Maureen O'Hara

Maureen O'Hara (; 17 August 1920 – 24 October 2015) was a native Irish and naturalized American actress and singer, who became successful in Hollywood from the 1940s through to the 1960s. She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films. She worked with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous projects.

O'Hara was born into a Catholic family and raised in Dublin, Ireland. She aspired to become an actress from a very young age. She trained with the Rathmines Theatre Company from the age of 10 and at the Abbey Theatre from the age of 14. She was given a screen test, which was deemed unsatisfactory, but Charles Laughton saw potential in her, and arranged for her to co-star with him in Alfred Hitchcock's '' Jamaica Inn'' in 1939. She moved to Hollywood the same year to appear with him in the production of '' The Hunchback of Notre Dame'', and was given a contract by RKO Pictures. From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career, and acquired the nickname "the Queen of Technicolor".

O'Hara appeared in films such as '' How Green Was My Valley'' (1941) (her first collaboration with John Ford), '' The Black Swan'' with Tyrone Power (1942), '' The Spanish Main'' (1945), ''Sinbad the Sailor'' (1947), the Christmas classic '' Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947) with John Payne and Natalie Wood, and '' Comanche Territory'' (1950). O'Hara made her first film with John Wayne, the actor with whom she is most closely associated, in ''Rio Grande'' (1950); this was followed by '' The Quiet Man'' (1952), '' The Wings of Eagles'' (1957), '' McLintock!'' (1963), and '' Big Jake'' (1971). Such was her strong chemistry with Wayne that many assumed they were married or in a relationship. In the 1960s, O'Hara increasingly turned to more motherly roles as she aged, appearing in films such as '' The Deadly Companions'' (1961), '' The Parent Trap'' (1961), and '' The Rare Breed'' (1966). She retired from the industry in 1971, but returned 20 years later to appear with John Candy in '' Only the Lonely'' (1991).

In the late 1970s, O'Hara helped run her third husband Charles F. Blair Jr.'s flying business in Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands, and edited a magazine, but later sold them to spend more time in Glengarriff in Ireland. She was married three times, and had one daughter, Bronwyn, with her second husband. Her autobiography, '' 'Tis Herself'', published in 2004, became a ''New York Times'' bestseller. In 2009, ''The Guardian'' named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. In November 2014, she was presented with an Honorary Academy Award with the inscription "To Maureen O'Hara, one of Hollywood's brightest stars, whose inspiring performances glowed with passion, warmth and strength". In 2020, she was ranked number one on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Early life and education

Born on 17 August 1920, O'Hara began life as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. She stated that she was "born into the most remarkable and eccentric family I could have possibly hoped for". She was the second-eldest of six children of Charles and Marguerite (née Lilburn) FitzSimons, and the only red-headed child in the family. Her father was in the clothing business and bought into Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara supported from childhood.

O'Hara inherited her singing voice from her mother, a former operatic contralto and successful women's clothier, who in her younger years was widely considered to have been one of Ireland's most beautiful women. She noted that whenever her mother left the house, men would leave their houses just so they could catch a glimpse of her in the street. O'Hara's siblings were Peggy, the eldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot, and Jimmy. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, becoming a Sister of Charity.

O'Hara earned the nickname "Baby Elephant" for being a pudgy infant. A tomboy, she enjoyed fishing in the River Dodder, riding horses, swimming, and soccer, and would play boys' games and climb trees.

O'Hara was so keen on soccer that at one point, she pressed her father to found a women's team, and professed that Glenmalure Park, the home ground of Shamrock Rovers F.C., became "like a second home". She enjoyed fighting, and trained in judo as a teenager. She later admitted that she was jealous of boys in her youth and the freedom they had, and that they could steal apples from orchards and not get into trouble.

O'Hara first attended the John Street West Girls' School near Thomas Street in Dublin's Liberties Area. She began dancing at the age of 5, when a fortune teller predicted that she would become rich and famous, and she would boast to friends as they sat in her back garden that she would "become the most famous actress in the world". Her enthusiastic family fully supported the idea. When she recited a poem on stage in school at the age of six, O'Hara immediately felt an attraction to performing in front of an audience. From that age she trained in drama, music, and dance along with her siblings at the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama and Elocution in Dublin. Their affinity with the arts prompted O'Hara to refer to the family as the "Irish von Trapp family".

At the age of 10, O'Hara joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and began working in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons. One of her earliest roles was Robin Hood in a Christmas pantomime. O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress. By the age of 12, O'Hara had reached the height of , and it worried her mother for a while that she would become "the tallest girl" in Ireland as Maureen's father was . She expressed relief when O'Hara only grew another two inches.

At the age of 14, O'Hara joined the Abbey Theatre. Though she was mentored by playwright Lennox Robinson, she found her time at the theatre disappointing. In 1934, at the age of 15, she won the first Dramatic Prize of the national competition of the performing arts, the Dublin Feis Award, for her performance as Portia in ''The Merchant of Venice''. She trained as a shorthand typist, working for Crumlin Laundry before joining Eveready Battery Company, where she worked as a typist and bookkeeper. She later put her skills to use when she typed the script of ''The Quiet Man'' for John Ford.

In 1936, she became the youngest pupil to graduate from the Guildhall School of Music at the time, and the following year, she won the Dawn Beauty Competition, winning £50. As she matured into a young woman, O'Hara, like many actresses, became increasingly self-conscious, which affected her for a while. In one performance, which was watched by her father from the back of the theatre, O'Hara "sensed there was someone out front watching me, perhaps critically. My arms felt like lead. I gave a rotten show that night. I grew up with the terrible feeling that I was being laughed at".

Film career

Early career (1937–1940)

At the age of 17, O'Hara was offered her first major role at the Abbey Theatre, but was distracted by the attentions of actor-singer Harry Richman. Richman arranged with the manager of the Gresham Hotel in Dublin to meet her at the hotel while she was dining with her family. He proposed that she go to Elstree Studios for a screen test and become a film actress. O'Hara arrived in London shortly afterwards with her mother. During the screen test, the studio adorned her in a "gold lamé dress with flapping sleeves like wings" and heavy makeup with an ornate hair style, which was deemed to be far from satisfactory. O'Hara detested the audition, during which she had to walk in and pick up a telephone. She recalled thinking to herself, "My God, get me back to the Abbey". Charles Laughton later saw the test and, despite the overdone makeup and costume, was intrigued, paying particular notice to her large and expressive eyes. After seeking the approval of his business partner Erich Pommer, they arranged to meet O'Hara through a talent agency run by Connie Chapman and Vere Barker. Laughton was impressed with O'Hara, particularly by her lack of nerves and refusal to read an extract upon his request unprepared, during which she said: "I am very sorry but absolutely no". She was offered an initial seven-year contract with their new company, Mayflower Pictures. Though her family were shocked at her being given a contract so young, they accepted, and O'Hara traveled across Ireland in celebration before arriving back in London to commence her film career. O'Hara later stated that "I owe my whole career to Mr. Pommer".

O'Hara made her screen debut in Walter Forde's '' Kicking the Moon Around'' (1938), although she did not consider it a part of her filmography. Richman had introduced her to Forde at Elstree Studios, but as she was not cast in the film in a notable role, she agreed to deliver one line in it as a favor to Richman for helping with her screen test. Laughton arranged for her to appear in the low-budget musical ''My Irish Molly'' (1938), the only film she made under her real name, Maureen FitzSimons. In the film, she plays a woman named Eiléen O'Shea, who rescues an orphan girl named Molly. Biographer Aubrey Malone stated of it: "One could argue that O'Hara never looked as enticing as she does in ''Little Miss Molly'', even if she isn't 'Maureen O'Hara' quite yet. She wears no makeup, and there's no Hollywood glamour, but despite (or because of?) that, she is rapturously beautiful. Her accent is thick, which is perhaps why she didn't mention the film much. It also looks as if it were made in the 1920s rather than the 1930s, so primitive are the sets and characters". Malone added that though the lot was "ham-fisted", it is a "quaint film which O'Hara scholars should view if only to see early evidence of her natural instinct for dramatic timing and scene interpretation".

O'Hara's first major film role was that of Mary Yellen in '' Jamaica Inn'' (1939), directed by Alfred Hitchcock and co-starring Laughton. O'Hara portrayed the innkeeper's niece, an orphan who goes to live with her aunt and uncle at a Cornish tavern, a heroine which she describes as "torn between the love of her family and her love for a lawman in disguise". Laughton insisted that she change her name to the shorter "O'Mara" or "O'Hara", and she eventually decided on the latter after expressing contempt at both. When she said "I like Maureen FitzSimons and I want to keep it", Laughton replied with, "Very well, you're Maureen O'Hara." (O'Hara would later say that "nobody would ever get itzSimonsstraight.") O'Hara noted that Laughton had always wanted a daughter of his own, and treated her as such, and she later stated that Laughton's death in 1962 was like losing a parent. She worked well under Hitchcock, professing to have "never experienced the strange feeling of detachment with Hitchcock that many other actors claimed to have felt while working with him." On the contrary, Laughton was engaged in a bitter battle with Hitchcock throughout the production and resented many of Hitchcock's ideas, including changing the nature of the villain from the novel. Though ''Jamaica Inn'' is generally seen by critics and the director himself as one of his weakest films, O'Hara was praised, with one critic stating "the newcomer, Maureen O'Hara is charming to look at and distinct promise as an actress". Seeing the film was an eyeopener for O'Hara and change in self-perception, having always seen herself as a tomboy and realizing that on screen she was a woman of great beauty to others. When she returned to Ireland briefly after the film was completed it dawned on her that life would never be the same again, and she was hurt when she attempted to make pleasant conversation to some local girls and they rejected her advances, considering her to be very arrogant.

Laughton was so pleased with O'Hara's performance in ''Jamaica Inn'' that she was cast opposite him in '' The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' (1939) for RKO in Hollywood. She boarded the RMS ''Queen Mary'' with he and her mother to New York, and then traveled by train to Hollywood. O'Hara's agent, Lew Wasserman, arranged for a pay increase from $80 a week to $700 a week. As the new face of RKO, she garnered much attention from the Hollywood press and society before the film was even released, something that made her uncomfortable, as she felt that she was being viewed as a "novelty" and "people were making a fuss over me because of something I hadn't yet done, something they just thought I ''might'' do". O'Hara portrayed Esmeralda, a gypsy dancer who is imprisoned and later sentenced to death by the Parisian authorities. Director William Dieterle initially showed concern that O'Hara was too tall and disliked her wavy hair, asking for her to step under a shower to straighten it out. Filming commenced in the San Fernando Valley, at a time when it was experiencing its hottest summer in its history. O'Hara described it as a "physically demanding shoot", due to the heavy makeup and costume requirements, and recalls that she gasped at Laughton in makeup as Quasimodo, remarking, "Good God, Charles. Is that really you?" O'Hara insisted on doing her own stunts from the outset, and for the scene in which the hangman places a noose around her neck, no safety nets were used. The film was a commercial success, taking $3 million at the box office. O'Hara was generally praised for her performance though some critics thought that Laughton stole the show. One critic thought that was the strength of the film, writing: "The contrast between Laughton as the pathetic hunchback and O'Hara as the fresh-faced, tenderly solicitous gypsy girl is Hollywood teaming at its most inspired".

After the completion of ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'', World War II began, and Laughton, realizing his company could no longer film in London, sold O'Hara's contract to RKO. O'Hara later professed that this "broke my heart, I felt completely abandoned in a strange and faraway place". She next featured in John Farrow's '' A Bill of Divorcement'' (1940), a remake of George Cukor's 1932 film. O'Hara portrayed Sydney Fairchild, who was played by Katharine Hepburn in the original, in a film which she considered to have had a "screenplay hichwas mediocre at best". The production became difficult for O'Hara after Farrow reportedly made "suggestive comments" to her and began stalking her at home; once he realized that O'Hara was not interested in him sexually, he began bullying her on set. O'Hara punched him in the jaw one day, which put an end to the mistreatment. O'Hara's performance was criticized by reviewers, with the critic from '' The New York Sun'' writing that she "lacked the intensity and desperation it must have; nor does she seem to have a sparkle of humor". She next found a role as an aspiring ballerina who performs with a dance troupe in ''Dance, Girl, Dance'' (1940). She considered it to have been a physically demanding film, and felt intimidated by Lucille Ball during the production as she had been a former Ziegfeld and Goldwyn girl and was a superior dancer. The two remained friends for many years after the film was completed.

Hollywood success (1941–1943)

O'Hara began 1941 by appearing in ''They Met in Argentina'', RKO's answer to ''Down Argentine Way'' (1940). O'Hara later declared that she "knew it was going to be a stinker; terrible script, bad director, preposterous plot, forgettable music". She grew increasingly frustrated with the direction of her career at this time. Ida Zeitlin wrote that O'Hara had "reached a pitch of despair where she was about ready to throw in the towel, to break her contract, to collapse against the stone wall of indifference and howl like a baby wolf". She pleaded with her agent for a role, however small, in John Ford's upcoming film '' How Green Was My Valley'' (1941), at 20th Century Fox, a film about a close, hard-working Welsh mining family living in the heart of the South Wales Valleys in the 19th century. The film, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, began an artistic collaboration with Ford that would span 20 years and five feature films.

Her substantial role as Angharad, which she was given without a full-screen test, beating Katharine Hepburn and Gene Tierney to the part, proved to be her breakthrough role. It was made possible by a change to her contract with RKO, in which Fox bought the rights to feature O'Hara in one film each year. Ford developed a nickname for her, "Rosebud", and the two developed a long but turbulent friendship, with O'Hara often visiting Ford and his wife Mary in social visits and spending time aboard his yacht '' Araner''. Despite this, Ford was an unpredictable character with a mean streak, and in one instance he punched O'Hara in the jaw for some unknown reason, and she only took it from him because she wanted to show him she could take a punch like a man. The production of '' How Green Was My Valley'' was originally intended to be shot in the Rhondda Valley, but due to the war it had to be filmed in the San Fernando Valley, on a $1.25 million set, which took 150 builders six months to complete.

O'Hara recalled that Ford would allow her to improvise extensively during the filming, but was very much the boss, commenting that "nobody dared step out of line, which gave the performers a sense of security". O'Hara became such good friends with Anna Lee during the shooting that she later named her daughter Bronwyn after Lee's character. The film was lauded by the critics, and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning three, including Best Picture. Both O'Hara and co-star Walter Pidgeon, who played the minister, were praised for their performances, with ''Variety'' writing that "Maureen O'Hara splendid as the object of his unrequited love, who marries the mine owner's son out of pique".

Film historian Joseph McBride considered O'Hara's performance to have been the most emotionally powerful he'd seen since Katharine Hepburn in '' Mary of Scotland'' (1936). O'Hara stated that her favorite scene in the film took place outside the church after her character gets married, remarking, "I make my way down the steps to the carriage waiting below, the wind catches my veil and fans it out in a perfect circle all the way around my face. Then it floats straight up above my head and points to the heavens. It's breathtaking."

Malone notes that when the United States entered World War II in 1941, many of the better actors became involved in the war effort and O'Hara struggled to find good co-stars. He points out that she increasingly starred in adventure pictures, which allowed her to develop her acting and keep her profile high in Hollywood. O'Hara had next intended appearing opposite Tyrone Power in '' Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake'', but was hospitalized in early 1942, during which she had her appendix and two ovarian cysts removed at Reno Hospital. Producer Zanuck scoffed at the operation, thinking it was an excuse for a break. He passed it off as "probably a fragment left over from an abortion", which deeply offended her, as a devout Catholic.

O'Hara instead starred in the Technicolor war picture, ''To the Shores of Tripoli'', her first Technicolor picture and first on-screen partnership with John Payne, in which she portrayed Navy nurse Lieutenant Mary Carter. Though the film was a considerable commercial success, becoming a benchmark for "service pictures" of the era, O'Hara later commented that she "couldn't understand why the quality of his (Bruce Humberstone's) pictures never seemed to match their impressive box-office receipts". Malone wrote that "nobody in the film seemed to have lived life. The character's emotions, like their uniforms, seem too streamlined".

O'Hara next played an unconventional role as a timid socialite who joins the army as a cook in Henry Hathaway's ''Ten Gentlemen from West Point'' (1942), which tells the fictional story of the first class of the United States Military Academy in the early 19th century. The film was disagreeable to O'Hara because Payne dropped out and was replaced by George Montgomery, whom she found "positively loathsome". Montgomery attempted to make a pass at her during the production, prolonging his kiss with her after the director had yelled "cut". Later that year, O'Hara starred opposite Tyrone Power, George Sanders, Laird Cregar and Anthony Quinn in Henry King's swashbuckler '' The Black Swan''. O'Hara recalled that it was "everything you could want in a lavish pirate picture: a magnificent ship with thundering cannons; a dashing hero battling menacing villains ... sword fights; fabulous costumes ...". She found it exhilarating working with Power, who was renowned for his "wicked sense of humor". O'Hara grew very concerned about one scene in the picture in which she is thrown overboard in her underwear by Power, and sent a warning letter home to Ireland in advance. She refused to take her wedding ring off in one scene which resulted in screen adjustments to make it look like a dinner ring. Though the film was praised by critics and is seen as one of the period's most enjoyable adventure films, the critic from ''The New York Times'' thought O'Hara's character lacked depth, commenting that "Maureen O'Hara is brunette and beautiful—which is all the part requires".

O'Hara played the love interest of Henry Fonda in the 1943 war picture ''Immortal Sergeant''. O'Hara noted that Fonda was studying for his service entry exams at the time and had his head in books between takes, and that 20th Century Fox publicized one of the last love scenes between them in the film as Fonda's last screen kiss before entering the war. She next portrayed a European school teacher opposite George Sanders and Charles Laughton, in their last film together, in Jean Renoir's '' This Land Is Mine'' for RKO. At the end of a court case in the film, during a hearty speech by Laughton, O'Hara is shown teary-eyed on screen for a prolonged period. Malone thought her performance was effective, both crying and smiling, though considered Renoir to have overdone the film and confused the audience as a result.

Later, she had a role in Richard Wallace's '' The Fallen Sparrow'' opposite John Garfield, whom she described as "my shortest leading man, an outspoken Communist and a real sweetheart". Malone notes though that despite them getting on very well, Garfield did not rate her as an actress. He considers ''This Land is Mine'' and ''The Fallen Sparrow'' to have been two important pictures in O'Hara's career, "adding to her growing prestige in the film industry", helping her "crawl out from the gimcrack melodrama of adventure films".

The Queen of Technicolor (1944–1949)

Although O'Hara became known as the "Queen of Technicolor" (like Rhonda Fleming), she professed to dislike the process because it required special cameras and intense light that burned her eyes and gave her klieg eye. She believed that the term negatively affected her career, as most people viewed her solely as a beauty who looked good on film, rather than as a talented actress. In 1944 O'Hara was cast opposite Joel McCrea in William A. Wellman's biographical western ''Buffalo Bill''. Though O'Hara did not think that McCrea was rugged enough for the part of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and according to Malone gave her "little to work off", it did well at the box office. Contrary to O'Hara's opinion, ''Variety'' was highly praising of the film, describing it as a "super-western and often a tear-jerker", and thought that McCrea was convincing in the part and that O'Hara's own performance was "satisfactory".

In 1945, O'Hara starred opposite Paul Henreid in '' The Spanish Main'' as feisty noblewoman Contessa Francesca, the daughter of a Mexican viceroy. O'Hara described it as "one of my more decorative roles", as her character is a particularly aggressive one among the men on a ship, and during the course of the film her face is smothered in chimney soot. O'Hara almost did not win the role when another actress falsely told RKO executive Joe Nolan that she was "as big as a horse" after giving birth to a daughter in 1944. Around this time "an actress named Kathryn" also falsely accused O'Hara of making sexual advances towards her in an elevator, which she believed was a way for the actress to gain attention at the start of her career. During the production of ''The Spanish Main'', O'Hara was visited by John Ford, who was initially turned away for being shabbily dressed, but was later admitted. He informed her about the project that would become '' The Quiet Man'' (1952). Malone notes that in the film O'Hara "shows her determination not to leave her sexuality at the birthing stool", commenting that she looks "deliciously fragrant in the splashy histrionics on view here, in RKO's first film in the three-color Technicolor process" O'Hara became a naturalized citizen of the United States on 24 January 1946, and held dual citizenship with the United States and her native Ireland.

In the same year, she portrayed an actress with a fatal heart condition in Walter Lang's '' Sentimental Journey''. A commercially successful production, O'Hara described it as a "rip-your-heart-out tearjerker that reduced my agents and the toughest brass at Fox to mush when they saw it". It was poorly received by critics, and was later declared by Harvard as the worst film of all time. One critic attacked O'Hara as "just another one of those precious Hollywood juvenile products who in workday life would benefit from a good hiding", while Bosley Crowther dismissed the film as a "compound of hackneyed situations, maudlin dialogue and preposterously bad acting". In Gregory Ratoff's musical ''Do You Love Me'', O'Hara portrayed a prim, bespectacled music school dean who transforms herself into a desirable, sophisticated lady in the big city. She commented that it was "one of the worst pictures I ever made". It frustrated her that she could not put her talents to good use, to not even sing in it.

O'Hara was offered roles in ''The Razor's Edge'' (1946), which went to Tierney, John Wayne's film ''Tycoon'' (1947), which went to Laraine Day, and Bob Hope's '' The Paleface'', which went to Jane Russell. She turned down the role in ''The Paleface'' as she was going through a turbulent period in her personal life and "didn't think I would be able to laugh every day and have fun". She later deeply regretted turning it down and confessed that she'd made a "terrible mistake". In 1947, O'Hara starred opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Shireen in the adventure film ''Sinbad the Sailor''. O'Hara plays a glamorous adventuress who assists Sinbad (Fairbanks) locate the hidden treasure of Alexander the Great. She found the scenario to be "ridiculous", but stated that it made a "pot of money for RKO — action-adventures almost always did". Malone wrote: "O'Hara looks splendid and gets to wear some of the most stunning costumes of her career — a different one in almost every scene — but her dialogue is floridly empty. She exudes potential in early scenes, where her air of sybaritic slyness seems promise she'll be something more than window dressing", but thought the film "totally lacked drama". The critic from ''The New York Times'' thought that O'Hara excessive costume changes made watching her an "exhausting" experience".

After a role as the Bostonian love interest of Cornel Wilde in Humberstone's '' The Homestretch'' (1947), O'Hara had grown frustrated with Hollywood and took a considerable break to return to her native Ireland, where people thought she did not look well, having lost a lot of weight. While there she received a call from 20th Century Fox to portray the role of Doris Walker, the mother of Susan Walker (played by a young Natalie Wood) in the Christmas film, '' Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947). It became a perennial Christmas classic, with a traditional network television airing every Thanksgiving Day on NBC. On Natalie Wood, O'Hara said: "I have been mother to almost forty children in movies, but I always had a special place in my heart for little Natalie. She always called me Mamma Maureen and I called her Natasha ... when Natalie and I shot the scenes in Macy's, we had to do them at night because the store was full of people doing their Christmas shopping during the day. Natalie loved this because it meant she was allowed to stay up late. I really enjoyed this time with Natalie. We loved to walk through the quiet, closed store and look at all the toys and girls' dresses and shoes. The day she died, I cried shamelessly". The film garnered several awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

In O'Hara's last film of 1947, she played a Creole woman opposite Rex Harrison in John M. Stahl's ''The Foxes of Harrow''; the film was set in pre-Civil War New Orleans