Star Archive


Greta Gynt (1916 - 2000)

Every era has actors who are more famous for their glamour and the headlines they provoke than for the roles they play. For the war years and the immediate post-war period, that position was filled by Greta Gynt.

She was originally Norwegian, born Margarethe Woxholt, and first came to England at the age of three when her father moved for work. She was educated in a Norwegian convent school. Her mother was a costume designer from whom Gynt got her love of theatre. Her first film was in Norway but she moved to Britain permanently in 1936 and got stage work. The first of her four husbands was her agent, though the most significant influence on her career was the producer Filippo Del Giudice whose mistress she became.

Her first significant role was in The Arsenal Stadium Mystery as one of the chief suspects, though it was the Arsenal team that was the main selling point. From then on she added glamour to the drab war years, mostly as foils to light comics, getting a grittier role in Mr Emmanuel. Her best period was post-war where she became a woman worth dying, and killing, for in melodramas. The inevitable brief visit to Hollywood put an end to this bright period and her career petered out in unmemorable films. Her last marriage, to a plastic surgeon lasted 25 years until his death.     

Publicity shot for Greta GyntGreta Gynt in Take My LifeGreta Gynt in The Shadow of the Eagle   

Filmography 

1934 Sången till henne
1935 It Happened in Paris
1936 Boys Will Be Girls
1937 The Last Curtain
1938 Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror
1938 Second Best Bed
1938 The Last Barricade
1939 Too Dangerous to Live
1939 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery
1940 The Dark Eyes of London
1940 She Couldn't Say No
1940 The Middle Watch
1940 Bulldog Sees it Through
1940 Two for Danger
1940 Room for Two
1941 Crooks' Tour
1941 The Common Touch
1943 Tomorrow We Live
1943 It's That Man Again
1944 Mr Emmanuel
1946 London Town
1947 Take My Life
1947 Dear Murderer
1948 Easy Money
1948 The Calendar
1948 Mr Perrin and Mr Traill
1950 Whispering Smith Hits London
1951 I'll Get You for This
1951 Soldiers Three (US)
1952 The Ringer
1953 Three Steps in the Dark
1954 The Last Moment
1954 Destination Milan
1954 Forbidden Cargo
1954 Devil's Point
1955 Born for Trouble
1955 The Blue Peter
1956 My Wife's Family
1957 Morning Call
1957 Fortune is a Woman
1959 The Witness
1959 The Crowning Touch
1960 Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons
1963 The Runaway
 

 Greta Gynt at Amazon UK

 Greta Gynt at Amazon US