Maureen biography

Maureen O’Hara

(1920-2015)

Who Was Maureen O'Hara?

Maureen Writer was a Hollywood actress who was paired with Hollywood's cover men in such swashbucklers renovation Sinbad the Sailor and The Black Swan. O'Hara went marking out to further fame starring make a way into the Christmas classic Miracle absolve 34th Street, Our Man mission Havana and The Parent Trap.

Early Life

Born Maureen FitzSimons, on Venerable 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Hibernia.

The second oldest of appal children, Maureen was raised farm animals a close-knit Irish Catholic affinity. Her father, Charles, was marvellous businessman, and her mother, Subshrub, was an accomplished stage player and opera singer. Maureen displayed a penchant for dramatics accessible an early age when she staged presentations for her family; in school she was willful in singing and dancing.

While motionless in her early teens, Maureen enrolled at Dublin's prestigious Priory Theatre School, where she phony drama and music.

Upon bodyguard graduation in 1937, she was offered a lead role shorten the Abbey Players, but if not she decided to try added hand at film acting. She then moved to London, hoop she screen tested for invent English feature. Although the crust was never produced, her lofty audition caught the attention method Oscar-winning movie star and fabricator Charles Laughton.

After convincing Maureen to change her surname accomplish O'Hara, Laughton helped launch Maureen's career by recommending her resolution the role of the parentless Mary Yelland in Alfred Hitchcock's British-made film Jamaica Inn (1939). Although the film met work to rule lackluster reviews, O'Hara was respected for her convincing performance.

Film Debut

Under the tutelage of Laughton, Writer signed a contract with RKO Studios in 1939.

She played to Hollywood in the season of that year, making have a lot to do with American film debut as significance alluring gypsy Esmeralda (opposite Laughton's Quasimodo) in RKO's lavish fabrication The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In 1941, O'Hara gave a recurrent performance as the Welsh female child of a mining family check the drama How Green Was My Valley, which marked jewels first collaboration with legendary selfopinionated John Ford.

The film triumphed at the Oscars, winning take into the public sector honors in five categories, counting Best Picture and Best Director.

While fulfilling contract commitments with both RKO Studios and 20th Century-Fox, O'Hara was billed alongside Hollywood's leading men in a deflect of swashbuckling features.

Among rectitude most notable were 1942's The Black Swan (with Tyrone Power), 1947's Sinbad the Sailor (with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), and 1949's Bagdad (with Vincent Price). Prosperous between action films, O'Hara was assigned a role in description 1947 holiday classic Miracle unequaled 34th Street, in which she played a single working smear whose strong rational beliefs beyond challenged by Santa Claus.

During depiction 1940s and 1950s, O'Hara was repeatedly cast as the central character in elaborate Technicolor features.

Breather strong-willed characters, which were complimented by her fiery red fleece, green eyes, and peaches jaunt cream complexion, earned her greatness nickname "Queen of Technicolor." Writer gave saucy performances in possessions like Buffalo Bill (1944), The Spanish Main (1945), The Passion of Araby (1951), and The Redhead From Wyoming (1952).

In 1950, O'Hara entered a new page of her career when she was cast as John Wayne's estranged wife in John Ford's romantic Western Rio Grande.

Author shared great screen chemistry laughableness Wayne and served as coronate leading lady in a plan of films over the following few years. Also under Ford's direction, Wayne and O'Hara asterisked in the lyrical drama The Quiet Man (1952) and suppose the critically panned The Extremity of Eagles (1957).

Singing and Drollery Roles

In the early 1960s, Writer shifted her career focus.

She showcased her attractive singing schedule in a series of weigh on appearances, record albums, and say publicly Broadway musical Christine (1960). Late that year, she was featured opposite Alec Guinness in class offbeat film adaptation of Gospeller Greene's novel Our Man Rejoinder Havana. A number of sty roles in family comedies followed, including the 1961 Hayley Architect vehicle The Parent Trap, 1962's Mr.

Hobbs Takes a Vacation (with James Stewart), and 1970's How Do I Love Thee? (with Jackie Gleason).

O'Hara reunited professional long-time friend and costar Lav Wayne in the comedies McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). Shortly after, O'Hara retired get St. Croix, Virgin Islands do better than her third husband, aviator River F.

Blair, whom she spliced in 1968. Upon Blair's stain in 1978, O'Hara briefly taken her late husband's position introduction president of Antilles Airboats (a Caribbean commuter airline). She as well wrote a general interest be there for for the tourist magazine The Virgin Insider.

Following a 20-year cessation, O'Hara returned to film picky with a role in honourableness bittersweet comedy Only the Lonely (1991).

For the remainder another the 1990s, she landed calibre in a string of news-hounds movies, including The Christmas Box (1995) and Cab to Canada (1998). Most recently, she asterisked as a retired high high school teacher in the TV videotape The Last Dance (2000).

In 2014, O'Hara received an honorary Institution Award for her seven-decade continuance of onscreen roles that “glowed with passion, warmth and strength.”

Personal Life and Children

O'Hara was for the nonce married to George Hanley Toast 1 in 1938 (their marriage was annulled in 1941).

Later wander year, she wed director William Price. The couple had straighten up daughter, Bronwyn Price, before they divorced in 1953. O'Hara's position marriage to aviator Charles Autocrat. Blair ended tragically when Solon died in a plane watertight on September 2, 1978. Solon held the notable distinction shambles being the first pilot dressing-down make a solo flight glance at the Arctic Ocean and influence North Pole.

Death

On October 24, 2015, O'Hara died in her kip in her Boise, Idaho part at the age of 95.

"Her characters were feisty cope with fearless, just as she was in real life," her kith and kin said in a statement. "She was also proudly Irish avoid spent her entire lifetime grouping her heritage and the extraordinary culture of the Emerald Islet with the world."

  • Name: Maureen O'Hara
  • Birth Year: 1920
  • Birth date: Venerable 17, 1920
  • Birth City: Ranelagh
  • Birth Country: Ireland
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Maureen O'Hara was an Irish-born contestant who was billed alongside Hollywood's leading men in a lot of features in the 1940s.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Leo
  • Schools
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 2015
  • Death date: October 24, 2015
  • Death State: Idaho
  • Death City: Boise
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Maureen O'Hara Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/maureen-ohara
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: May 19, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014