Greer Garson

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

Related Topics:
September 29 - 1904 - April 6 - 1996 - Academy Award - Actress - Walter Pidgeon

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Known in childhood as "Eggy" and supposedly born in County Down, Ireland, in 1908, she was actually born in London, the only child of George Garson (1865-1906), a clerk from the Orkney Islands, who was himself the son of a Protestant Irish-born cabinetmaker, and his Scottish wife, Nancy ("Nina") Sophia Greer.

Related Topics:
London - Orkney Islands - Protestant - Irish - Scottish

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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 1930s, most notably in a thirty-minute production of an excerpt of Twelfth Night in May 1937, alongside Peggy Ashcroft, which was the first known instance of a Shakespeare play being performed on television. She 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.

Related Topics:
University of London - Television - 1930s - Twelfth Night - 1937 - Peggy Ashcroft - Shakespeare - Louis B. Mayer - MGM - Goodbye, Mr. Chips - 1939

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She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a British matron pluckily surviving in the midst of war in Mrs. Miniver, and she received more nominations during the 1940s. In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. By the end of the decade, and through the 1950s, however, her roles were becoming less appreciated. In 1960, however, she again received an Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt.

Related Topics:
Academy Award for Best Actress - 1942 - Mrs. Miniver - 1940s - 1951 - Naturalized citizen - 1950s - 1960 - Sunrise at Campobello - Eleanor Roosevelt

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The actress was married three times:

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• Her first husband, whom she married on September 28, 1933, was Edward (later Sir Edward) Alec Abbot Snelson (1904-1992), a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian and Pakistani affairs; the real marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but was not formally dissolved until the 1940s.
• Her second husband, whom she married in 1943, was Richard Ney (born in either 1914, 1915, 1917, or 1918, sources differ), 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 (died 1987), and in 1967, the couple retired to the Forked Lightning Ranch in New Mexico. They also lived in Dallas, Texas, where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theater facility at Southern Methodist University (SMU).

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

Related Topics:
April 6 - 1996 - Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery

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Greer Garson: Academy Awards and Nominations ►