Greer should be filmed in Technicolor to do her justice. Black and white gives no hint of the burnished copper tones of her mass of fine and fluffy hair, or the whiteness of her skin which portrays a natural red head or the oval depths of her eyes which she insists are the press agent green.

Grattis på födelsedagen Greta Garbo | 18 September, 1905 - 15 April, 1990

For the denizens of the first half of the twentieth century, when such images still counted, Garbo was the moviegoing experience—theory and practice alike. Some quirk of Nature and Art created a face, a personality, and an erotic presence unprecedented in history. In a way, she could hardly be held accountable for the person she became. Garbo was an anomaly, not a mystery. She was something to be experienced rather than adored, but people did both. And as that experience and adoration continue, so does the restless resistance of her spirit.

Happy Birthday Claudette Colbert | 13 September, 1903 - 30 July, 1996

Taken in the proper context, not to care about what other people think of one can be a great psychological strength. If you live only for the opinions of others, you’ll never leave your imprint. Some people like me. Some people don’t. You can never get everyone to like you, and why knock oneself out trying? All that matters is to try to do one’s best, and operate along common-sense lines.

“Working with Claudette was one of my most delightful experiences. Now there was a consummate professional! She gave 150 percent to every scene she did, yet there was always a beautiful restraint and control. I always felt Claudette, underneath her gaiety and charm and warmth, was an extremely tough woman. She knew how to roll with the punches and she was sensitive to the moods of the people around her and reacted accordingly, always positively! ”- Joseph Cotten

As for fitness, this lithe 78-year-old still climbs trees. Last spring while preparing for the Presidential visit, Claudette spotted a branch that needed pruning. When her gardener couldn’t see it, “I climbed the tree to show him. You do all you can to keep in shape. Of course, one changes with age. You have to learn to keep the charm you’ve had but not try to be younger than you are.”

“Claudette was really a Renaissance woman - a modern woman ahead of her times.”

Fifty years ago, she was lured from Broadway to cross the bridge and try her charms on the thriving sound stages in Queens, N.Y. Claudette Colbert made ten films there with the likes of Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier and Edward G. Robinson, while continuing to do plays. But the Astoria movie studio eventually faded away, and Colbert left the Big Apple for Hollywood glory. Last week the French-born actress was back in Queens for a day at the revamped Kaufman Astoria studio, where a renovated building with the largest sound stage outside Hollywood was named in her honor. “I feel sensational and really a little sentimental,” said Colbert, who looked both. Indeed, it was hard to say which of her selves was lovelier as she delightedly encountered a cardboard cutout from her film Cleopatra, which she made at 31.

I got into uniform for the Hollywood Chapter of Bundles for Bluejackets, helping to run the Naval Auxiliary Canteen at Long Beach, sharing the night shift with Kay Francis. Kay was part of a group of friends from Arthur’s first marriage that sort of stuck with him after I came in. Edmund Lowe and George Fitzmaurice were others. They were a sophisticated bunch, Kay most of all. She was a little ahead of her time, using four-letter words that shocked me terribly; but I liked her. We shared a reality beyond titles and organizations at Long Beach, handing out coffee and doughnuts and whatever reassurance we could to draftees bound for Hawaii. We saw untrained kids inducted, all so young and bewildered, an endless stream totally unprepared for war. It broke our hearts.

- Myrna Loy

Here was a siren who had depth, strength, dignity, and humor, who could inspire great trust, suggest deep intellect and whose misty languorous eyes melted your heart away!

Christopher Plummer

“When Greer Garson starts a picture in a bubble bath, that’s news!” Such was the publicity issued from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on January 16, 1948, as Greer prepared for the opening scene of Julia Misbehaves. As she sat, chatting gaily with the crew before a warm bathtub filled with Ardena Fluff Milk Bath while her hairdresser, Edith Hubner, swept her hair up into a curly mass, she seemed like her old self. She was pleased that despite a “No admittance” sign on the sound stage door, a steady line of friendly well-wishers crowded their way into the eight-foot-square replica of an English bathroom. While Jack Conway and Joe Ruttenberg prepared to film the scene, prop man Tony Ordoqui kept filling the tub with bubbles. Irene was there to check on Greer’s skin-colored bathing suit. Al Block, the studio censor, moved about nervously, anxiously second-guessing the Production Code’s view on modesty. Finally Conway shooed everyone out except Walter Pidgeon. “After all,” Pidgeon argued, “as an actor who has been married to Greer Garson four times, I should have some privileges.”

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