Hollywood Screen Legend Maureen O’Hara Dies At 95

Photo Courtesy: 20th Century Fox

BOISE, IDAHO – October 23, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – Hollywood is mourning the passing of screen legend Maureen O’Hara, whose dazzling red hair, crystal-green eyes and porcelain skin had producers calling her “The Queen of Technicolor.” The nickname came from Dr. Herbert Kalmus, the man who invented the ‘Technicolor’ process.

Photo Courtesy: Republic Pictures
Photo Courtesy: Republic Pictures

Her manager, Johnny Nicoletti, said in a statement, O’Hara died at her home in Boise, Idaho. The actress was 95.

A family spokesperson said, “She passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family as they celebrated her life listening to music from her favorite movie, The Quiet Man”

She moved to Idaho in 2013 to be closer to her children after spending four decades in Glengarriff, Ireland.

Known for many classic Hollywood movies including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), Our Man in Havana (1959) and The Parent Trap (1961) actress never won an Academy Award, much less received an Oscar nomination.

However 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”.

Photo Courtesy: Republic Pictures
Photo Courtesy: Republic Pictures

O’Hara starred opposite John Wayne in three Westerns which include; Rio Grande, McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971) as well as the Navy biopic The Wings of Eagles (1957).

Personally, her favorite film was The Quiet Man.

In a 2013 interview O’Hara talked about co-starring with John Wayne, “I was tough. I was tall. I was strong. I didn’t take any nonsense from anybody. He was tough, he was tall, he was strong and he didn’t take any nonsense from anybody. As a man and a human being, I adored him.”

Photo Courtesy: Warner Bros. Archives
Photo Courtesy: Warner Bros. Archives

O’Hara was born as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh and attended school in Milltown, Dublin. She was the second oldest of the six children

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.

During the filming of “Hunchback,” Laughton asked his business, partner Erich Pommer, to offer O’Hara a seven-year contract with their new company, Mayflower Pictures. Her first major film was Jamaica Inn (1939) directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

After the successful completion of Hunchback, World War II began, and Laughton, realizing their studio could no longer film in London, sold O’Hara’s contract to RKO where John Ford, cast her as Angharad in How Green Was My Valley.

Photo Courtesy: Fox Archives
Photo Courtesy: Fox Archives

Six years later, in 1947, she made what is perhaps her best-remembered film, starring as Doris Walker and the mother of a young Natalie Wood in 20th Century Fox’s Miracle on 34th Street, which, despite being released in May, has become a Christmas classic.

 

 

In 1946, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States and held dual citizenship with the US and her native Ireland.

An icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, at the height of her career, O’Hara was considered one of the world’s most beautiful women.

She took on more mature roles in the 1960s, playing Hayley Mills’ mother Maggie McKendrick in The Parent Trap (she was incensed that Walt Disney ignored her contract and instead gave Mills top billing) and she played the wives of Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda in Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and Spencer’s Mountain (1963), respectively.

In 1991, O’Hara made a return to the big screen, starring as John Candy’s overbearing mother in Chris Columbus’ Only the Lonely. Her last credit was as the star of the 2000 CBS telefilm The Last Dance.

Photo Courtesy: UPI.com
Photo Courtesy: UPI.com

O’Hara was married three times, most recently to aviator Charles Blair, whom she wed in 1968. They had a daughter, Bronwyn. Earlier, she was married to producer George Brown from 1939-41 (that union was annulled) and to director Will Price,from 1941 until their divorce in 1953, who she said was an abusive alcoholic.

Musing about what made her a star, O’Hara wrote: “I have always believed my most compelling quality to be my inner strength, something I am easily able to share with an audience. I’m very comfortable in my own skin. I never thought my looks would have anything to do with becoming a star. Yet it seems that in some ways they did.”

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