The mercurial director would guide O’Hara in five films. “I’ve had many friends, and I prefer the company of men, except for Maureen O’Hara”, he said.
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Maureen O’Hara was one of the most luminous figures of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when colors popped and carefully-lit stars shone brightly in darkened theaters. “I’ve always been a tough Irish young woman”, she remarked. She largely retired from the movies after the 1971 big-screen Western, “Big Jake“, with Wayne and the 1973 television movie, “The Red Pony”, with Fonda, but returned to the big screen to play John Candy’s overbearing mother in “Only the Lonely” in 1991. That was her first really iconic role after arriving in Hollywood for her first gig in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”.
In 1941, she drew critical acclaim in Oscar-winning Welsh family saga “How Green Was My Valley”, directed by John Ford. She remained unmarried until the wedding to Blair in 1968.
She was also an American-based airline’s primary female leader. In “Miracle on 34th Street” she learned to believe in Santa Claus. I wasn’t going to play the whore. Wayne once quipped that he preferred to work with men – “except for Maureen O’Hara; she’s a great guy”.
During the 1950s she paired four times with director Ford.
Despite her accomplishments, what she strived for in life was much more traditional.
“Of course that film put the West of Ireland on the worldwide stage, all I can say is Maureen O’Hara was so proud of her Irish roots, she will be fondly remembered and indeed greatly missed”.
Maureen FitzSimons was born on August. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland, on the outskirts of Dublin. Her mother was a well-known opera singer, and her father co-owned a soccer team called the Shamrock Rovers. Of Rex Harrison she said: “We disliked each other from the outset”.
Along with a number of of her siblings, she acquired coaching in drama and dance.
In 1968, she married Charles F. Blair Jr., a former reserve Air Force general and Pan American World Airways pilot.
Her manager confirmed the death to the Associated Press but did not disclose the cause. Passive roles were not for her; she was an active, high-spirited and often athletic participant.
She had a brief first marriage that was annulled, and then a second marriage that became abusive.
“Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life”, her family said in a statement. She also appeared in Against All Flags, and The Parent Trap. He never tried to make a pass. “He wouldn’t have dared”, she insisted.
She had a way with Irish sayings, as well as a way with John Wayne, her most celebrated co-star. The Abbey Theatre-trained actor became a naturalised USA citizen in 1946 and held dual Irish-US citizenship.
“During filming, John Wayne was actually concerned when I was up on the ladder and yelled ‘Get down you damn fool, you’re going to kill yourself!’ But I did the stunt anyway”.
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The Irish-born actress had a breakout role in Hitchcock’s tightly-coiled adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn (1939), the last film the director made before heading overseas to America. “The marriage was a awful mistake, and we divorced in 1952”, she said.
