Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on August 17, 1920 in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland) 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.
She is fluent in Irish and used this in her films The Long Gray Line, The Quiet Man, and Only the Lonely.
Maureen FitzSimons was born in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh on August 17, 1920. She was the second oldest of six children by Charles Stewart Parnell FitzSimons and Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons. Her father was a Dublin businessman and part owner of the Shamrock Rovers football club. Her mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful womans' clothier. Her siblings were Peggy, the oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot and Jimmy. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, Sisters of Charity, and the younger children all went on to receive training at the Abbey Theater and the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama and Elocution in Dublin. Maureen's dream at that time was to be an opera singer like her mother. She and Peggy had both been gifted with beautiful soprano voices.
FitzSimons' father was a very practical man and did not entirely support her theatrical aspirations. He insisted she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on to earn a living 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".
FitzSimons 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 make-up 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 Eric 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 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. Hours before boarding the Queen Mary to sail to America, a young man from the studio, George Brown, convinced her to marry him. O'Hara's mother and Laughton found out about it, and she was whisked away from the altar to the boat. The marriage was never consummated and later annulled.
After the successful completion of Hunchback, World War II began, and Laughton, realizing 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.
In 1946, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In addition to her acting skills, O'Hara had a soprano voice and described singing as her first love. Unfortunately, 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 and 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; Maureen O'Hara Sings Her Favorite Irish Songs has yet to be released on CD.
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 on-screen chemistry with John Wayne. They made five films together: 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.
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