PROFILE MAUREEN O'HARA: The Quiet Manis the movie that made the name of a gregarious woman. The actor Maureen O'Hara, who now lives in Glengarriff, Co Cork, turned 90 this week.
Among her many screen roles she has played characters called Lolita O’Shea, Princess Marjan, Lady Godiva, Contessa Francesca, Angharad, Doris Walker and Beatrice Severn. It is, however, the role of Mary Kate Danaher in John Ford’s 1952 film that remains her most famous and beloved one. And, thanks to Ford, there is a part of the west of Ireland – Cong – that is forever a roaring cliche of Oirishness, to which O’Hara’s red hair undoubtedly contributed.
The Dubliner was born Maureen FitzSimons, the second eldest of six children. Her siblings were Peggy, Charles, Florrie, Margot and Jimmy. Their father, Charles, was a busisnessman, and their mother, Marguerita, had trained as an opera singer. Charles FitzSimons was a part-owner of Shamrock Rovers Football Club – O’Hara, who attended many matches as a teenager, still remains a fan today.
Most of the FitzSimons children attended speech and drama classes at the Abbey Theatre and Ena Mary Burke’s School of Drama and Elocution. A report of a feis in this newspaper on April 15th, 1937, notes that winners of the Shakespearean dialogue competition “included Miss Maureen FitzSimons of the Burke School of Elocution”.
O’Hara originally wanted to be an opera singer. Her prudent father made her also train as a typist, so that she would have a more traditional career to lean on should La Scala not come calling. But it was acting, not soprano singing, that proved to be her performance skill. And O’Hara had exceptionally photogenic looks. She was gloriously and flamboyantly beautiful, with pale skin, green eyes, striking bone structure and that trademark waterfall of red, red hair. Later, in Hollywood, she became known as the Technicolor Queen, referring to the then-new film process that emphasised her dramatic colouring.
When O’Hara, still known at that time as Maureen FitzSimons, was 17 she was invited to London for a screen test. Nothing happened immediately, but her screen test was later seen by Charles Laughton, who ran the new Mayflower Pictures company with Erich Pommer. The result was an offer of a seven-year contract. Reputedly, the local priest came to the FitzSimons home in Dublin to witness the signing of the contract.
She had the film contract, the red hair, Irish citizenship – and Mayflower insisted she change her name to O'Hara to make her even more identifiably Irish in the US. Gone with the Windhad been published the previous year, and O'Hara was the most famous Irish-American surname in the US at that time. (At least she got to keep her Christian name, unlike Judy Garland, originally called Frances Gumm.)
HER FIRST MAJORsuccess was as Mary Yelland in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. While filming Jamaica Inn she met the producer George Brown, who was also working for Mayflower Pictures. Her relationship with him has always remained a bit of a mystery. There is, for instance, no mention of his name anywhere on her official website.
Brown and O'Hara, then 18, married very shortly after meeting, although it was several weeks before their marriage became public knowledge. The Irish Timesof July 24th, 1939, reports: "The ceremony took place by special licence at St Paul's Church, Station Road, Harrow, Middlesex on June 13 . . . Sixteen hours after her marriage she left for Hollywood, to be leading lady to Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mr Brown remained behind."
O'Hara concealed her wedding ring, but at some point during the voyage sailing across the Atlantic on the Queen Maryher mother found it. She was not pleased. Nor was Laughton, who had believed he was launching a single, teenage starlet on to the Hollywood scene, not a married woman.
The couple divorced in 1941. George Brown later went on to marry Bettina Kohr, with whom he had a daughter, Tina Brown, the well-known former editor of Vanity Fair,the New Yorkerand Talk. O'Hara later described the marriage as being "for five minutes". There were two more marriages, one in 1941 to the film director Will Price, with whom she had her only child, Bronwyn, and then to Charles Blair, a brigadier general with the US air force, in 1968.
The film roles came consistently from O'Hara's arrival in the States, How Green Was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Streetand Rio Grandebeing among the most successful. Then, in 1952, The Quiet Mancame along, in all its Technicolor glory, and we've been watching it – while simultaneously laughing and groaning – ever since.
IT'S PROBABLY FAIRto say that O'Hara's character of Mary Kate Danaher contributed to exporting a few myths about the Irish female: namely, all Irish women are redheads, and they come with a mighty temper attached to them. John Wayne, with whom she made five movies, and who was a long-time friend, referred to her guilelessly as "the greatest guy I ever met".
Never mind. That was almost 60 years ago, and a different era of film-making. Maureen O'Hara has been a much-respected, popular and high-profile ambassador for Ireland for decades. She now lives full time in Glengarriff, and, judging by the interview with her that aired on Nationwidelast week, she is still not only a beautiful, poised woman but also one who exudes agility of mind, charm and a healthy degree of bolshiness.
"You have some nice awards and nice pieces," the interviewer Mary Kennedy observed gently, looking around at the silverware. "Well, I never won the Academy Award," O'Hara retorted briskly. "And I think I shouldhave. For The Quiet Man."
Describing herself as a tough Irishwoman, she went on to say that she “did all my own stunts and took no nonsense from anyone”. O’Hara also confessed that many of her period costumes had been very uncomfortable to wear. They necessitated what she referred to as the Bico method. Kennedy looked mystified. “Belly in, chest out!” O’Hara chuckled.
“The wonderful thing is to have gone out in the world,” she declared, “and to have been a success, and done things that are successful and then to be accepted again by the country of your birth.”
Hear hear, and happy birthday. And Maureen O’Hara’s famous hair? It’s still red.
CV Maureen O'Hara
Who is she?Dublin-born actress whose films include The Quiet Man, Miracle on 34th Street, How Green Was My Valley and Rio Grande
Why is she in the news?She celebrated her 90th birthday this week
Least likely to sayI'm a big fan of Lindsay Lohan
Most likely to sayI should have won an Oscar
