August 14th | 12 Movies
During their 1938 screen test together, Walter Pidgeon seemed to foretell the future when he quipped to Greer Garson, “I’ll bet we’re starring together before you know it and running this studio!” Chemistry probably had something to do with it too, and there’s no denying that Garson made a huge impression on her own during her relatively short career. Not only was she one of the most popular actresses during World War II, ascending the throne at MGM not long after her Hollywood debut in 1939, but she’d go on to earn an astonishing seven Best Actress Academy Award nominations across 25 films. With her Oscar-winning turn in Mrs. Miniver (1942), Garson came to symbolize a stalwart beacon of self-sacrifice, resilience and courage that resonated with wartime viewers around the globe.
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born outside of London on September 29, 1904. Her father died when she was two, and as an only child, one who was very sickly at that, she developed a close relationship with her mother. While she harbored dreams of attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Garson instead went to the University of London and took a job in an advertisinga marketing department. Her acting dreams never faded, though, and eventually, she landed an audition with the Birmingham Repertory CompanyTheatre, making her debut there in 1932 before trying her luck in London. Soon she caught a break worthy of a Hollywood movie: novelist Sylvia Thompson approached her, saying she thought Garson would be wonderful as the lead in her new play. Garson won the part alongside Laurence Olivier in “The Golden Arrow,” and a stage star was born. Louis B. Mayer came calling not long after. At first, Garson turned down his offer to join MGM, but after much persuasion, mainly Mayer’s promise that southern California’s climate would do wonders for her mother’s health, she signed a seven-year contract.
Mother and daughter landed in Hollywood in late 1937. While Mayer showed such determination in getting Garson to MGM, once there, the studio didn’t know what to do with her; MGM searched for parts, and Garson turned down multiple supporting roles. With illnesses plaguing her and the one-year option on her contract looming, the actress was ready to throw in the towel and return home. Soon enough, she would—but it would be for her MGM debut.
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) director Sam Wood was casting for Mrs. Chips, and while watching screen tests, he was taken by Garson’s reel; ironically, she wasn’t even on the test list! Though initially hesitant to take the role because of the character’s limited screen time, Garson relented. Her short but memorable turn earned Garson her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Following her promising debut, MGM tried the actress out in some lighter fare: the amnesia comedy Remember? (1939), the first screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1940) and a remake of When Ladies Meet (1941) going head to head—on screen and off—with Joan Crawford. Garson relished the opportunity to demonstrate her comedic chops before MGM whisked her back into dramatic territory.
Blossoms in the Dust (1941) proved historic in two ways: Shot in Technicolor, it was fans’ first glimpse of Garson’s flaming red hair and her first pairing with Walter Pidgeon. “I told you we would work together some day,” he declared. Garson portrayed adoption activist Edna Gladney in the fictionalized biopic, a role she was originally unenthusiastic to take because there was a high likelihood she’d be upstaged by all the children on set. Gladney personally wanted Garson for the role, though, an endorsement that flattered the star and paid off: Blossoms in the Dust was a hit at the box office and received rave reviews. Garson also picked up her second Oscar nomination, the first of five consecutive nods earned from 19411942-19451946, a record still held with Bette Davis.
Garson and Pidgeon starred in eight features together from 1941-1953. As Frank Miller wrote in “Leading Couples,” their partnership “embodied a dream of dignity and good manners that complemented MGM’s brand of class and elegance.” The sincerity, strength and humanity they imbued in their characters proved the key to their success in their early collaborations. One thing that sets their alliance apart from other classic screen teams is that their films heavily favored Garson; in fact, the majority of their pairings boast her character’s name in the title. Pidgeon readily conceded this, acknowledging: “We were never equals.” Don’t read any animosity into that statement, though; Pidgeon proved a well-matched screen partner for Garson, and they enjoyed a close friendship. “Greer and I have worked well from the first,” he stated. “I’ve done eight pictures with that gal, and we never had a bad word between us.”
Their second collaboration proved their most famous. Mrs. Miniver, based on Jan Struther’s 1940 1939 novel about a British couple (Garson and Pidgeon) who find themselves thrust into the realities of World War II, painted an inspiring portrait of solidarity, bravery and resilience that helped mobilize support for the Allied war effort. “It is hard to believe that a picture could be made within the heat of present strife which would clearly, but without a cry for vengeance, crystallize the cruel effect of total war upon a civilized people,” remarked The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther on the movie’s impact. In fact, the film’s rousing message and the actors’ stirring performances proved so dynamic that Winston Churchill claimed it did more to help the war effort than a fleet of battleships. Mrs. Miniver was also a massive hit critically and financially. It smashed records at Radio City Music Hall, was the highest grossing film of the year with a total profit just shy of $9 million and received 12 Oscar nominations, winning six of those, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler) and Best Actress. All of a sudden, Garson came to exemplify the war era on screen in a way no other star did, save for Betty Grable.
It's no joke that 1942 was the “year of Greer”; in fact, she emerged as the most popular star among fans, critics and reporters in numerous polls across the US and UK in 1942 and 1943. Garson followed Mrs. Miniver with another sentimental hit that ranked within the top five box office winners of the year, Random Harvest (1942), a tearjerker co-starring Ronald Colman. (This film shattered Garson’s previous Radio City record mere months after she set it!) Garson’s multilayered role allowed her an amusing song and dance number, and it was an experience she recalled fondly as “pure joy.” Her personal life was filled with joy, too, because the following year Garson married Richard Ney, the actor who had played her son in Mrs. Miniver.
Meanwhile, on the MGM lot Garson and Pidgeon collaborated on two period pieces, Madame Curie (1943), a biopic chronicling Marie and Pierre Curie’s romance and discovery of radium, and Mrs. Parkington (1944), a sprawling family saga recounting a matron’s life from her boarding house beginnings to posh society surroundings. By 1944, though, the stars’ romanticized personas were starting to wear thin. “So much team-work may have blunted the edge of excitement of seeing these two fall in love, marry and go down the years together,” Jane Corby wrote in the Brooklyn Citizen.
The end of World War II signaled the end of Garson’s reign as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Not only was her image so incredibly tied to that specific time and cultural framework, but audience tastes changed too, and the sense of honorable sacrifice Garson’s characters espoused went out of style as moviegoers began to crave darker, less noble stories. MGM tried to switch things up by teaming her with other popular actors, to varying degrees of success. The historical romance The Valley of Decision (1945), co-starring Gregory Peck, was an enormous hit financially and critically, while Garson’s pairing with Clark Gable in the romantic drama Adventure (1945) alone catapulted that film to the tTop 10 box office list while it bombed with critics. And then there’s the seaside drama Desire Me (1947) co-starring Robert Mitchum, which was deemed such a disaster on screen and off that none of the directors—yes, plural—wanted their name on it.
Moviegoers weren’t the only ones who wanted something different; Garson did, too. For years, she loudly voiced her dissatisfaction with the roles MGM gave her. She’d been typecast in parts she described as “walking cathedrals,” which couldn’t be further from her own personality. “She is a person full of youthful vitality and endowed with a prankish and irreverent sense of humour,” Leslie Wood wrote in the 1947 book “Life Stories of the Stars.”
So what did MGM do? They paired her again with Pidgeon, this time in a comedy. Julia Misbehaves (1948) finds Garson playing an effervescent showgirl who abandoned her husband (Pidgeon) and daughter (Elizabeth Taylor) years prior for life on the stage, only to come back into the picture—and turn everything upside down—for her daughter’s wedding. The screen team, reunited after four years, had a ball filming. “We were so glad to be rid of the tears that we both acted a bit goofy,” Pidgeon confirmed. Goofy was right. In no other picture will you find Garson negotiating in a bathtub, performing her own stunts atop a human pyramid or swinging on theater curtains in a leotard and tights. \\"No more queens; the queen's crown had slipped slightly,” Garson quipped. “What I've wanted to do all along was make people laugh.” Some critics did just that, while others didn’t; though many praised the pure joy Garson brought to the screen, some found it too much of a stretch to believe the matron of MGM would desert her husband and child.
A change of genre wasn’t the only reason Garson enjoyed filming Julia Misbehaves. After a rough divorce from Ney in 1947, she met Texas oil man Buddy Fogelson on set, fell in love and married him in 1949. They’d remain happily together until Fogelson’s death in 1987.
The star’s career slowed a bit following her marriage, which was partly her own doing. She and Pidgeon teamed up with Errol Flynn, Robert Young and Janet Leigh in the Technicolor society saga That Forsyte Woman (1949), reprised their roles as the Minivers in The Miniver Story (1950) and shared the screen for a final time in the Canadian-set drama Scandal at Scourie (1953).
Garson’s later roles gave her an opportunity to branch out a little; for instance, she appeared as a jewel thief in the comedy The Law and the Lady (1951) and played Calpurnia in the star-studded Shakespearean drama Julius Caesar (1953). Following her departure from MGM in 1954, she explored other mediums, returning to the stage (she played Auntie Mame on Broadway in 1958) and guest starring on TV shows (she appeared as herself in the 1950s classic Father Knows Best). Though her film appearances became more sporadic, she wasn’t done yet: Garson’s final Oscar-nominated performance, her third in a biographical role, came in 1960 playing Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello.
Garson enjoyed the last decades of her life with Fogelson in Texas and New Mexico, where she and her husband donated millions to various philanthropic causes; in fact, following her death in 1996, her home in Pecos, New Mexico, Forked Lightning Ranch, was donated and is now part of the National Park System. “I’m suspicious of people who say that they had it tough starting out and add that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Believe me, I would have had it some other way,” Garson said regarding her donations to the University of Santa Fe. “So that’s why I’m doing this, to give young aspiring artists some sort of helping hand.”
