Greer Garson of World War II in "Mrs. Miniver". ("Guinness Book of World Records" credits her with the longest Oscar acceptance speech, at five minutes and 30 seconds, after which the Academy Awards instituted a time limit.) In 1942, Garson also co-starred in the powerful, dramatic film "Random Harvest" with Academy Award winner Ronald Colman. Set at the end of World War I with Ronald Colman as a shell-shocked, amnesiac soldier and Greer Garson as his love interest, "Random Harvest" received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It lost to "Mrs. Miniver", and Garson won the Academy Award for that role.
Norma Shearer free his mother from a concentration camp. With increasing interest in the war in Europe, the film performed well at the box office, but Shearer made errors in judgement, passing up roles in the highly successful films "Now, Voyager" and "Mrs. Miniver", to star in "We Were Dancing" and "Her Cardboard Lover" (1942), which both failed at the box office. In 1942, Shearer unofficially retired from acting. After Thalberg's unexpected death on September 14, 1936, Shearer retained a lawyer to ensure that Thalberg's percentages of films on which he had worked were still paid to his estate, which was contested