Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson, CBE (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress popular from the 1940s through the 1960s, whose reddish-gold hair, delicate complexion, and twinkling hazel eyes marked her out as both a high-toned English lady and an approachable girl-next-door type.
After having played supporting roles in classical plays in the very earliest days of television (circa 1937), Garson was cast by MGM in the leading part of Kathie in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. She sparkled as Elizabeth Bennet opposite Laurence Olivier's Mr. Darcy in MGM's production of Pride and Prejudice, but perhaps her best-remembered part is as the dauntless English lady facing the Nazi Blitz in Mrs. Miniver, a part she would reprise eight years later. (Garson, in her early 40s, created a minor scandal at the height of her career, by marrying the much younger actor who played her son in Mrs. Miniver!) She also played Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, in the well-regarded Joseph L. Mankiewicz production of Julius Caesar, and ended her film career as the aristocratic "Mother" in Disney's The Happiest Millionaire.
In 1968, she added a touch of distinction to the beloved TV Christmas Special The Little Drummer Boy as 'Our Story Teller', a role she revisited in the 1976 sequel The Little Drummer Boy: Book II.
Some films in which Greer Garson appeared:
- Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) as Kathie Ellis
- Remember? (1939) as Linda Bronson Holland
- Pride and Prejudice (1940) as Elizabeth Bennet
- Blossoms in the Dust (1941) as Edna Kahly Gladney
- When Ladies Meet (1941) as Mrs. Claire Woodruff
- Mrs. Miniver (1942) as Mrs. Miniver
- Random Harvest (1942) as Paula
- Madame Curie (1943) as Marie Curie
- Mrs Parkington (1944) as Susie "Sparrow" Parkington
- The Valley of Decision (1945) as Mary Rafferty
- Adventure (1945) as Emily Sears
- Desire Me (1947) as Marise Aubert
- Julia Misbehaves (1948) as Julia Packett
- That Forsyte Woman (1949) as Irene Forsyte
- The Miniver Story (1950) as Kay Miniver
- The Law and the Lady (1951) as Jane Hoskins
- Scandal at Scourie (1953) as Mrs. Victoria McChesney
- Julius Caesar (1953) as Calpurnia
- Her Twelve Men (1954) as Jan Stewart
- Strange Lady in Town (1955) as Dr. Julia Winslow Garth
- Sunrise at Campobello (1960) as Eleanor Roosevelt
- The Singing Nun (1966) as Mother Prioress
- The Happiest Millionaire (1967) as Mother
- The Little Drummer Boy (1968) as (TV) (voice) as Our Story Teller
- The Little Drummer Boy: Book II (1976) (TV) as Our Story Teller
- Little Women (1978) (TV) as Aunt March
