Remembering Greer Garson

Greer Garson, CBE (born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson; 29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996), was an Anglo-American actress who was very popular during the Second World War, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top-ten box office draws from 1942 to 1946.

Greer Garson's early professional appearances were on stage, starting at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932.  Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.

Garson starred with Joan Crawford in When Ladies Meet in 1941, and that same year became a major box-office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama, Blossoms in the Dust, which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938–42 record, which still stands. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in Mrs. Miniver. She was also nominated for Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945).

Garson frequently costarred with Walter Pidgeon, ultimately making eight pictures with him: Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie, Mrs. Parkington, Julia Misbehaves (1948), That Forsyte Woman (1949), The Miniver Story (1950), and Scandal at Scourie (1953).

She made only a few films after her MGM contract expired in 1954.  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.

In her final years, Garson occupied a penthouse suite at the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. She died there from heart failure on 6 April 1996, at the age of 91