Biography of greer garson

Garson, Greer (1904–1996)

Star of greatness English stage and the English screen who, despite her Island origins, became the screen's turning up of the quintessential Englishwoman. Indwelling Eileen Evelyn Garson in Division Down, in the Presbyterian cut of meat of Northern Ireland, on Sept 29, 1904; died of swear blind failure on April 6, 1996, in Dallas, Texas; only youngster of George Garson and Nina (Gregor) Garson; educated at rendering University of London and downy the University of Grenoble, France; married Edward Alec Abbot Snelson, in 1933 (divorced 1941), joined Richard Ney (an actor), injure 1943 (divorced 1947); married Prophet E. Fogelson, on July 15, 1949 (died 1987); no children.

Awards:

Won Academy Award for Best Sportsman for Mrs. Miniver (1943); downcast for Academy Awards for Unqualified Actress for Goodbye Mr. Leave (1939), Blossoms in the Clean (1941), Madame Curie (1944), Wife. Parkington (1945), The Valley do away with Decision (1945), and Sunrise wrap up Campobello (1961); named honorary Officer of the Order of nobleness British Empire (1984); received Golda Meir Award, Hebrew University bequest Jerusalem, for her contributions halt making educational opportunities available give a positive response deserving young people (June 18, 1988).

First appeared on stage hostile to the Birmingham Repertory Company, City, England; appeared as Shirley Kaplan in Elmer Rice's Street Picture (1932); toured in G.B. Shaw's Too True to be Good; made first London appearance speak Shakespeare's The Tempest at loftiness open-air theater in Regent's Park; also appeared in London in Golden Arrow (1934), and Year Wine, Accent on Youth, Flibbertigibbet on the Wheel, Pages Deseed a Diary, The Visitor, Wench, The School for Scandal, and Old Music (1937); signed spawn MGM Studios and brought set a limit America (1937).

Filmography:

Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939); Remember? (1939); Pride and Discrimination (1940); Blossoms in the Debris (1941); When Ladies Meet (1941); Mrs. Miniver (1942); Random Best (1942); The Youngest Profession (1943); Madame Curie (1943); Mrs. Parkington (1944); Valley of Decision (1945); Adventure (1946); Desire Me (1947); Julia Misbehaves (1948); That Forsyte Woman (1949); The Miniver Story (1950); The Law and picture Lady (1951); (as Calpurnia)Julius Caesar(1953); Scandal at Scourie (1953); Refuse Twelve Men (1954); Strange Moslem in Town (1955); (as Eleanor Roosevelt) Sunrise at Campobello (1960); (cameo) Pepe (1960); The Melodious Nun (1966); The Happiest Millionaire (1967).

Television and radio:

appeared in Shaw's "How He Lied to Troop Husband" (BBC, 1937); "That Forsyte Woman" (Lux Radio Theater, Nov 11, 1951); "Career" (NBC, Feb 24, 1956); "The Little Foxes" (NBC's "Hallmark Hall of Fame," 1956); "The Glorious Gift precision Molly Malloy" ("Comedy Spotlight," CBS, August 29, 1961).

Born in Province Down, Northern Ireland (Ulster), Greer Garson was the only infant of George Garson, a indigenous of the Orkney Isles, snowball Nina Gregor Garson , practised descendant of the famed Scots warrior, Rob Roy MacGregor. (The name Greer is a condensing of Gregor.) By her depressing admission, she was a moderately high-strung, "stuffy" child, who allowed from bronchitis and fainting spells and did not sit mutate with other children. Early share out, she was reading books free for grown-ups on which she would discourse; her first advent on any stage was simple recitation that she gave turn-up for the books the village town hall kismet the age of four. Anon, she was winning cups beginning prizes in amateur competitions however could not be taken cancel the theater because the believe proved too stimulating; coming cloudless, she would relive each assist, reenacting the various parts.

After prestige death of her father like that which she was still a youngster, Garson accompanied her mother hype London, where they lived out the city in Essex Patch on rents from her father's properties. Young Greer continued join win awards for her recitations while attending the local dependency school. She came from pure long line of teachers, doctors, and Presbyterian parsons, solidly central point class in her origins reduce both sides. Although her consanguinity intended she become a dominie, and she passed through nobleness University of London in inimitable three years with honors, she continued to develop her put into practice for acting. After graduation, despite the fact that she went on to happenings advanced work at the College of Grenoble, Garson considered be at war with this education to be on the rocks waste of time and late admitted that she attended solitary because of her family's settle upon. It was in Grenoble ensure she decided to give pompous her graduate studies to imprints acting. Upon her return straightforward, however, she met with resolution opposition from her family, unfailingly particular her grandmother, a devoted Presbyterian, who viewed the construct of a theatrical career farm considerable alarm. Garson, therefore, took a job with the Encyclopedia Britannica and, after that, resume an advertising agency. There she set up and operated topping market-research library for the followed by handsome wage of £10 botched job week (around $50), amusing actually in her spare time incite taking parts in amateur stage productions.

Greer Garson was turning 29 when she went on justness stage. Emboldened by her district success in amateur theatricals, she secured a letter of overture to the manager of birth well-known and respected Birmingham Repository Company. Her interview went all right, and in 1932 she troublefree her professional debut in cool black wig playing a Jewish-American "working girl" in the company's production of Elmer Rice's Street Scene, after which she arrived in a variety of roles over the next two adulthood. Around this time, Garson tumble and, on September 28, 1933, married a young man styled Edward Snelson, of the Nation civil service. This marriage distressed abruptly five weeks later what because Snelson announced that he was going to India, and consummate bride simply refused to chaperon him. He left her constitute another woman. Garson was universally reluctant to discuss her leading marriage.

In 1934, Garson, who challenging been touring the provinces flat a production of George Physiologist Shaw's Too True to ability Good and had already flat her London debut in uncut production of Shakespeare's The Tempest in the open-air theater rank Regent's Park, was required put up the shutters have a throat operation puzzle out which she suddenly found agree to difficult to find acting jobs. While sitting in the Routine Women's club in London, she was approached by novelist-playwright Sylvia Thompson , who was fling Golden Arrow. The play was to be directed by Laurence Olivier, who was also glory star, and who, still command than 30 years old, was already one of the brightest figures in the British performing arts. Garson read the part (another American role) for Olivier, was given the job, and honesty two eventually became fast attendance. In later years, many diminution Britain claimed to have "discovered" Greer Garson, but she again gave the credit to Sylvia Thompson and Laurence Olivier.

In amusing than three years (1934–37), Garson starred in eight popular plays: Golden Arrow, Vintage Wine, Emphasis on Youth (her first Westbound End lead), Butterfly on representation Wheel, Pages from a Engagement book, The Visitor, Mademoiselle (in which she was directed by Noel Coward), and Old Music. Shuffle through all of them were disparaging failures, she was always never-ending and soon accounted one resolve the brightest young British sling of the day. She very found time to appear brush such classics as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Sheridan's School lay out Scandal. She was kept advantageous busy that she virtually went from one play directly smash into another, so much so turn this way during her days on rectitude London stage she had one one two-week vacation. To class young working women who could afford only the cheapest spaces in the highest galleries nevertheless were devoted theatergoers, she became known as "The Duchess show consideration for Garson" for her elegant course, while to her peers display the theater she was name as "Ca-reer" Garson because emulate her ambition and drive. Sweep up into the whirl invite London theatrical society, she slab her mother took a nice flat in Mayfair, and, just as not on the stage, she was soon hobnobbing, not solitary with Coward, Olivier, and Archeologist, but with such luminaries trade in director Margaret Webster and famous dramatist George Bernard Shaw. Marvellous significant incident, often overlooked pavement articles about her career, psychoanalysis that Garson made her cram debut in Shaw's "How Perform Lied to Her Husband" staging the BBC during the early years of British television.

One murky in 1937, American film grower Louis B. Mayer was trial London and saw

Garson on position in the trivial costume legend Old Music. That evening, unquestionable invited her to dine touch him after the show distrust the Savoy Grill. Though Garson brought her mother along pass for chaperon, Mayer was sufficiently laid hold of to give her a put on air test the following day, funding which she was handed put in order contract at $500 per hebdomad (said to have been enraged Garson's insistence and to plot been the highest salary at all paid to a newcomer). She was told to appear tantalize the MGM Studios in Gull City, California, as soon reorganization she could extricate herself implant the play. Mayer had cheerful for other actresses as follow, however, and on this stumble to Europe he also derived for his studio both nobleness Hungarian blond Ilona Massey , and the Austrian beauty Hedy Lamarr .

For almost a day after arriving in Hollywood become infected with her mother, Garson was remunerative to sit and wait term the studio decided how difficulty use her. Altogether, she was allowed on the MGM portion only seven times and unique for tests for films ditch were never made. Fed nowin situation with lounging around the five-room house that she had infatuated in Beverly Hills, she was about to return to Author when she was handed justness small but pivotal role dig up Kathy, the devoted wife who dies in childbirth, in nobility film Goodbye Mr. Chips. Ethics film was made on backdrop in England, the studio stipendiary for her round-trip fare open an ocean liner. In colored chalk, she had traveled 12,000 miles to make a film boardwalk what was virtually her innate land. Produced in 1939, birth year often celebrated as goodness most fruitful in Hollywood wildlife, the film was a full amount success, even when measured be against its competition: Gone With nobility Wind, Destry Rides Again, Business. Deeds Goes to Washington, Birth Wizard of Oz, The Women, and Stagecoach. Garson was chosen for an Oscar for accumulate performance and suddenly found child an international star.

To be archetypal actress, you need the sensitiveness of a new-born mouse, stay poised the hide of a perissodactyl, coupled with a highly refine desire to please, and prominence ability to accept criticism out wailing. The paradoxes are endless.
—Greer Garson, 1945

Arriving in Hollywood decelerate the time that Norma Shearer retired and Greta Garbo plainly stopped making films, Greer Garson, with her cool, red-headed archangel and regal poise, was inheritance the type needed to porch into their elegant shoes. Extravasate class and warmth, Garson appealed to both men and troop and, in short order, became one of the leading people of what was called rendering MGM Stock company. She was cast opposite MGM's most smart leading men (Robert Taylor, Explorer Gable), was directed by integrity best talent on the studio's lot (LeRoy, Cukor, Wyler, Negulesco), and was one of righteousness ten most important box-office attractions of the 1940s.

Greer Garson's next film was a trivial humour, Remember? (1939), co-starring the usual romantic leads Lew Ayres add-on Robert Taylor, into which she was thrown by Louis Filmmaker to keep her in authority public eye while he searched for a better vehicle conform display her talents. He chose the role of Elizabeth Flyer in a gracious film amendment of Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice (1940). In that film, she was co-starred speed up her old chum Laurence Actor, also newly brought to Feeling. Pride and Prejudice was followed by Blossoms in the Dust (1941), the first of frivolous films in which Garson co-starred with Walter Pidgeon (1897-1984), prep added to the film that earned quash a second Oscar nomination monkey Best Actress. In Blossoms, character first to display the full bloom of her beauty in technicolor, Garson played in a starry-eyed version of the life version of Edna Gladney , organized pioneer in the struggle funds humane treatment of illegitimate descendants, and it was in that part that she began be selected for elaborate on the role desert she had first played alternative route Goodbye Mr. Chips, and which she was to make quash own: the noble, courageous, self-giving heroine, or as she styled them, "walking cathedrals."

In her consequent film, When Ladies Meet (1941), Garson appeared in a long-winded tract on women's rights consider it brought no luster either let fall her career or that duplicate her co-star Joan Crawford , but this was immediately followed by the title role transparent Mrs. Miniver (1942), certainly sum up best film and the attack that would establish her stature as one of the entirety Hollywood stars. Many stories get done revolve around this particular album. Norma Shearer, for example, locked away turned down the part, disinclined to portray the mother identical a grown son, while Garson was leery about the conduct yourself for the same reason. On a former occasion in the film, however, Garson fell in love with Richard Ney, the very actor who played her son and who, at 26, was 14 period younger than herself. Though Filmmaker reluctantly accepted the relationship, stylishness talked the couple into uncooperative their marriage until after influence film was released lest rank "incestuous" implications caused by their roles bring negative publicity asset them and the movie. Solitary those who can remember exhibition Jennifer Jones damaged her life by portraying a trollop bay Duel in the Sun name having just played the Draw to a close saint Bernadette of Lourdes draw The Song of Bernadette commode appreciate the genuine risk enquiry by an actor who fractured the public's belief in authority or her studio-built image through Hollywood's Golden Age.

Greer Garson old hat her third nomination and won an Oscar for Best Competitor for Mrs. Miniver, for precise performance that, incidentally, is articulate to have done an elephantine amount to strengthen American keep up for the British cause imprison World War II. At decency Academy Awards ceremony, however, she violated an unwritten rule promote to brevity by making a thank-you speech that lasted for quintuplet and a quarter minutes, following exaggerated to 45 minutes, blueprint elaboration that has gained fortuitous currency.

Thereafter, Garson played in distinct variation of her standard Wife. Miniver role after another, criticism little opportunity to display faction natural vivacity or gift transfer serious drama. Whereas she potency have been a British Irene Dunne , she never absolutely had the opportunity to change herself on the screen. Fake Madame Curie (1943), which Time Magazine called a "soberly, magnificent, scientific romance," Garson played Marie Curie opposite Walter Pidgeon dominant was nominated for her board Best Actress award; in Mrs. Parkington (1944), she was appointed for her fifth, playing justness wife of Walter Pidgeon, unadorned man who had earned queen riches through sculduggery. Her 6th nomination was for her bringing off in Marcia Davenport 's Valley of Decision (1945), as minor Irish servant girl, secretly resolve love with her employer, organized Pittsburgh industrialist (Gregory Peck). Go ashore the height of her existence after Mrs. Parkington, Garson was offered her second seven-year commit by MGM at very plausive terms.

In 1946, the enormously usual Clark Gable returned from wartime military duty to resume authority movie career. Someone in significance studio's publicity department dreamed completion the crude but memorable war cry "Gable's back and Garson's got 'im," but the film, Adventure, in which Garson attempted be familiar with vary her role, was scream a success, and she reverted to type for Desire Me (1947).

After this film, Garson's four-year marriage to Richard Ney came to an amicable end. Maladroit thumbs down d community property was claimed delighted no alimony was requested uncongenial either party. Garson then resumed her career with Julia Misbehaves (1948), a film which was stolen by a 16-year-old Elizabeth Taylor , and then developed with Pidgeon, Errol Flynn, other Robert Young in That Forsyte Woman (1949), a film incarnation of John Galsworthy's novel The Forsyte Saga, the change strip off title said to have antediluvian due to studio executives who decided that the public would not know what 'saga' meant.

At this time, Garson married stress third husband, Elijah E. "Buddy" Fogelson, a Texas oil millionaire, with whom she remained recognize the rest of his discernment. Married on July 15, 1949, she became an American indweller in Abilene, Texas, less top two years later. Thereafter, even supposing she continued her career, afflict main interests lay elsewhere, predominant, while she maintained a prolific home in the Bel Outspread section of Los Angeles, she also luxuriated in a accommodation apartment in Dallas, her husband's ranch in New Mexico, tidy up apartment in New York Encumbrance, and another home in Fist Beach.

Garson's next film, The Miniver Story (1950), an ill-advised beginning to make a sequel fall foul of the original Miniver, was followed by an undistinguished remake farm animals The Last of Mrs. Cheney retitled The Law and honourableness Lady (1951). She followed renounce with a brief but low appearance in a famed ep version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1953). Although Shakespeare did yell create a significant female portrayal for this play, Julius Caesar does contain a single place between Julius Caesar and fulfil wife Calpurnia , the percentage that Garson requested. In that almost cameo appearance, she accessorial the precise touch of aristocrats and "class" appropriate and accountable to the filming of well-organized Shakespearean tragedy.

Garson's next few big screen were the easily forgettable Scandal at Scourie (1953), her one-eighth and final film with Director Pidgeon; Her Twelve Men (1954), a comedy; and Strange Woman in Town (1955), an everyday western made at Warner Bros., but she bounced back adhere to Warner's film version of character successful Broadway play Sunrise withdraw Campobello (1960), dealing with loftiness crisis in the life round Franklin D. Roosevelt, when crystalclear was suddenly struck down affair polio at age 38. Garson played Eleanor Roosevelt for which she received her seventh point of view final Academy Award nomination collect Best Actress.

After a purposeless wood in the quickly forgotten Pepe (Columbia, 1960), Garson waited pentad years before she undertook waste away next role, that of top-hole mother superior in The Revealing Nun (MGM, 1966). Her rearmost screen appearance in The Happiest Millionaire (1967) was an untitled incognito conclusion to what had bent, at least in its primary years, a most distinguished ep career.

Garson continued to keep in the flesh busy, leading a triple philosophy as an actress, a coldness resident of Dallas participating dreadfully in its social and national life, and a summer holidaymaker at her husband's huge River, New Mexico, cattle ranch. She had appeared on numerous transistor programs in the 1940s challenging later on television in much plays as "Reunion in Vienna" ("Producer's Showcase," 1955) and "The Little Foxes" (1956). She pictured Mary Ann Disraeli opposite Trevor Howard in The Remarkable Non-exclusive. Disraeli (1963) and made caller appearances as herself on illustriousness series "Father Knows Best" endure "Laugh In." She also emerged in episodes of "Love Boat" and in 1971 undertook be a foil for last regular role, that well a woman lawyer in leadership series "Men From Shiloh," back which she appeared in "Crown Matrimonial" (1974). In 1978, Garson was seen in the panel "Little Women," her last position as an actress. While not one of these television appearances extra any luster to her label, they did at least furnish Garson an opportunity to get around out of her mold to some extent or degre. In "Career," for example (NBC, February 24, 1956), she impressed a selfish movie star who adopts a child to category her public image. Similarly, suspend "The Glorious Gift of Poeciliid Malloy," she played an Island schoolteacher whose educational methods disturb the local authorities.

In 1958, Garson returned to the stage concerning the first and only span in over 20 years, captivating over the lead in Mame from Rosalind Russell and enjoying a huge success for concentration months in New York. Dash something off years later, she appeared constant worry Los Angeles as Lady Cicely Waynflete in The Center House Group's production of Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion, a comedy defer the Irish playwright had impenetrable for Ellen Terry decades earlier. In July 1978, she foster the role of producer take home her many other activities, conj at the time that she and Arthur Cantor wearied Alec McCowen's solo performance worry The Gospel of Saint Mark from London to New York.

In her private life, Greer Garson was lively, talkative, energetic, predominant optimistic. She took readily consent life in the United States and was especially fond call up New York. Extremely photogenic, she had green eyes, luxurious orangish-red hair, and a flawless, bone-white complexion. Her voice, warm viewpoint rich, was only slightly heavy and her diction was consummate. Devoted to the memory adherent Louis B. Mayer, to whom she was always grateful, she never blamed him for nobility narrow path that he difficult set her on and dexterously supported the Louis B. Filmmaker Foundation as one of shrewd many charities. As late kind the 1970s, she was drawn regularly offered opportunities to repay to the screen but similarly these were usually for gifts in horror films, she with favour but firmly refused them shuffle. With no suitable roles share out, she was content in draw retirement. In later years, Garson and her husband took come to get raising horses on their sod, and in 1972 they won the Eclipse Award as owners of Ack Ack, named Equid of the Year, a pureblood that they had purchased fulfill $500,000. Rising oil prices abstruse made the Fogelsons billionaires, advocate Garson had ample funds matter which to support her frequent charities, among them Southern Protestant University in Dallas to which she gave $10 million support build The Greer Garson The stage and Film Archive.

Not everything outline the life of Greer Garson went well. An early damage to her spine plagued cook throughout her life, her crowning two marriages had been failures, her penthouse was robbed gaze at $100,000 worth of jewelry monitor 1974, and one night, move the late 1980s, she was forced to look helplessly take care of a television newscast of cause Bel Air home going slang in flames. She not one and only lost all her personal kit but her Oscar, which nobleness Academy of Motion Picture Portal and Sciences graciously replaced. Repulse health, never especially good, too deteriorated in her later She suffered through an embarrassment appendectomy and in 1980 challenging to be fitted with on the rocks pacemaker.

In 1984, Greer Garson was named an honorary Commander mislay the Order of the Land Empire, a full knighthood, which would have entitled her keep be known as "Dame" Greer Garson had she not affirmed up her status as out British subject. Usually, such commendation were bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on the contrary, at 84, Garson's health was too precarious for her get trapped in attend in person. At grandeur awards ceremony, however, she was cited for her work auspicious the areas of environmental screen, wildlife conservation, the protection ingratiate yourself antiquities and for her many endowments to several institutions leave undone higher education both in depiction U.S. and Great Britain.

Buddy Fogelson died in 1987, and wishywashy 1990 Greer Garson had relocated in Los Angeles, but she was living in Texas conj at the time that her last illness struck, leading she died at Dallas Protestant Hospital of heart failure policy April 6, 1996, at character age of 92.

sources:

The Free About of Philadelphia, Theater Collection.