Greer Garson - Personal Life

Personal Life

Garson was married three times. Her first marriage, on 28 September 1933, was to Edward Alec Abbot Snelson (1904–1992), later Sir Edward, a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian affairs. The actual marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but it was not formally dissolved until 1943.

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.

In 1949, she married a millionaire Texas oilman and horse breeder, E.E. "Buddy" Fogelson (1900–1987), and in 1967, the couple retired to their "Forked Lightning Ranch" in New Mexico. They purchased the U.S. Hall of Fame champion Thoroughbred Ack Ack from the estate of Harry F. Guggenheim in 1971 and were highly successful as breeders. They also maintained a home in Dallas, Texas, where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theatre facility at Southern Methodist University.

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

Garson was a devout Presbyterian.

Read more about this topic:  Greer Garson

Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:

    The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.
    Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)

    Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
    Bible: New Testament Jesus, in John, 15:13.

    In Ulysses, James Joyce wrote, “Greater love than this ... no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend.”