Walter Pidgeon of his better known roles was in "The Dark Command", where he portrayed the villain (loosely based on American Civil War guerrilla William C. Quantrill) opposite John Wayne, Claire Trevor, and a young Roy Rogers. It was not until he starred in the Academy Award-winning Best Picture "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) that his popularity returned. He then starred opposite Greer Garson in "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Mrs. Miniver" (1942) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) and its sequel, "The Miniver Story" in 1950. He was also nominated in 1944 for "Madame
Arthur Wimperis during the Battle of the Atlantic, his ship was torpedoed, and he was one of just eight survivors of the 32 people who had been in the same lifeboat. He won an Academy Award for Best Writing for his contribution to the screenplay of "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), in which he also had a small acting part. He was also nominated for another Oscar for his contribution to the screenplay of "Random Harvest" (1942). His later films included "If Winter Comes" (1947), "Julia Misbehaves" (1948), "The Red Danube" (1949), "That Forsyte Woman" (1949), "Calling Bulldog Drummond" (1951), "Young Bess" (1953) and