Maureen O'Hara

Maureen O'Hara (FitzSimons; 17 August 1920 – 24 October 2015) was an Irish-born naturalized American actress and singer, who became successful in Hollywood from the 1940s through to the 1960s.

She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films.

She worked with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous projects.

O'Hara was born into a Catholic family and raised in Dublin, Ireland.

She aspired to become an actress from a very young age.

She trained with the Rathmines Theatre Company from the age of 10 and at the Abbey Theatre from the age of 14.

Born on 17 August 1920, O'Hara began life as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh.

She stated that she was "born into the most remarkable and eccentric family I could have possibly hoped for".

She was the second-eldest of six children of Charles and Marguerite (née Lilburn) FitzSimons, and the only red-headed child in the family.

Her father was in the clothing business and bought into Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara supported from childhood.

O'Hara inherited her singing voice from her mother, a former operatic contralto and successful women's clothier, who in her younger years was widely considered to have been one of Ireland's most beautiful women.

She noted that whenever her mother left the house, men would leave their houses just so they could catch a glimpse of her in the street.

O'Hara's siblings were Peggy, the eldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot, and Jimmy.

Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, becoming a Sister of Charity.

O'Hara earned the nickname "Baby Elephant" for being a pudgy infant.

A tomboy, she enjoyed fishing in the River Dodder, riding horses, swimming, and soccer, and would play boys' games and climb trees.

O'Hara was so keen on soccer that at one point, she pressed her father to found a women's team, and professed that Glenmalure Park, the home ground of Shamrock Rovers F.C., became "like a second home".

She enjoyed fighting, and trained in judo as a teenager.

She later admitted that she was jealous of boys in her youth and the freedom they had, and that they could steal apples from orchards and not get into trouble.

O'Hara first attended the John Street West Girls' School near Thomas Street in Dublin's Liberties Area.

She began dancing at the age of 5, when a fortune teller predicted that she would become rich and famous, and she would boast to friends as they sat in her back garden that she would "become the most famous actress in the world".

Her enthusiastic family fully supported the idea.

When she recited a poem on stage in school at the age of six, O'Hara immediately felt an attraction to performing in front of an audience.

From that age she trained in drama, music, and dance along with her siblings at the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama and Elocution in Dublin.

Their affinity with the arts prompted O'Hara to refer to the family as the "Irish von Trapp family".

At the age of 10, O'Hara joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and began working in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons.

She was given a screen test, which was deemed unsatisfactory, but Charles Laughton saw potential in her, and arranged for her to co-star with him in Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn in 1939.

She moved to Hollywood the same year to appear with him in the production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and was given a contract by RKO Pictures.

From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career, and acquired the nickname "the Queen of Technicolor".

O'Hara appeared in films such as How Green Was My Valley (1941) (her first collaboration with John Ford), The Black Swan with Tyrone Power (1942), The Spanish Main (1945), Sinbad the Sailor (1947), the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947) with John Payne and Natalie Wood, and Comanche Territory (1950).

O'Hara made her first film with John Wayne, the actor with whom she is most closely associated, in Rio Grande (1950); this was followed by The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963), and Big Jake (1971).

Such was her strong chemistry with Wayne that many assumed they were married or in a relationship.

In the 1960s, O'Hara increasingly turned to more motherly roles as she aged, appearing in films such as The Deadly Companions (1961), The Parent Trap (1961), and The Rare Breed (1966).

In the late 1970s, O'Hara helped run her third husband Charles F. Blair Jr.'s flying business in Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands, and edited a magazine, but later sold them to spend more time in Glengarriff in Ireland.

She was married three times, and had one daughter, Bronwyn, with her second husband.

She retired from the industry in 1971, but returned 20 years later to appear with John Candy in Only the Lonely (1991).

Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, published in 2004, became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2009, The Guardian named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

In November 2014, she was presented with an Honorary Academy Award with the inscription "To Maureen O'Hara, one of Hollywood's brightest stars, whose inspiring performances glowed with passion, warmth and strength".

In 2020, she was ranked number one on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.