Home> Facts and Trivia > Stars > Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara Facts
| Sign | Leo |
| Born |
Aug 17, 1920 Ranelagh, Ireland |
| Died |
Oct 24, 2015 Boise, Idaho |
| Age | Died at 95 |
| Total Facts | 45 |
A favorite of director John Ford.
Aunt of Charles F. FitzSimons.
Brought to Hollywoood by actor Charles Laughton.
Crack typist who typed some of her own scripts/rewrites.
Daughter: Bronwyn FitzSimons.
Did many of her own stunts in her films.
Grandmother of C. Beau Fitzsimons.
Had a second career after retiring as a successful Magazine Publisher; one of the reasons was to help keep her from becoming bored after retirement.
In 1939, at the age of 19, Maureen O'Hara secretly married Englishman George H. Brown, a film producer, production assistant and occasional scriptwriter whose best known work is the first of Margaret Rutherford's 1960s Miss Marple mysteries, Murder She Said. The marriage was annulled in 1941.
In 1941, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price (dialog director in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the union ended in 1953, reportedly as a result of his alcohol abuse.
In 1946, O'Hara became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In 1960, O'Hara starred on Broadway in the hit musical Christine, for which she won the Tony Award, the Drama Critics Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Sarah Siddons Award, all in the category of the year's best leading actress in a musical.
In 2004, Maureen O'Hara released her autobiography 'Tis Herself, published by Simon & Schuster.
In 2004, Maureen O'Hara was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin.
In addition to her acting skills, Maureen O'Hara had a soprano voice and described singing as her first love.
In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by Lidia Simoneschi. She was occasionally dubbed by Dhia Cristiani, most notably in Sitting Pretty (1948); by Rosetta Calavetta and once by Paola Barbara in the multi Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941).
In the early 40s, was one of the actresses invited to the White House for a benefit dinner, she sat right next to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1993.
Lost her husband Charles Blair and her best friend John Wayne within months of each other.
Maureen O'Hara donated her late husband's (Charles F. Blair, Jr.) Sikorsky VS-44A seaplane, "The Queen of the Skies", to the New England Air Museum. The restoration of the plane took 8 years and time was donated by former pilots and mechanics in honor of Blair (who was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air Force, and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am). It is the only surviving example of this type of plane.
The New England Air Museum (NEAM) is located at Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Connecticut. The museum is housed in three large display buildings consisting of more than 75,000 square feet of exhibit space. Exhibits include the history of Sikorsky Aircraft, early war aircraft, early French aviation featuring the Lafayette Escadrille, a history of air mail, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Flying Mollisons, and the 58th Bomb Wing Memorial.
Maureen O'Hara starred with John Wayne in 5 movies: Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). The first three were directed by John Ford.
Maureen O'Hara was 'discovered' by Charles Laughton.
Maureen O'Hara was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats with the added distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Later she sold the airline with the permission of the shareholders.
Maureen O'Hara was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin.
Maureen O'Hara's father insisted that she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on (just in case her performing arts career was unsuccessful). She enrolled in business school and became a proficient bookkeeper and typist. Those skills proved helpful many years later when she was able to take and transcribe production notes dictated by John Ford for the screen adaptation of Maurice Walsh's short story The Quiet Man.
Maureen O'Hara's mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful women's clothier.
Measurements: 36 1/2C-25-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).
O'Hara married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, Jr., on March 12, 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air Force, and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting. Blair died in 1978 when an engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St. Croix to St. Thomas exploded.
O'Hara's father was in the clothing business and also bought into the Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara has supported since childhood.
She and John Wayne remained friends until his death. In her home on St. Croix, she had a wing she called the John Wayne Wing because he stayed there when visiting. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, some ten years after Wayne's death.
She became an American citizen on January 25, 1946 but has retained her Irish citizenship. It was the first time in history that the United States government recognized an Irish citizen as Irish. This led to a change in process for all Irish immigrants.
She is portrayed by Liane Langland in Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (1991) (TV).
She is the last surviving cast member of Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
She is the only credited cast member of Miracle on 34th Street (1947) who is still alive.
She made headlines in 1997 by claiming that Brian Keith's suicide, while suffering from lung cancer and emphysema and mourning the suicide of his daughter, was an accident.
She was born in Churchtown, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland.
She was having lunch with actress Lucille Ball the moment Lucy first saw Cuban musician Desi Arnaz whom she later married.
She was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture.
She was the first choice to play Anna in the film version of The King and I (1956) but Richard Rodgers did not want the role played by a "pirate queen".
Siblings: Peggy (a Sisters of Charity nun); TV/film producer 'Charles B. Fitzsimons' (now deceased); actress Florrie Clare Hamilton (now deceased); Margot Fitzsimons Edwards; and actor James FitzSimons, aka James Lilburn/James O'Hara/Jim O'Hara (now deceased).
Sister of Charles B. Fitzsimons, Margot Fitzsimons, James O'Hara, Clare Hamilton and Peggy FitzSimons.
Starred with John Wayne in 5 movies: Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). The first three were directed by John Ford.
Was John Wayne's favorite actress and he considered her a real friend, the only woman he thought of in that way. When he lay dying in his hospital bed, he watched on television as Maureen petitioned Congress to give him a Congressional Gold Medal, which they did by a unanimous vote.
Was good friends with Ginger Rogers, Anne Baxter, Lucille Ball,Lauren Bacall and Roddy McDowall.
Was originally cast as Isabel Bradley in The Razor's Edge (1946) but was taken off by Darryl F. Zanuck she was replaced by Gene Tierney, Zanuck would soon cast her in the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947).