Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was a British-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the homefront; listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top-10 box office draws from 1942 to 1946.
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Blossoms in the Dust is a 1941 American biographical drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Felix Bressart, Marsha Hunt, Fay Holden and Samuel S. Hinds. It tells the story of Edna Gladney, who helped orphaned children find homes and began a campaign to remove the word "illegitimate" from Texas birth certificates, despite the opposition of "good" citizens. The screenplay was by Anita Loos, with a story by Ralph Wheelwright. Some of the important aspects of her life fictionalized in the film are the fact that it was Edna herself who was born out of wedlock; she and Sam eloped on the eve of her marriage to someone else, and they had much more time together before his death than given them in the film.
Random Harvest is a 1942 American romantic drama film based on the 1941 James Hilton novel of the same title, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination. The novel keeps the true identity of Paula/Margaret a secret until the very end, something that would have been impossible in a film, where characters’ faces must be seen. This meant that the movie had to take a very different approach to the story. The film stars Ronald Colman as a shellshocked, amnesiac World War I veteran, and Greer Garson as his love interest.
Spellbound is a 1945 American psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, and Michael Chekhov. It follows a psychoanalyst who falls in love with the new head of the Vermont hospital in which she works, only to find that he is an imposter suffering dissociative amnesia, and potentially, a murderer. The film is based on the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.
Interrupted Melody is a 1955 American musical biopic film starring Eleanor Parker, Glenn Ford, Roger Moore, and Cecil Kellaway. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt, it was filmed in CinemaScope and Eastman Color, and produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Jack Cummings. With a screenplay by Lawrence, Sonya Levien, and William Ludwig, the operatic sequences were staged by Vladimir Rosing, and Eileen Farrell provided the singing voice for Parker. It tells the story of Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence's rise to fame as an opera singer and her subsequent triumph over polio with her husband's help
Sunrise at Campobello is a 1960 American biographical film telling the story of the struggles of future President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family when Roosevelt was stricken with paralysis at the age of 39 in August 1921. Based on Dore Schary's 1958 Tony Award-winning Broadway play of the same name, the film was directed by Vincent J. Donehue and stars Ralph Bellamy, Greer Garson, Hume Cronyn and Jean Hagen.
The Happiest Millionaire is a 1967 American musical film starring Fred MacMurray, based upon the true story of Philadelphia millionaire Anthony Drexel Biddle. The film, featuring music by the Sherman Brothers, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design by Bill Thomas. The screenplay by A. J. Carothers was adapted from the play, based on the book My Philadelphia Father by Cordelia Drexel Biddle. Walt Disney acquired the rights to the play in the early 1960s. The film was the last live-action musical film to be produced by Disney before his death on December 15, 1966.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a 1956 American drama film starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones, with Fredric March, Lee J. Cobb, Keenan Wynn and Marisa Pavan in support. Based on the 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson, it was written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, and focuses on Tom Rath, a young World War II veteran trying to balance the pressures of his marriage to an ambitious wife and growing family with the demands of a career while dealing with ongoing after-effects of his war service and a new high-stress job.
Marcia Davenport was an American writer and music critic. She is best known for her 1932 biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the first American published biography of Mozart. Davenport also is known for her novels The Valley of Decision and East Side, West Side, both of which were adapted to film in 1945 and 1949, respectively.
I Was a Communist for the FBI is a 1951 American crime film noir produced by Bryan Foy, directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Frank Lovejoy.
Julius Caesar is a 1953 American film adaptation of the Shakespearean play, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by John Houseman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It stars Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, James Mason as Brutus, Louis Calhern as Caesar, John Gielgud as Cassius, Edmond O'Brien as Casca, Greer Garson as Calpurnia, and Deborah Kerr as Portia.
Ziegfeld Follies is a 1945 American musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, primarily directed by Vincente Minnelli, with segments directed by Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, and George Sidney, the film's original director before Minnelli took over. Other directors that are claimed to have made uncredited contributions to the film are Merrill Pye, Norman Taurog, and Charles Walters. It stars many MGM leading talents, including Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, James Melton, Victor Moore, William Powell, Red Skelton, and Esther Williams.
Pride and Prejudice is a 1940 American film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, adapted specifically from the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome, in addition to Jane Austen's novel.
Yellow Sky is a 1948 American Western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, and Anne Baxter. The story is believed to be loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The screenplay concerns a band of reprobate outlaws who flee after a bank robbery and encounter an old man and his granddaughter in a ghost town.
Abbott and Costello in Hollywood is a 1945 American black-and-white comedy film directed by S. Sylvan Simon and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello alongside Frances Rafferty. Made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it was produced by Martin A. Gosch.
Sons and Lovers is a 1960 British period drama film directed by Jack Cardiff and adapted by Gavin Lambert and T. E. B. Clarke from the semi-autobiographical 1913 novel of the same name by D. H. Lawrence. It stars Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller, Mary Ure, and Heather Sears.
The Green Years is a 1946 American drama film directed by Victor Saville and featuring Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler and Hume Cronyn. It was adapted by Robert Ardrey and Sonya Levien from A. J. Cronin's 1944 novel of the same name. It tells the story of the coming-of-age of an Irish orphan in Scotland.
The Valley of Decision is an historical novel by the American writer Marcia Davenport (1903–1996). It was a national bestseller in the 1940s and adapted into a film, The Valley of Decision, in 1945.
Gregory Peck (1916–2003) was an American actor who had an extensive career in film, television, radio, and on stage. Peck's breakthrough role was as a Catholic priest who attempts to start a mission in China in the 1944 film The Keys of the Kingdom, for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the same year, he played Count Vronsky in a radio adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. He followed this by starring in Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Spellbound (1945) with Ingrid Bergman. In the late 1940s, Peck received three more nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles as a caring father in The Yearling (1946), a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to write an exposé on American antisemitism in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and a brave airman in Twelve O'Clock High (1949).
