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.
Mrs. Miniver (character) The columns were first published in book form in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Struther stopped the regular newspaper columns that year, but wrote a series of letters from Mrs. Miniver, expanding on the character's wartime experiences. These were published in later editions. The book became an enormous success, especially in the United States, where Struther went on a lecture tour shortly after the book's release. The U.S. was still officially neutral, but as war with Nazi Germany intensified in Europe, the tribulations of the Miniver family engaged the sympathy of the American public sufficiently that