Still in her teens, she was brought to Hollywood in 1939 by legendary actor Charles Laughton and her first film was “The Hunchback of Notre Dame“, playing Esmerelda to his Quasimodo. She shone, though, in the five movies directed by Ford, beginning with “How Green Was My Valley”, the epic about Welsh coal miners. For many, OHara will be most remembered for her work with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne, perhaps best exemplified in the 1952 film The Quiet Man, which OHara considered her personal favorite film. Known as the “Queen of Technicolor”, the actress’ biggest claim to fame came when she co-starred opposite John Payne and a very young Natalie Wood in the holiday classic Miracle on 34th St.
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O’Hara was married three times.
In addition to Westerns, the swashbucklers and the musicals, O’Hara made a film noir, 1949’s “A Woman’s Secret”, with Melvyn Douglas and Gloria Grahame.
The Irish actress would also be known for her bold, handsome look.
Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1920 as Maureen FitzSimons, OHara was the second oldest of six children and she and her siblings were trained at the Abbey Theatre.
But she also had talent.
In her final feature film “Only the Lonely” (1991), the actress played the Irish battle-ax mother of funnyman John Candy. She also starred in the tuner “Christine” on Broadway in 1960, and released two albums the same year: “Love Letters From Maureen O’Hara” and “Maureen O’Hara Sings Her Favorite Irish Songs”.
Although never nominated for an Oscar during her entire career, O’Hara received an Honorary Award in 2014.
Musing about what made her a star, OHara wrote: I have always believed my most compelling quality to be my inner strength, something I am easily able to share with an audience.
Her star is across the street form the TCL Chinese Theater, in the heart of the Hollywood tourist district.
One O’Hara performance overlooked at the time has since become a cult classic: Her role as the aspiring ballerina working at a grindhouse in Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). Charles Blair died in a 1978 plane crash, and O’Hara ran the commuter sea plane service in the U.S. Virgin Islands for several years.
In 1941, she married a tall, handsome director, Will Price, and they had a daughter, Bronwyn, in 1944.
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Her family said in a statement: ‘Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life’.
