A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson

Act Two: Hollywood

4.CT Tw() Hollywood (1937-1949) People are always asking me what it was like during the golden years of Hollywood. That was in the 1920s and '30s-which wasn't my period. My period, the'40s and '50s, is what I call the romantic years of Hollywood. IN THE BEGINNING OF THE 1954 FILM, Her Twelve Men, Greer Garson's voice is heard narrating a near autobiographical montage of colorful, dreamlike images. "When I was a child;' she intones, "and given to daydreaming, I had many visions ofmyselfas a grownup.... Always I was glamorous, heroic and beloved. But dreams have a way of ending quite suddenly. You can wake up and find yourself, as I did ... starting life over again on my way to a place I'd never been, to do something I'd never dreamed of doing, and trying not to show ... how scared I was:' Such was the situation ofthe thirty-three-year-old Englishwoman who stepped from the train at the Pasadena, California, station on December 4, 1937. Wearing a heavy fur coat, a dark winter hat, kid gloves, and dark shoes and stockings, she felt "like a hibernating bear" in the warm California sunshine. As Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Cinderella of the hour, Greer was met by a limousine escort that whisked her exhausted entourage offtoward the Beverly Hills Hotel. Peering from the windows of her room overlooking Sunset Boulevard, she found Los Angeles to be "like a fairyland. A Dreamer's Land. A Lotus Land. The gardens ofroses. The palm trees. The orange trees. The pools under a sky continually brimming over with sunlight. A promised land which, we felt, kept its promise extravagantly:' Only a squib in the Hollywood Reporter noting that an Irish actor named Mr. Greer Garson had signed a contract with MGM and arrived in town brought a disappointing touch ofreality. "My fame, I perceived, was still to be made;' she recalled; "it had not preceded me:' Life had become a whirlwind ofpublicity interviews, photograph sessions, and brief tours since her arrival in NewYork City on Novem- 7fJ A Rose for Mrs. Miniver ber 22. The first stop had been a visit to the headquarters ofLoews Incorporated , the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, at 1540 Broadway in midtown Manhattan. On the twelfth floor, the doors opened upon the publicity department. A secretary pointed out the waiting room and informed Greer and her mother that Mr. Howard Dietz, director of Advertising, Publicity, and Exploitation, would not be able to see them for two hours. The Garsons spent their afternoon at Radio City Music Hall, the five-year-old "Showplace of the Nation" a few blocks away at the famous corner of Sixth Avenue and Fiftieth Street. It was the dream child of two of New York's most influential personages, John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Samuel Lionel "Roxy" Rothafel. In October 1928 Rockefeller had signed a lease for the acreage that became Rockefeller Center. As the centerpiece for his "city within a city" he commissioned architect Raymond Hood and the combined architectural firms ofTodd, Robertson, and Todd Engineering and Reinhard and Hof-meister to construct a theater. Donald Deskey was chosen as the interior designer. David Sarnoff's Radio Corporation ofAmerica, which had recently acquired the RKO Studio in Hollywood, was the tenant. The theater became America's grandest launching pad for Hollywood's most prestigious films. The massive marquee that greeted the Garsons advertised David O. Selznick's Technicolor comedy, Nothing Sacred, starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March. They were awestruck by the elegant Grand Foyer, took a peek into the Grand Lounge, and then ascended the famous staircase to the auditorium with its dramatic curved ceiling that reached to a height of eighty-three feet. They were seated in the orchestra section and gazed upon a huge screen, unlike anything they had seen in London, seventy feet wide and thirty-five feet high. After an elaborate musical variety show featuring the world-famous Rockettes, the lights dimmed and the movie began. It was just the sort ofwitty, romantic comedy that Greer adored, and she was still talking about the experience hours after the screening, sitting before the desk ofHoward Dietz. Was there any chance that she might make films like that and have them shown in such a magnificent theater? "My dear Miss Garson:' Dietz said, slightly perturbed at the conversational flood he was experiencing...