Greer Garson, An Emblem Of Her Era Actress Who Epitomized The ‘40s Dies Saturday At 92

Greer Garson, the actress who epitomized a noble, wise and courageous wife in some of the sleekest and most sentimental American movies of the 1940s, died Saturday morning at Presbyterian Hospital. She was 92.

Garson became an instant success as a captivating young wife in the sentimental 1939 film “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” She was nominated for an Academy Award for this first film performance and quickly became one of the 10 most popular Hollywood stars.

She received five more Oscar nominations in five years for selfsacrificing portrayals in “Blossoms in the Dust” (1941), “Mrs. Miniver” (1942), “Madame Curie” (1943), “Mrs. Parkington” (1944) and “The Valley of Decision” (1945).

She won the best-actress Oscar for “Mrs. Miniver,” in which she superbly symbolized the spirit and virtue of a British homemaker in wartime.

With much of the earth ravaged by World War II, the Scotch-Irish actress with titian hair, blue-green eyes and alabaster complexion filled a need for a dignified and intrepid wife-mother figure. Her portrayals were so proper that one sequence in “Random Harvest,” a major hit of 1942, created a sensation when she was allowed to wear kilts and show her shapely legs. Otherwise, she was heavily costumed and wholesomely typecast by Louis B. Mayer.

After the war, because of inferior vehicles and changing tastes, she was unable to escape the mold.

Nonetheless, in her Broadway debut in 1958, Garson won acclaim in a comedy, succeeding Rosalind Russell as the devil-may-care “Auntie Mame.” Two years later, Garson received a seventh Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt in “Sunrise at Campobello.”

Early on, the actress enjoyed peerless popularity. Nine of her first 11 movies opened at Radio City Music Hall and played at that premier movie palace a total of 64 weeks. In 1978, Vincent Canby of The New York Times offered a tribute in which he deemed Garson “emblematic of everything the Music Hall offered its patrons.”

“In her high-toned M-G-M pictures she was invariably serene, polite, elegant in a slightly unreal way, too good to be true, always prepared to meet any emergency and staunchly middle-class,” Canby continued. “Her pictures were neither inhibited by the Hall nor did they ever look tacky amid all that splendor. Actress and theater were one.”

Greer Garson was born on Sept. 29, 1903, in County Down, Northern Ireland, of Presbyterian parents. Her father, George Garson, a businessman, died soon after, and she and her mother, Nina, moved to London. The name Greer was a contraction of MacGregor, her mother’s ancestral name.

She was a frail girl with chronic bronchitis who was comfortable with her many adult relatives but uneasy with people her own age. She recalled a childhood of scrimping, study and an abiding ambition to act despite her family’s pressure on her to teach.

She received full scholarships from a county school and from the University of London, where she won honors studying French and 18th-century literature in an accelerated course, with secretarial classes for a backup.

Garson obtained a secure post as a market researcher for a London advertising firm, but gave it up to study acting. She polished her craft during two years in the West End and became one of Britain’s ablest young stage actresses.

In one theater audience in 1938 was the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Riveted by her performance, Mayer persuaded her to sign a movie contract for an uncommonly high starting salary of $500 a week.