In 1939, she set out for Hollywood and had a champion in Laughton, who claimed to have “discovered” her. She was featured in his next movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame at RKO, in which he starred as the inimitable hunchback Quasimodo while she played Esmeralda. She was 95 years old.
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“Maureen O’Hara left Ireland to carve a successful life in America but in the hearts and minds of every Irish person Maureen was the quintessential Irish success story”, said Ms Humphreys. A string of eminently forgettable films followed, excepting perhaps Miracle On 34th Street (1947), now a Christmas favourite on television. Wayne once quipped that he preferred to act with men “except for Maureen O’Hara; she’s a great guy”.
Her casting by the Irish-American director Ford in Fox’s How Green Was My Valley won her wide notice and critical recognition.
“As much as Maureen cherished her privacy, she always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life”. After his death in a plane crash in 1978, she took over his seaplane business.
Born Maureen FitzSimmons August 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland, on the outskirts of Dublin. Her mother, the former Marguerite Lilburn, was a trained opera singer and had been a theater actress. She is loyal to her kinsmen and accepting of others.
If there was anything she loved more than acting, it was Ireland itself.
Her credits included Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How Green Was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Street, Sinbad the Sailor, Rio Grande, The Parent Trap and Only the Lonely.
But Charles Laughton happened to see the test and, he said, liked something about her eyes.
O’Hara: “Would you please tell her that you’re not really Santa Claus, that there actually is no such person?”
Her movie career began when Charles Laughton signed her to a seven-year contract with his company, Mayflower Films. She then starred in A Bill Of Divorcement and Dance, Girl, Dance (both 1940).
Her fiery reddish hair helped her get called the “King of Technicolor ” as she increased to prominence while in the 1940s and 50s. Passive roles were not for her; she was an active, high-spirited and often athletic participant. While that complimentary moniker stuck with the actress throughout the duration of her life, the majority of the movies that made O’Hara a star were presented in black and white.
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She became an American citizen in 1946. The film was Alfred Hitchcock’s last British project before moving to Hollywood. She even played a pirate captain herself in “Against All Flags” (1952), with Errol Flynn. The image of O’Hara radiantly waving from a gate is one of the enduring images in the film and has been used in an untold number of movie montages. And that her second, to Will Price, which produced her daughter Bronwyn, was troubled and deeply destructive.
