Maureen O’Hara

*In 1939, Maureen O’Hara married very early at the age of 19 to George H. Brown, after they met on the sets of ‘Jamaica Inn’. Their secret marriage was eventually annulled in 1941.

In 1941, she married William Houston Price, an American film director, and they had a daughter called Bronwyn Bridget (30 June 1944). O’Hara had a very unhappy marriage with Price because of his alcoholism and they parted ways in 1951.

From 1953-1967, she had a passionate relationship with a Mexican politician and banker, Enrique Parra.

Maureen FitzSimons (later changed to O’Hara) was born on 17 August 1920 in Ranelagh, in the Dublin suburb. Charles FitzSimons, her father, was a businessman in Dublin who also owned a part of ‘The Shamrock Rovers’, a famous Ireland soccer team. Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons, her mother, was a successful woman’s clothier and an accomplished operatic contralto too. She was renowned all over Ireland for her stunning beauty, which Maureen had undoubtedly inherited along with her incredible singing voice.

Maureen was the second of the FitzSimons children, the others being Peggy, Florrie, Charles, Margot, and James. Maureen was lucky to be born into a beautiful and talented family of rich Irish heritage.

She did her schooling at the John Street West Girls’ School in Dublin’s Liberties Area. She learnt how to dance at the tender age of five and was drawn to performing in front of the public.

As a child, she was quite athletic by nature and took a great interest in sports. She also had a penchant for performing and enrolled in drama and theatre classes at an early age. She has even won many Feis awards in Ireland, as a performing artist.

At the age of 14, she joined the renowned Abbey Theatre where she could live her dream of performing as an opera singer and as an artiste.

Maureen O’Hara captured the attention of Charles Laughton in a screen test and she was immediately appreciated for her expressive green eyes. In 1938, she debuted on the screen with ‘Kicking the Moon Around’ and later appeared on the low-budget musical called ‘My Irish Molly’ during the same year.

She considered her major breakthrough in filmography to be the role of Mary Yellen in ‘Jamaica Inn’ (1939), which was directed by the famous Alfred Hitchcock and had Charles Laughton as a co-star.

Still working under a contract with Charles Laughton, she also secured a role at the age of 19 in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1939) by RKO films which turned out to be a major hit.

In 1940, she starred in ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’ putting her dancing skills to good use as an aspiring ballerina.

In 1941, she had appeared in a role in ‘They Met in Argentina’, which turned out to be a great flop, as predicted by O’Hara herself. However in 1941 itself, her next film ‘How Green Was My Valley’ by John Ford turned to be pretty successful at the box office.

Maureen O’Hara appeared in ‘A Bill of Divorcement’ in 1940 which was directed by John Farrow (an Australian-American director) and was a remake of the earlier George Cukor film. As a skilled actress, she beautifully portrayed the role of Sydney Fairchild, which was originally played by the legendary Katharine Hepburn in the earlier version.

In 1942, she was a part of ‘The Black Swan’ by Henry King and she absolutely loved filming it. According to her, it contained the perfect recipe for a lavish pirate film with a magnificent ship, sword fights, cannon balls, etc. Her experience of working with Tyrone Power who was famous for his sense of humour was extremely thrilling.

Maureen starred in her first Technicolor film, a war film called ‘To the Shores of Tripoli’ where she played the part of Lieutenant Mary Carter, an Army nurse. Even though the film was regarded to be a commercial success, it failed to impress her completely as she believed the characters seemed too streamlined.

Later, her roles in Jean Renoir’s ‘This Land is Mine’ and Richard Wallace’s ‘The Fallen Sparrow’ added to her ever-growing success in the film industry and have been counted as two of her major films.

In 1945, she was simply brilliant as Contessa Francesca, the feisty noblewoman in ‘The Spanish Main’. She considers it to be one of her most “decorative” roles.