Maureen O'Hara

This article is about the actress and singer. For the financial economist, see Maureen O'Hara (professor).

Maureen O'Hara
O'Hara in 1947
Born	Maureen FitzSimons (1920-08-17)17 August 1920 Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland
Died	24 October 2015(2015-10-24) (aged 95) Boise, Idaho, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer
Years active	1938–1973 1991–2000
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse(s)	George H. Brown (m. 1939; ann. 1941) Will Price (m. 1941; div. 1953) Charles F. Blair, Jr. (m. 1968; wid. 1978)
Children	Bronwyn FitzSimons (born Bronwyn Bridget Price; 30 June 1944)

Maureen O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons; 17 August 1920 – 24 October 2015) was an Irish-American actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara was known for her beauty and playing fiercely passionate but sensible heroines, often in westerns and adventure films. She worked on numerous occasions with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne, and was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

From an early age, she wanted to become an actress and took lessons. She was given a screen test, which was deemed unsatisfactory, but Charles Laughton saw something in her when he later saw it. He arranged for her to co-star with him in the Alfred Hitchcock 1939 British film Jamaica Inn. She also co-starred with him in the Hollywood production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, released the same year. From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career, and acquired the nickname "The Queen of Technicolor". She made a number of films with John Wayne – the actor with whom she is most closely associated – and director John Ford, often both together in the same production, including The Quiet Man (1952). She also starred in swashbucklers such as The Black Swan (1942), opposite Tyrone Power, and Sinbad the Sailor (1947), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as well as the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947), with John Payne, Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn.

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". After Myrna Loy, O'Hara was only the second actress to receive an Academy Award for acting without having been nominated previously. Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, was published in 2004 and was a New York Times Bestseller.

Early life and education

O'Hara was born on 17 August 1920, and began life as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh She was the second oldest of six children of Charles and Marguerite (nėe Lilburn) FitzSimons, and the only red headed sibling in the family. Her father was in the clothing business and also bought into Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara supported from childhood. She inherited her beauty and singing voice from her mother, a former operatic contralto and successful women's clothier who in her younger years was widely considered to be one of Ireland's most beautiful women. O'Hara 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 oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot, and Jimmy. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, becoming a Sister of Charity.

"I was a blunt child—blunt almost to the point of rudeness. I told the truth and shamed all the devils. I didn't take disciple very well. I would never be slapped in school. If a teacher had slapped me I would have bitten her. I guess I was a bold, bad child, but it was exciting. When I went to the Dominican College later on I did not have beaux as the other girls did. There was one lad who followed me around for two years. He told me at last that he never once dared to speak to me because I looked as though I would bite his head off if I did".

—O'Hara on her childhood personality.

O'Hara earned the nickname "Baby Elephant" for being a pudgy infant. A tom boy, she enjoyed fishing in the River Dodder, riding horses, swimming and Gaelic football, and would play boys games and climb trees. O'Hara was so keen on Gaelic football that at one point she pressed her father to found a women's team, and professed that Glenmalure Park, the home ground of the Rovers, became "like a second home". She enjoyed fighting, and trained in judo as a teenager. She later professed that she displayed a jealousy towards 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 gypsy 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 6, O'Hara immediately felt an attraction to performing in front of an audience. From the age of 6 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 to the arts left O'Hara referring to the family as the "Irish Von Trapp family".

At the age of 10 O'Hara joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and portrayed Robin Hood in a Christmas pantomime, working in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons. 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 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m), and it worried her mother for a while that she would become "the tallest girl" in Ireland as Maureen's father was 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m). 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 and book keeper, and later put her skills to use when she typed the script of The Quiet Man for John Ford.

In 1936 O'Hara 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 O'Hara 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 (1937–40)

"On the screen was a girl. She looked at least 35, she was over done up... very made up face, and her hair in an over grand style, but just for a split perfect second light was on her face and you could see as the girl turned her head around your extraordinarily beautiful profile, which was absolutely invisible among all your makeup. Well Mr. Pommer and I sent for you and you came and blew into the office like a hurricane. You had a tweed suit on with hair sticking out and coming from Ireland. You blew into the office and said [in Irish accent] "Watchya want with me". I took you out for lunch and I never forgot when I asked you why you wanted to be an actress. I'll never forget your reply. You said "When I was a child I used to go down the garden, talk to the flowers and pretend I was the flower talking back to myself. And you had to be a pretty nice girl and had to be a pretty good actress too. And heavens knows you're both".

—Charles Laughton addressing O'Hara with his fond memories of spotting her at the age of 17.

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, who arranged with the manager of the Gresham Hotel in Dublin to meet her at the hotel while she was dining with her family. Richman proposed that she go to Elstree Studios for a screen test and become a film actress, and she never looked back. O'Hara arrived in London 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 and recalled thinking to herself, "My God, get me back to the Abbey". However, actor Charles Laughton later saw the test and, despite the overdone makeup and costume, was intrigued, paying particular notice to her large and expressive eyes. Laughton subsequently asked his business partner Erich Pommer to see the film clip. Pommer agreed with Laughton, and through a talent agency run by Connie Chapman and Vere Barker, arranged for O'Hara to meet with him and Laughton. 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 he family were shell shocked at her being given a contract so young, they accepted, and O'Hara travelled 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), which she didn't consider 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 came in 1939 with Jamaica Inn, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and co-starring Laughton. O'Hara portrayed the innkeeper's niece Mary Yellen, 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 and O'Hara, and eventually decided on the latter after expressing contempt at both. O'Hara would later say that "nobody would ever get [FitzSimons] straight", and 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 noted that Laughton had always wanted a daughter of his own, and treated her as such. 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." Laughton on the other hand 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 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.

O'Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

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 him and her mother and moved 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 media and in Hollywood before the film was even released. which 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. Filming commenced in the San Fernando Valley, at a time when the city 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. Though the film faced stiff competition from Gone With the Wind, it 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 though that was the strength of the film, writing: "The contrast betwene 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, realising his company could no longer film in London, sold O'Hara's contract to RKO. 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, which was played by Katharine Hepburn in the original, in a film which she considered to have a "screenplay [which] was mediocre at best". The production was problematic after Farrow, who had a soft spot for Irish women named Maureen (he was married to Maureen O'Sullivan, whom the public often confused her with) realized that she'd rejected his advances. Farrow reportedly made "suggestive comments" to her on set and showed up at her house with a meal, and on one occasion drove around the block to her house several times until Farrow's car left before returning home. He became a bully on set when he realized that O'Hara wasn't interested in him sexually, but the feisty 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, one which she "struggled to get it right". O'Hara felt intimidated by Lucille Ball during the production as she had been a former Ziegfeld and Goldwyn girl and was a superior dancer. Critic Molly Haskell thought that O'Hara was "a little out of her depth in a vaudeville house, not exactly the temple of high art". Upon release, the film was later "annexed by feminist critics" because the original director Roy Del Ruth was replaced by the female Dorothy Arzner, rare at the time.

Hollywood success (1941–43)

O'Hara in How Green Was My Valley (1941)

O'Hara began 1941 by appearing in They Met in Argentina, RKO's answer to Down Argentine Way (1940). O'Hara later professed 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". O'Hara 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 twenty years and five feature films". Her substantial role as Angharad, which she was given without a screen test, beating Katherine Hepburn and Gene Tierney to the part, proved to be her breakthrough role. The role 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 term 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 itself, 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 met actress Anna Lee on set of the film, and she later wrote the foreword to Lee's memoir, recalling that she had a "great sense of humor, which brought a lovely element of fun to the shoot of the movie". O'Hara stated that such was the friendship that she 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 as 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 mineowner’s son out of pique". Film historian Joseph McBride considered O'Hara's performance to have been the most powerful and intense emotionally 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."

With Tyrone Power in the trailer for The Black Swan (1942)

Malone notes that when the United States entered World War II in 1942, many of the quality actors became involved in the war effort and O'Hara struggled to find good co-stars. He notes that she increasingly starred in adventure pictures, which though weren't classics, allowed her to developing 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.

O'Hara instead starred in the Technicolor war picture, To the Shores of Tripoli, her 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 in Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942)

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 "John Payne dropped out" and was replaced with George Montgomery, whom she found "positively loathsome". Montgomery attempted to make a pass for her during the production and she rejected his advances. Montgomery insisted on prolonging his kisses with O'Hara after the director had yelled "cut", and O'Hara dismissed him by remarking, "You bore me". Later that year, O'Hara starred opposite Tyrone Power, 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..." and 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 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 she was effective at both crying and smiling, though considered Renoir to have overdone the film, which ends up confusing the audience. 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 didn't 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 (1944–49)

"Ms. O'Hara was called the Queen of Technicolor, because when that film process first came into use, nothing seemed to show off its splendor better than her rich red hair, bright green eyes and flawless peaches-and-cream complexion. One critic praised her in an otherwise negative review of the 1950 film "Comanche Territory" with the sentiment "Framed in Technicolor, Miss OHara somehow seems more significant than a setting sun." Even the creators of the process claimed her as its best advertisement."

—Anita Gates of The New York Times on O'Hara as "The Queen of Technicolor".

In 1944 O'Hara was cast opposite Joel McCrea in William A. Wellman's biographical western Buffalo Bill. Though she considered McCrea to be a "very nice man, a good actor", she didn't think that he was rugged enough for the part of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. She noted that though the film was largely seen negatively by critics, it did well at the box office, probably because of its "masterful use of Technicolor". Biographer Aubrey Malone noted that McCrea "gives her little to work off. She has no lines to help her scenes reach liftoff, so she must content herself with being part of his reflected glory". Contrary to O'Hara's belief that the film was critically panned, 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".

O'Hara with Paul Henreid in The Spanish Main in 1945

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 didn't 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. During the production she was visited by John Ford, who was initially turned away for being shabbily dressed, but was later admitted to inform 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 US 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". Critically it was poorly received, and was later declared by Harvard as the worst film of all time. One critic attacked O'Hara with saying "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 was 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. Neither Dick Haymes nor Harry James could save it. It was rocky from the start, and a bad omen for worse to come". It frustrated her that she could not put her talents to good use, to not even sing in it.

With Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the trailer for Sinbad the Sailor (1947)

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 difficult period in my life and I 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. She described her character as a "glamorous adventuress" who helps Sinbad (Fairbanks) find 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, 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 portrayed 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.

O'Hara with Fred MacMurray in Father Was a Fullback (1949)

O'Hara's last film of 1947 was opposite Rex Harrison in John M. Stahl's The Foxes of Harrow. Set in pre-Civil War New Orleans, TCM noted the "ironic choice" of her casting, given that the "British-born Harrison was playing an Irishman while the Irish to the bone O'Hara was cast as a Creole". They state that O'Hara had been "angling" to star in Forever Amber (1947), Fox's "big historical romance at the time", but believe that due to a contractual clause, neither of her joint contract owners, Fox and RKO, would accept her appearing in a "major star vehicle" at the time. During the production O'Hara and Harrison intensely disliked each other from the outset. She commented: "Hollywood might have called him the greatest perfectionist among actors, but I found him to be rude, vulgar, and arrogant." Harrison had thought that she disliked him simply because he was British. He reportedly belched in her face during dance sequences and accused her of anti-Semitism, being married to a Jewish woman (Lilli Palmer) at the time, which she vehemently denied. Variety, while acknowledging the length, thought that O'Hara and Harrison carried off their dramatic scenes with "surprising skill". The following year, O'Hara starred opposite Robert Young in the commercially successful comedy film, Sitting Pretty. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised O'Hara and Young as husband and wife, remarking that they were "delightfully clever", acting with "elaborate indignation, alternating with good-natured despair".

In 1949, O'Hara featured in A Woman's Secret, opposite Melvyn Douglas. She described her role as a "frustrated talent manager who shoots her star client in a jealous rage". O'Hara stated that she "made no attempt to keep it a secret that I thought the story stank", but agreed to appear in the production to meet the one-picture-a-year contractual obligation to RKO. It was a box office flop and at the times not well received critically, and director Nicholas Ray himself was dissatisfied with it. She next had a role as a wealthy widow who falls in love with an alcoholic artist ( Dana Andrews) in the Victorian melodrama The Forbidden Street, which was shot at Shepperton Studios in London. O'Hara felt that her performance was poor and didn't have her heart set on the film. After Father Was a Fullback, described by O'Hara as "a comedy stinkeroo that got more yawns than laughs" and Picturegoer magazine as an "unhappy mixture of Freud and football", she starred in her first film with Universal Pictures, the escapist adventure, Bagdad, portraying Princess Marjan. The film was shot on location in the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine, California. O'Hara noted that the film "made Universal a fortune" and part of her contract with RKO was purchased by Universal Pictures as a result of the film's success. Malone wrote that she sings, dances, fights, and loves in a tale of derring-do that ticks all the requisite boxes for an opulent history lesson", adding that "when it came to dexterity in action, O'Hara was a nonpareil".

Work with John Ford, westerns and adventure films (1950–57)

O'Hara and John Wayne in Rio Grande (1950)

In the 1950 technicolor western, Comanche Territory, O'Hara played an uncharacteristic role with the lead character of Katie Howards, a fiery saloon owner who dresses, behaves and fights like a man, with hair tied back.

She received first billing above co-star Macdonald Carey. She stated that Comanche Territory was the "film in which I mastered the American bullwhip." and that by the time the picture was over, she "could snap a cigarette out of someone's mouth." Regarding her role in the film, Crowther believed O'Hara to be "more significant than a setting sun. And she tackles her assignment with so much relish that the rest of the cast, even the Indians, are completely subdued." She then appeared as Countess D'Arneau opposite John Payne in Tripoli, directed by O'Hara's second husband, William Houston Price. O'Hara was next cast by John Ford in Rio Grande, the final instalment of his cavalry trilogy. It was the first of five films to be made over 22 years with John Wayne, including The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971), the first three of which were directed by Ford. On Wayne, O'Hara declared that "from our very first scenes together, working with John Wayne was comfortable for me". In April 1951, she received a call from Universal Pictures that she was cast as a Tunisian princess named Tanya in the swashbuckler film, Flame of Araby (1951). O'Hara "despised" the film and everything it stood for according to Malone. By that point of time, she began to grow tired of the roles she was offered and wanted to perform roles that had more depth than the ones she had done thus far, saying "I wasn't up to making another lousy picture and wanted to save myself for a great performance in The Quiet Man. But Universal made their intentions known right away: Make the movie or be suspended. I had no choice but to make it."

O'Hara in 1950

O'Hara's first release of 1952 was At Sword's Point, which according to her showed the "new Maureen O'Hara". She requested the makers to let her perform her own stunts so as to deliver a "standout performance" and not be eclipsed by her counterparts. The film had actually been made in 1949 but wasn't released until 1952. She trained in the art of fencing for six weeks under the Belgian-born fencing master, Fred Cavens, admitting that she had physically "never worked harder for a role." In the film, she played Claire, the daughter of the musketeer, Athos. Although the film's plot, according to her was "a little hard to swallow" she found it to be "as fun as hell", but disliked director Lewis Allen and producer Howard Hughes, whom she thought was "cold as ice". The critic from The New York Times appreciated O'Hara's swordsmanship in the film, stating that she was "snarling like a Fury, impales her opponents as though she were threading a needle." On O'Hara's character, film historian Jeanine Basinger, in her book A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women (1995), noted "She is, from the very beginning, both a woman and a swordsperson, and she doesn't have to stop being a woman to be good at dueling." Malone wrote that the film "probably represents the acme of O'Hara's career as a swashbuckler. Her character proves herself the equal of the men in every department here, including brainpower. As well as jousting like a woman possessed, she comes up with many of the ideas to outwit the villains" O'Hara next played Irish immigrant Australian-based cowgirl, Dell McGuire, in Lewis Milestone's drama Kangaroo (1952), set during the drought of 1900. Kangaroo is noted for being the first Technicolor film to be shot on-location in Australia, mostly shot in the desert near Port Augusta. Though O'Hara stated that she "hated every minute of the work" and thought that Milestone had destroyed a "good, straightforward western" story by Martin Berkeley, she "absolutely loved Australia and the Australian people". The Australian government offered her a plot of land during the production to own permanently but she turned it down for political reasons only to later discover that there were significant oil reserves on the land.

In 1952, O'Hara starred opposite John Wayne again in Ford's romantic comedy-drama film, The Quiet Man. Shot on location in Cong, County Mayo, Ireland, O'Hara cited the film to be her "personal favourite of all the pictures I have made. It is the one I am most proud of, and I tend to be very protective of it. I loved Mary Kate Danaher. I loved the hell and fire in her." Malone notes that she "rarely gave an interview" without mentioning this fact. O'Hara was disconcerted with Ford's harsh treatment of Wayne during the production and constant ribbing. Though Ford generally treated her very well, on one occasion when filming a cart scene in which the wind in her eyes made it difficult to see, Ford yelled "Open your damn eyes" and O'Hara flipped, responding with "What would a baldheaded son of a bitch like you know about hair lashing across his eyeballs". One day O'Hara was fuming with Wayne about something he'd done earlier, and during the scene in which she kisses him she attempted to punch him. Wayne blocked it with his hand, cracking a bone in her own hand, and remarked that if he hadn't have blocked it she would have "broken his jaw". Wayne thought she was at her most beautiful when angry, and later commented that "Maureen makes me act because she makes me react".

O'Hara and John Wayne in The Quiet Man (1952)

The Quiet Man was both a critical and commercial success, grossing $3.8 million domestically in its first year of release against a budget of $1.75 million. Film critic James Berardinelli called O'Hara "the perfect match for Wayne" and that "she never allows him to steal a scene without a fight, and occasionally snatches one away from him on her own." In his book Cult Movies 3 (1989), Film critic and sports writer Danny Peary praised the on-screen chemistry of O'Hara and Wayne: "Handsome Wayne and beautiful O'Hara are wonderful together, exhibiting strength and, because their characters are in love, vulnerability and tenderness." According to Harry Carey Jr., who noted that O'Hara held a strong gaze with Wayne in all of the films they made together, much to Wayne's delight, director Ford was uncomfortable with the romantic scenes in the film and refused to shoot the scene until the very last day. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture. Film director Martin Scorsese called The Quiet Man "one of the greatest movies of all time", and in 1996 it topped a poll of the greatest films in the Irish Times.

O'Hara's last release of 1952 was Against All Flags opposite Errol Flynn, marking her only collaboration with the actor. O'Hara, knowing Flynn's reputation as a womanizer, was on close guard during the production. She said of Flynn: "I respected him professionally and was quite fond of him personally... Of course there was one glaring inconsistency with his professionalism. Errol also drank on the set, something I greatly disliked. You couldn't stop him; Errol did whatever he liked. If the director prohibited alcohol on the set, then Errol would inject oranges with booze and eat them during breaks". Flynn exercised a degree of authority on set as changes in his contract meant that he was entitled to a percentage of the film profits and ordered that the days of shooting end at 4pm, by which time he would become inebriated. According to Steve Jacques, O'Hara outdid Flynn in the combat scenes and many of her fine action scenes had to be cut from the final version to "protect Flynn's image". The film was a commercially successful venture. The following year she appeared in The Redhead from Wyoming, which she dismissed as "another western stinkeroo for Universal", remarking that it was "disappointing to be working on such a lousy picture while I was receiving praise for such a highly regarded piece of filmmaking [The Quiet Man]". Another western was made that year with Jeff Chandler, War Arrow. O'Hara noted that "Jeff was a real sweetheart, but acting with him was like acting with a broomstick".

O'Hara with Errol Flynn in Against All Flags (1952)

In 1954, O'Hara starred in Malaga, also known as Fire over Africa, which was shot on location in Spain. O'Hara played a Mata Hari-like character, a secret agent who attempts to find the ringleader of a smuggling ring in Tangiers. Malone compares the relationship in the film between O'Hara as Joanne and Macdonald Carey as agent Van Logan to that of Bogart and Bacall, with frequent verbal sparring. The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Maureen O'Hara looks very handsome in Technicolor but her expressions are limited—mostly to disgust at shooting smugglers or pulling knives from dying men".

In 1955, O'Hara made her fourth picture with Ford, The Long Gray Line, which she considered to be "by far the most difficult" due to declining relations with John Ford. John Wayne had originally intended co-starring, but due to a conflicting schedule O'Hara recommended Tyrone Power in replacement. Malone notes that the Irish accents by O'Hara and Power are overdone, and that there is little trace of a Donegal accent in it. The film production marked the lowest point of O'Hara's relationship with Ford, and each day he would greet her with "Well, did Herself have a good shit this morning?". He would ask the crew if she was in a good mood, and if that was the case, he would say "then we're going to have a horrible day" and vice versa. He would provoke her by telling her to "move her fat Irish ass". Their relationship deteriorated further when O'Hara reportedly saw him kissing an actor on set, and Ford knew that she thought he was a closeted homosexual. In The Magnificent Matador, O'Hara played a spoiled, wealthy American who falls in love with a brooding, tormented, about-to-retire matador (Anthony Quinn) in Mexico. Ava Gardner, who was dating a bullfighter in real life, Luis Miguel Dominguín, and Lana Turner were considered for O'Hara's part of Karen Harrison. The film was panned by the critics. One of her best known roles came later year, playing Lady Godiva in Lady Godiva of Coventry. Contrary to what Universal claimed to the press, O'Hara was not nude in the film, wearing a "full-length body leotard and underwear that was concealed by my long tresses". O'Hara wrote that an "unexpected pleasure on the film was watching a promising young actor named Clint Eastwood cut his teeth on it".

In 1956, O'Hara starred in the Portuguese-set melodrama Lisbon for Republic, which she described as being "full of mystery, international intrigue, and murder". For the first time in her career she played a villain, and remarked that "Bette Davis was right – bitches are fun to play". In the film she is caught in a love triangle with Ray Milland and Claude Rains, who according to Malone both attempted to "outsuave each other" during the whole production. Later that year she made Everything But the Truth for Universal, at a time in her career when she was trying to distance herself from adventure films. O'Hara dismissed the film as a "lousy comedy", but professed to enjoy working with John Forsythe. The following year, she marked the end of a collaboration with John Ford with The Wings of Eagles, which was based on the true story of an old friend of John Ford, Frank Spig Wead, a naval aviator who became a screenwriter in Hollywood. Malone wrote that "Wayne and O'Hara interact well in these early scenes, giving effortless performances and exhibiting a strong chemistry. One can sense the offscreen friendship in little nuances between them". Though not a major commercial success, it fared better in the eyes of the critics.

Later career (1959-91)

"When we arrived in Havana on April 15, 1959, Cuba was a country experiencing revolutionary change. Only four months before , Fidel Castro and his supporters had toppled Fulgencio Batista... Che Guevara was often at the Capri Hotel. Che would talk about Ireland and all the guerilla warfare that had taken place there. He knew every battle in Ireland and all of its history. And I finally asked, "Che, you know so much about Ireland and talk constantly about it. How do you know so much?" He said, "Well, my grandmother's name was Lynch and I learned everything I know about Ireland at her knee." He was Che Guevara Lynch! That famous cap he wore was an Irish rebel's cap. I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. Today he is a symbol for freedom fighters wherever they are in the world and I think he is a good one".

—O'Hara on filming Our Man in Havana in Havana and meeting Che Guevara.

Though O'Hara was consciously moving away from adventure films, an ongoing court case against Confidential magazine in 1957 and 1958 and operation for a slipped disk, after which she had to wear a full body brace for four months, effectively ruled out any further action films for her. During this period away from film she took lessons in singing to improve her abilities. O'Hara had a soprano voice and described singing as her first love. She was able to channel her love of singing through television. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was a guest on musical variety shows with Perry Como, Andy Williams, Betty Grable and Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1960, O'Hara starred on Broadway in the musical Christine which ran for 12 performances. That year she released two recordings, Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara and Maureen O'Hara Sings her Favorite Irish Songs. She described Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara, a moderate success, as an act of revenge, given that Hollywood would not let her appear in a musical.

In 1959, O'Hara returned to film, starring as a secretary who is sent from London to Havana to investigate the activities of a British secret agent (Alec Guinness) in Our Man in Havana. O'Hara beat Lauren Bacall to the role as she was busy with other engagements.

In 1960, O'Hara appeared in the CBS television film, Mrs Miniver, but despite some critics approving her performance, most thought that the remake was ill-timed and that she couldn't top Greer Garson's performance in the 1942 Oscar-winning film. In 1961, O'Hara portrayed Kit Tilden in the western The Deadly Companions, Sam Peckinpah's feature-film debut. While O'Hara acknowledged that he later "reached icon status as a great director of westerns", she thought he was "just awful" and "one of the strangest and most objectionable people I had ever worked with". Later that year she starred in The Parent Trap, one of her best known films, opposite a young Hayley Mills. O'Hara credits Mills for the success of the film, remarking that "she really did bring two different girls to life in the movie" and wrote that "Sharon and Susan were so believable that I'd sometimes forget myself and look for the other one when Hayley and I were standing around the set". Malone notes that this was the film that she "made a transition from comely maiden to trendy mother". The following year she appeared in opposite James Stewart in Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, about a family vacation in a dilapidated house on the beach. O'Hara confessed that she was not happy with the dynamic being her and Stewart onscreen, commenting that "every scene revolves around Jimmy Stewart. I was never allowed to really play out a single scene in the picture. He was a remarkable actor, but not a generous one".

Jack Kruschen, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Chill Wills in McLintock!

In 1963, O'Hara united with Henry Fonda after 20 years to appear in Spencer's Mountain, roughly based on the novel by Earl Hamner, Jr., based on his poverty upbringing. O'Hara recalled that Fonda was "the gifted, tough, and classy kind of leading man that I most enjoyed working with". She featured with John Wayne in McLintock!. She wrote of it: "There are so many great scenes in the picture. Audiences always rave about the fight sequence that takes place at the mine dump and ends in the mud. A total of forty-two cast members took part in the brawl, and nearly all of us ended up sliding down the bank into the mud pit below."

O'Hara on the Andy Williams Show in 1965

In late 1964, O'Hara went to Italy to shoot The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965) with Rossano Brazzi. She stated that she "began the picture with high hopes, but the picture quickly turned into a disaster. Rossano Brazzi wasn't right for the part". She made her last picture with James Stewart the following year in the comical western, The Rare Breed. In 1970 she starred opposite Jackie Gleason in How Do I Love Thee?. She wrote that "It was a terrible film. The script was awful, and the director couldn't fix it. I liked Gleason very much. He was a very kind and funny man, but he drank too much". In October of that year she made her last film with Wayne in Big Jake (1971), shot on location in Durango, Mexico.

After a 20-year retirement from the film industry, O'Hara returned to the screen in 1991 to star opposite John Candy in Only the Lonely, playing Rose Muldoon, the domineering mother of a Chicago cop played by Candy. She wrote of it: "John Candy was one of my all-time favorite leading men. He was pleasant and courteous. The depth of John Candy's talent did surprise me. I didn't expect it to be so great. It didn't take long for me to see that he was not only a comedic genius but an actor with an extraordinary dramatic talent. He reminded me a great deal of Charles Laughton". In the following years, she continued to work, starring in several made-for-TV films, including The Christmas Box, Cab for Canada and The Last Dance, the latter her last film, released on television 2000.

Reception and character

O'Hara in 1945

Malone states that as "Ireland's first Hollywood superstar", O'Hara "paved the way for a future generation of actresses seeking their own voice.... With her mahogany hair, her hoydenish ways, and her whip-smart delivery of lines, she created a character prototype that seemed to define her country of origin and much as Ireland defined her". Teetotal and a non smoker, she rejected the Hollywood party lifestyle, and was moderate in her personal grooming. In her earlier career she refused to appear to smoke and drink on screen, and it was only later that she relented to avoid being out of a job. One edition of Motion Picture magazine in the mid 1940s claimed that O'Hara's only actress friend at the time was Kathryn Grayson, a Bel Air neighbor who was a "homebody" like herself. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck later claimed that O'Hara was the highest paid actress of the lot at $5000 a week. She was friends with Zanuck and Harry Cohn, a figure notorious for being the "nastiest man in Hollywood", and the executives respected the fact that she was honest towards them. O'Hara stated that she "never walked off a set" nor "never had a temperamental fit in my life. I think I cooperate too much". O'Hara did have a reputation in Hollywood for bossiness, and John Wayne once referred to her as "the greatest guy I ever met". In return, O'Hara said: "I was tough. I was tall. I was strong. I didn't take any nonsense from anybody. He was tough, he was tall, he was strong and he didn't take any nonsense from anybody. As a man and a human being, I adored him." O'Hara became so prone to injuries during her productions that her colleagues remarked that she "should have been awarded a Purple Heart".

Critics found fault with O'Hara's range as an actress, and Malone wrote that she "seemed to struggle in comedic roles but proved her mettle in films that called on her to take charge of situations or find courage in the face of adversity". One critic remarked that it took a director like John Ford to bring out a good performance from her. Malone notes though that O'Hara was "loved for her naturalness" and her "lack of a diva quality" and was quite proud of her own versatility as an actress, quoting her as saying "I played every kind of role. I was never petite or cute so there was never anything about me which would go out of style". She dismissed Method acting as "tommyrot", believing that acting should be acting. She placed great emphasis on work ethic and punctuality. Malone notes that in the 1950s her close rival was Rhonda Fleming, the two both being prolific in westerns and action films. He writes that while John Ford was instrumental in her career, it was "probably a good thing" that their relationship deteriorated by the mid 1950s, quoting Irish critic Philip Moloy as saying "It is not something that she would accept herself, but Maureen O'Hara's career probably suffered from its long-term association with John Ford. John Ford's view of Ireland, and things Irish, tended to be broad, sentimental and sociologically distorted, and his characters were often cliched representatives of their nationality". In the 1960s and 1970s she ventured into maturer roles as she aged.

O'Hara with Liberace in 1957

O'Hara was considered to be prudish in Hollywood. When asked why she would not pose in scantily clad photographs she remarked: "I come from a very strict family, and I can't do some of the things other actresses can because my folks in Dublin would think I turned out bad". When asked in a 1948 interview why she refuses to be photographed in a bathing suit she said "Because I don't think I looked like Lana Turner in a bathing suit, frankly. O'Hara later commented that "I'm not prudish but my training was strict". O'Hara believed that her "squeaky-clean lifestyle" took its toll on her career, and because Hollywood executives viewed her as a "cold potato", they were unwilling to give her "spicier" parts. She vented her frustration on not being given edgier roles in an interview to The Los Angeles Times, saying "Producers look at a pretty face and think: 'She must have got this far on her looks'. Then comes along a girl with a plain face and they think, 'She must be a great actress, she isn't pretty. So they give her the glamour treatment and the pretty girl gets left behind". O'Hara believed that she missed out on a number of role in fine black and white films because she aesthetically appeared to so well in Technicolor productions. Such was her natural beauty that she was one of the few actresses in Hollywood during her career to not undergo cosmetic surgery, though she had one crooked tooth which she refused to part with.

On 17 August 2015, just two months before her death, O'Hara celebrated her 95th Birthday, surrounding her friends and family, at the home of her grandson, Conor, in Idaho. She said of her long life and of her career, "It’s been a good life... I’ve had a wonderful career and enjoyed making movies. I was fortunate to have made pictures with many of the greats, both actors and directors. I’ve no regrets... Some people see me as a former screen siren while others remember me as the dame who gave as good as she got in movies with John Wayne, for example. Many women have written to me over the years and said I’ve been an inspiration to them, a woman who could hold her own against the world." The final thing she said, "Above all else, deep in my soul, I'm a tough Irish Woman."

Personal life and death

O'Hara in April 1942

She had homes in Bel Air, Los Angeles, Arizona and the Virgin Islands, but lived mainly in Glengarriff, County Cork, after suffering a stroke in 2005. She ran a clothing store in Tarzana, Los Angeles, operating under her name, specializing in dresses for women. A devout Catholic, she rarely missed Mass. In 1939, at the age of 19, O'Hara secretly married Englishman George H. Brown, a film producer, production assistant and occasional scriptwriter, whom she had met on the set of Jamaica Inn. They married at St Paul's Church in Station Road, Harrow on 13 June, shortly before she left for Hollywood; Brown stayed behind in England as he was shooting a film with Paul Robeson. Brown announced that the couple had kept the marriage an "absolute secret" and that they would have a full marriage ceremony in October 1939 but O'Hara never returned. The marriage was annulled in 1941.

O'Hara's boutique in Tarzana, Los Angeles in 1947

In December 1941, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price (dialogue director in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), a man she considered to have been "one of the finest-looking men I've ever seen". She lost her virginity to Price on her wedding night and immediately regretted it, and recalled thinking to herself "What the hell have I done now". It was soon after the honeymoon that she realised Price was an alcoholic. The couple had one child, a daughter, Bronwyn Bridget Price (born 30 June 1944), Bronwyn has one son, Conor Beau FitzSimons (born 8 September 1970). O'Hara's marriage to Price steadily declined throughout the 1940s due to his alcohol abuse, and she often wanted to file for divorce but felt guilty due to her Catholic beliefs. Price himself eventually realized that his marriage was over and filed for divorce in July 1951 on the grounds of "incompatibility". O'Hara always denied having any extramarital affairs, but in his autobiography, frequent collaborator Anthony Quinn claimed to have fallen in love with her on set of Sinbad the Sailor, commenting that she was "dazzling, and the most understanding woman on this earth" and that she "brought out the Gaelic in him", being half Irish. Quinn implied that they had been involved in an affair, adding that "after a while we both tired of the deceit".

O'Hara and her husband director Will Price in 1941

O'Hara with Anthony Quinn in 1947

From 1953–67, O'Hara had a relationship with Enrique Parra, a wealthy Mexican politician and banker. She met him at a restaurant during a trip to Mexico in 1951. Malone writes that he "would have a huge impact on the future". O'Hara wrote in her autobiography; "Enrique saved me from the darkness of an abusive marriage and brought me back into the warm light of life again. Leaving him was one of the most painful things I have ever had to do." As her relationship with Parra progressed, she began to learn Spanish and even enrolled her daughter in a Mexican school. John Ford intensely disliked Parra, and it affected her relationship with Ford in the 1950s as he often interfered in her affairs and frowned on the demise of her marriage to Price, being a devout Catholic. Price also continued to harass O'Hara for dating Parra and would threaten to seek custody of Bronwyn and accuse his ex-wife of immorality. O'Hara filed a countersuit, charging him with contempt of court for refusing to pay $50 a month in child support and a $7 a month alimony. During the publicity stage of The Long Gray Line in 1955, Ford insulted O'Hara and her brother Charles when he remarked to Charles, "if that whore sister of yours can pull herself away from that Mexican long enough to do a little publicity for us, the film might have a chance at some decent returns".

In 1957, O'Hara filed a $5 million lawsuit against Confidential magazine over allegations it made over her being involved in sexual activity with Parra during a screening of a film at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. One of the allegations was "Maureen had entered Grauman’s wearing a white silk blouse neatly buttoned. Now it wasn’t", and that when the usher shone a flashlight towards them she was forced to sit up and play innocent. O'Hara proved her innocence by presenting a passport showing that she was in Spain shooting Fire Over Africa at the time. She claimed in her autobiography that she became the first actress to win a case against an industry tabloid when Confidential were apparently found guilty of libel and conspiring to publish obscenity, but Malone notes that the trial dragged on for six weeks and the case was actually eventually settled out of court in July 1958.

O'Hara married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, Jr., on 12 March 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former brigadier general of the US Air Force, a former chief pilot at Pan Am, and founder and head of the U.S. Virgin Islands airline Antilles Air Boats. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting (in the special features section to the DVD release of The Quiet Man, a story is recounted that O'Hara retired after longtime collaborators John Wayne and John Ford teased her about being married but not being a good, stay-at-home housewife). Blair died in 1978 while flying a Grumman Goose for his airline from St. Croix to St. Thomas, crashing after an engine failure. O'Hara was elected CEO and president of the airline, with the added distinction of becoming the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S.

In May 2012, O'Hara's family contacted social workers regarding claims that O'Hara, who had short-term memory loss, was a victim of elder abuse. In September 2012, O'Hara flew to the US after receiving doctor's permission to fly. She lived with her grandson, Conor Beau FitzSimons, in Idaho.

On 24–25 May 2013, O'Hara made a public appearance at the 2013 John Wayne Birthday "Tribute to Maureen O'Hara" celebration in Winterset, Iowa. The occasion was the ground breaking for the new John Wayne Birthplace Museum; the festivities included an official proclamation from Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declaring 25 May 2013, as "Maureen O'Hara Day" in Iowa. The appearance included a performance by the Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band, who travelled from Chicago for the event.

On 24 October 2015, Maureen O'Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho from natural causes. She was 95 years old. O'Hara was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia next to her late husband Charles Blair.

Achievements and activities

O'Hara at the 2014 TCM Film Festival

O'Hara was honored on This Is Your Life, which was aired on 27 March 1957. She received the Heritage Award by the Ireland-American Fund in 1991. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, O'Hara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7004 Hollywood Blvd. In 1993, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was also awarded the Golden Boot Award.

In March 1999, O'Hara was selected to be Grand Marshal of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade. In 2004, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin. The same year, O'Hara released her autobiography ‍ '​Tis Herself, co-authored with Johnny Nicoletti and published by Simon & Schuster. She wrote the foreword for the cookbook At Home in Ireland, and in 2007, she wrote the foreword for the biography of her friend and film co-star, the late actress Anna Lee.

O'Hara was named Irish America‍ '​s "Irish American of the Year" in 2005, with festivities held at the Plaza Hotel in New York. In 2006, O'Hara attended the Grand Reopening and Expansion of the Flying Boats Museum in Foynes, County Limerick as a patron of the museum. A significant portion of the museum is dedicated to her late husband Charles. O'Hara donated her late husband's seaplane, the Excambian (a Sikorsky VS-44A), to the New England Air Museum. The restoration of the plane took eight years and time was donated by former pilots and mechanics in honor of Charles Blair. It is the only surviving example of this type of early trans-Atlantic plane.

In 2011, O'Hara was formally inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at an event in New Ross, County Wexford. She was also named president of the Universal Film & Festival Organization (UFFO) which promotes a code of conduct for film festivals and the film industry.

In 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected O'Hara to receive the Academy's Honorary Oscar, which was presented at the annual Governor's Awards in November that year. O'Hara became only the second actress, after Myrna Loy in 1991, to receive an Honorary Oscar without having previously been nominated for an Oscar in a competitive category.

Filmography

Main article: Maureen O'Hara filmography

Selected credits

• Jamaica Inn (1939)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
• How Green Was My Valley (1941)
• The Black Swan (1942)
• This Land is Mine (1943)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• A Woman's Secret (1949)
• Rio Grande (1950)
• The Quiet Man (1952)
• Our Man in Havana (1959)
• The Parent Trap (1961)
• McLintock! (1963)
• Big Jake (1971)

Sources

• Baskin, Ellen (1996). Serials on British Television, 1950-1994. Scolar Press. ISBN 978-1-85928-015-7. 
• Blum, Daniel C. (1993). John Willis' Screen World. Crown Publishers. 
• Druxman, Michael B. (November 1975). Make it again, Sam: a survey of movie remakes. A. S. Barnes. ISBN 978-0-498-01470-3. 
• Gallagher, Tag (1988). John Ford: The Man and His Films. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52-006334-1. 
• Goble, Alan (1 January 1999). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3. 
• Kelley, Kitty (1986). His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra. Bantam Books Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-553-38618-9. 
• Lee, Anna; Cooper, Barbara Roisman (30 May 2007). Anna Lee: Memoir of a Career on General Hospital and in Film. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0359-9. 
• Malone, Aubrey (12 September 2013). Maureen O'Hara: The Biography. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4240-1. 
• McDevitt, Jim; Juan, Eric San (1 April 2009). A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6389-7. 
• O'Hara, Maureen; Nicoletti, John (1 March 2005). 'Tis Herself: An Autobiography. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-6916-2. 
• Parish, James Robert (1978). The Hollywood beauties. Arlington House. ISBN 978-0-87000-412-4. 
• Reid, John Howard (2005). Hollywood's Miracles of Entertainment. Lulu Press, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4116-3522-7. 
• Rice, Eoghan (2005). "The Converted". We Are Rovers. Nonsuch. ISBN 1-84588-510-4. 
• Sigillito, Gina (2007). "Maureen Fitzsimons O'Hara". Daughters of Maeve: 50 Irish Women Who Changed the World. Citadel. p. 206/207. ISBN 1-84588-510-4. 
• Wayne, Jane (April 16, 2006). The Leading Men of MGM. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-7867-1768-2. 

External links

• Maureen O'Hara at the Internet Movie Database
• Maureen O'Hara at the TCM Movie Database
• Photo gallery
• Interview November, 2014, about Oscar Award and career at Irish Central.
• Maureen O'Hara(Aveleyman)