Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer.
The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with
a highly sensible attitude.
She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne.
Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, was published in 2004 and was a New York Times Bestseller.
Early life and career O'Hara was born as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood
Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh.
Attended school in Milltown, Dublin, she was the second oldest of the six children of Charles
Stewart Parnell FitzSimons and Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons.
Her father was in the clothing business and also bought into Shamrock Rovers Football
Club, a team O'Hara has supported since childhood.
Her mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful women's clothier.
O'Hara was raised as, and still is, a Roman Catholic.
Her siblings were Peggy, the oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot and Jimmy.
Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, the Sisters of Charity, and the younger children
all went on to receive training at the Abbey Theatre and the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama
and Elocution in Dublin.
O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress.
She was first educated at the John Street West Girls' School near Thomas Street in Dublin's
Liberties Area.
From the age of 6–17 she trained in drama, music and dance, and at the age of 10 joined
the Rathmines Theatre Company and worked in amateur theatre in the evenings, after her
lessons.
O'Hara's father was a very practical man and did not entirely support her theatrical aspirations.
He insisted that she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on to
earn a living with in case her experience in the performing arts was not successful.
She enrolled in a business school and became a proficient bookkeeper and typist.
Those skills proved helpful many years later when she was able to take and transcribe production
notes dictated by John Ford for the screen adaptation of Maurice Walsh's short story
The Quiet Man.
She did well in her Abbey training and was given an opportunity for a screen test in
London.
The studio adorned her in a "gold lamé dress with flapping sleeves like wings" and heavy
makeup with an ornate hair style.
Reportedly, her thoughts concerning the incident were, "If this is the movies, I want nothing
to do with them!"
The screen test was deemed to be far from satisfactory; 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 O'Hara was offered an initial seven-year contract with
their new company, Mayflower Pictures.
Her first major film was Jamaica Inn directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Laughton was so pleased with O'Hara's performance that he cast her in the role of Esmeralda
opposite him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was to be filmed at RKO Studios in Hollywood
that same year.
After the successful completion of Hunchback, World War II began, and Laughton, realizing
that their studio could no longer film in London, sold O'Hara's contract to RKO.
That studio cast her in low-budget films until she was rescued by director John Ford, who
cast her as Angharad in How Green Was My Valley, which won the 1941 Academy Award for Best
Picture.
Six years later, in 1947, she made what is perhaps her best-remembered film, starring
as Doris Walker and the mother of a young Natalie Wood in 20th Century Fox's Miracle
on 34th Street, which, despite being released in May, has become a perennial Christmas classic,
with a traditional network television airing every Thanksgiving Day on NBC.
The film also helped to further establish O'Hara's career after the film garnered several
awards, including an Academy Award Nomination for Best Picture.
In 1946, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States and now holds dual citizenship
with the U.S. and her native Ireland.
In addition to her acting skills, O'Hara had a soprano voice and described singing as her
first love.
The studio heads never capitalized on her musical talent, as she was already big box
office in other genres of film.
However, she was able to channel her love of singing through television.
In the late '50s and early '60s, she was a guest on musical variety shows with Perry
Como, Andy Williams, Betty Grable and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
In 1960, she starred on Broadway in the musical Christine which ran for 12 performances.
That year she released two successful recordings, Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara and Maureen
O'Hara Sings her Favorite Irish Songs.
Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara has been released on CD in Japan and is now out of
print.
An icon of Hollywood's Golden Age, at the height of her career, O'Hara was considered
one of the world's most beautiful women.
She is often remembered for her onscreen chemistry with John Wayne.
They made five films together between 1948 and 1972: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings
of Eagles, McLintock! and Big Jake.
A clip of O'Hara's radiant face as she waves from a gate in John Ford's Academy Award-winning
How Green Was My Valley, remains one of the most classic images preserved on film and
is often featured as a clip in montages and promotions.
Marriage, retirement and comeback In 1939, at the age of 19, O'Hara secretly
married Englishman George H. Brown, a film producer, production assistant and occasional
scriptwriter whose best known work is the first of Margaret Rutherford's 1960s Miss
Marple mysteries, Murder She Said.
The marriage was annulled in 1941.
Later that year, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price, but the union
ended in 1953, reportedly as a result of his alcohol abuse.
They had one child in 1944, a daughter named Bronwyn FitzSimons Price.
Bronwyn has one son, Conor Beau FitzSimons, who was born on September 8, 1970.
From 1953 until 1967 O'Hara had a relationship with Enrique Parra, a Mexican politician and
banker.
She 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."
She married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, Jr., on March 12, 1968.
Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air
Force, and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am.
A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting.
Blair died in 1978 when an engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St. Croix to St.
Thomas exploded.
She was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats, with the added distinction of being
the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Later she sold the airline with
the permission of the shareholders.
O'Hara remained retired from acting until 1991, when she starred in the film Only the
Lonely, playing Rose Muldoon, the domineering mother of a Chicago cop played by John Candy.
In the following years, she continued to work, starring in several made-for-TV movies, including
The Christmas Box, Cab for Canada and The Last Dance, the latter her last film to date,
released in 2000.
Now retired, she has homes in Arizona and the Virgin Islands, but lived mainly in Glengarriff,
County Cork, after suffering a stroke in 2005.
In June 2011, she participated at the Maureen O'Hara Film Festival in Glengarriff.
In May 2012, O'Hara's family contacted social workers regarding claims that O'Hara, who
has short-term memory loss, was a victim of elder abuse.
In September 2012, O'Hara flew to the U.S. after receiving doctor's permission to fly.
She lives with her grandson, Conor Beau FitzSimons, in Idaho.
On May 24-25, 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 May 25,
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.
About Wayne, 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."
Achievements and activities
O'Hara 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 has also written the foreword for the cookbook At Home in Ireland, and In 2007,
she wrote the foreword for the biography of her dear friend, 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, Limerick, Ireland, 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 Queen of the Skies" to the New England
Air Museum.
The restoration of the plane took eight years and time was donated by former pilots and
mechanics in honour of Charles Blair.
It is the only surviving example of this type of 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 which promotes
a code of conduct for film festivals and the film industry.
Filmography Film
Television Footnotes
References The Hoops by Paul Doolan and Robert Goggins
External links Maureen O'Hara at the Internet Movie Database
Maureen O'Hara at the TCM Movie Database Photo gallery