Greta Gynt

Posted August 23, 201113 yr

Greta Gynt (November 15, 1916 – April 2, 2000), born Margrethe Woxholt, was a Norwegian singer, dancer and actress.

Biography

Greta Gynt was born Margrethe Woxholt in Oslo, Norway. As a child, she came with her parents to England and started dancing lessons at the age of 5. Eventually, they moved back to Norway. At age 12, she started out as a dancer at the Chat Noir shows in Oslo. After the Swedish film Sången till henne (1934), her mother, costume designer Kirsten Woxholt, felt her daughter would have better luck in England. She got a letter of recommendation from Fox Film and moved to the UK.

She played lead roles in minor British films in the 1930s and 40s. The Rank Organisation was trying to market her as the British Jean Harlow.[citation needed] She also tried an unsuccessful career in the US, and went back to England afterwards.

Her most famous film is the 1939 Béla Lugosi film The Human Monster. In the film, she plays Diana Stewart and her portrayal is not a cowardly leading lady à la Fay Wray in King Kong (1933) or Lugosi's other leading ladies. Gynt's Diana is a headstrong woman and stands up to him. Her last film was a Columbia Pictures release - the 1963 (released 1966) The Runaway in which she played the lead.

As an actress, she had a style that people liked and a true gift for cinema acting. Her English accent was by far considered the best from a Scandinavian actress. Neither Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Liv Ullmann nor Sonja Henie could match her fluency in the adopted language. Her talent survives in three movies - Mr Emmanuel (1944), Take My Life and Dear Murderer (both 1947)

Personal life

Reportedly, she adopted the name Gynt after she heard a pianist playing Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite in a hotel in London in the late 1930s.

Gynt was married four times. Her last husband was Frederick Moore, a plastic surgeon, who died in 1983. She was the sister of underwater photographer Gil Woxholt who photographed underwater scenes in the 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark.

Selected filmography

The Last Curtain (1937)

She Couldn't Say No (1939)

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939)

The Human Monster aka The Dark Eyes of London (1939)

Bulldog Sees It Through (1939)

The Middle Watch (1940)

Two for Danger (1940)

Crook's Tour (1941)

The Common Touch (1941)

Tomorrow We Live (1943)

It's That Man Again (1943)