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 in Dallas. She was 92.
Garson, who had a history of heart problems, had lived at the long-term-care hospital for the past three years, according to Ann Harper, a spokeswoman at the hospital.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 self-sacrificing 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 dramatic hit of 1942, created a sensation when she was allowed to wear a kilt 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 the film "Sunrise at Campobello."
While preparing for "Auntie Mame" she told an interviewer: "I'm tired of playing four-handkerchief heroines in crinoline roles. I think there's a little bit of `Auntie Mame' in every woman - a kind of counterpart to the `Walter Mitty' in every man. I think Mrs. Miniver and Auntie Mame would have gotten along real well. Mame's really a doll. She promoted a liveliness and kindliness, and isn't that the best one can do?"
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."
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.
Garson's marriages to Edward A.A. Snelson, a British civil servant, and to Richard Ney, an actor 10 years her junior who had played her son in "Mrs. Miniver," ended in divorce. In 1949, she married E.E. "Buddy" Fogelson, an oil developer and industrialist. He died in 1987.