson's popularity declined somewhat in the late 1940s, though she remained a prominent film presence into the mid-1950s. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1951, and her MGM contract expired in 1954. She earned her seventh and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello in 1960. She continued to make sporadic film appearances until her death on 6 April 1996.

Garson's Broadway career included an appearance in 1956 in the comedy Auntie Mame, in which she replaced Rosalind Russell, who had departed to film the movie version. She received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play in 1979. Among the broader accolades she accumulated over her career were a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, and investiture as Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993. She garnered seven Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in total, placing her among the most-nominated women in that category in the history of the award.