Greer Garson (Portrait Treatment) 2010

1. Greer Garson was born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson in Manor Park, Essex (now Greater London), England in 1904.

2. Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.

3. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in Mrs. Miniver. (Guinness Book of World Records credits her with the longest Oscar acceptance speech, at five minutes and 30 seconds, after which the Academy Awards instituted a time limit.)

4. Her second husband, whom she married (at age 39) in 1943, was Richard Ney (1916–2004), the younger actor (27 years old) who played her son in Mrs. Miniver. They divorced in 1947, with Garson claiming that Ney called her a "has-been" and belittled her age, as well as testimony from Garson that he also physically abused her. Ney eventually became a respected stock-market analyst and financial consultant.

5. Garson donated millions for the construction of the Greer Garson Theater at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and The Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University on three conditions: 1) that the stage be circular, 2) that the premiere production be William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and 3) that it have large ladies' rooms.