Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904, in Manor Park, East Ham, London and took the stage name, “Greer” when she started acting. Garson attended King’s College London and the University of Grenoble in France, with the goal of becoming a teacher. However, Greer Garson started performing the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1932. In May of 1937, she appeared in a television adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the first time a Shakespeare play was performed on TV. She signed a contract with MGM that same year.
After moving to Hollywood, Garson’s first film was Goodbye, Mr. Chips, in 1938 starring opposite Richard Donat. Her performance as Kathy Ellis, a British suffragette earned her an Oscar nomination. However, she lost the award to Vivien Leigh who starred in Gone with the Wind. Over the course of her career, Greer Garson would be nominated for 7 Best Actress Oscars, 5 of them in consecutive years. That record is tied with Betty Davis and hasn’t yet been broken.
In 1940, Garson portrayed Elizabeth Bennet to critical acclaim in Pride and Prejudice. In 1941, she portrayed Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust. In 1942, Greer Garson won her Oscar for her role in Mrs. Miniver. She continued to act in movies, but her popularity began to wane in the 1950s, as she got older. Then she made her Broadway debut in the 1958 production of Auntie Mame.
Greer Garson continued acting in small roles after she and her third husband, E. E. Fogelson (known as Buddy) decided to retire in 1967. Fogelson was a millionaire oilman from Texas that Garson married in 1949. Her last role was in 1982 on an episode of The Love Boat. After that she stayed by her husband’s side until he died of Parkinson’s Disease in 1987.
Greer Garson became a US citizen in 1951. She donated money to construct theaters at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and at the Meadows School of the Arts, part of Southern Methodist University. She died in Dallas, TX on April 9, 1996, at the age of 91. Her net worth was estimated to be $96 million.
