Maureen O'Hara Biography
Born: August 17, 1920
Born in Ranelagh, Ireland, near Dublin, Maureen O'Hara was trained at the Abbey Theatre School and appeared on radio as a young girl before making her stage debut with the Abbey Players in the mid-'30s. She went to London in 1938, and made her first important screen appearance that same year in the Charles_Laughton/Erich_Pommer-produced drama Jamaica_Inn, directed by Alfred_Hitchcock. She was brought to Hollywood with Laughton's help and co-starred with him in the celebrated costume drama The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which established O'Hara as a major new leading lady. Although she appeared in dramas such as How_Green_Was_My_Valley with Walter_Pidgeon, The_Fallen_Sparrow opposite John_Garfield, and This_Land_Is_Mine with Laughton, it was in Hollywood's swashbucklers that O'Hara became most popular and familiar. Beginning with The_Black_Swan opposite Tyrone_Power in 1942, she always seemed to be fighting (or romancing) pirates, especially once Technicolor became standard for such films. Her red hair photographed exceptionally well, and, with her extraordinary good looks, she exuded a robust sexuality that made her one of the most popular actresses of the late '40s and early '50s.
O'Hara was also a good sport, willing to play scenes that demanded a lot of her physically, which directors and producers appreciated. The_Spanish_Main, Sinbad the Sailor, and Against_All_Flags (the latter starring Errol_Flynn) were among her most popular action films of the '40s. During this period, the actress also starred as young Natalie_Wood's beautiful, strong-willed mother in the classic holiday fantasy Miracle on 34th Street and as John_Wayne's estranged wife in the John_Ford cavalry drama Rio_Grande. O'Hara became Wayne's most popular leading lady, most notably in Ford's The_Quiet_Man, but her career was interrupted during the late '50s when she sued the scandal magazine Confidential. It picked up again in 1960, when she did one of her occasional offbeat projects, the satire Our Man in Havana, based on a Graham_Greene novel and starring Alec_Guinness. O'Hara moved into more distinctly maternal roles during the '60s, playing the mother of Hayley_Mills in Disney's popular The_Parent_Trap. She also starred with Wayne in the comedy Western McLintock!, and with James_Stewart in the The_Rare_Breed, both directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Following her last film with Wayne, Big_Jake, and a 1973 television adaptation of John_Steinbeck's -The Red Pony, O'Hara went into retirement, although returned to the screen in 1991 to play John_Candy's overbearing mother in the comedy Only the Lonely. Bruce Eder, Rovi
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