Maureen O'Hara: The Biography

305 Pages·2013·19.71 MB·English

by  Aubrey Malone

Maureen O’Hara

Maureen
O’Hara
~
THe BiOgrapHy
A M
ubrey Alone
Copyright © 2013 by The University press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky,
eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, georgetown
College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead
State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University,
Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
all rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data
Dillon-Malone, a. (aubrey)
Maureen O’Hara : the biography / aubrey Malone.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBN 978-0-8131-4238-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
iSBN 978-0-8131-4239-5 (epub) — iSBN 978-0-8131-4240-1 (pdf)
1. O’Hara, Maureen, 1920- 2. Motion picture actors and actresses—
United States—Biography. i. Title.
pN2287.O33M35 2013
791.4302’8092—dc23
[B] 2013022751
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the american
National Standard for permanence in paper for printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of america.
Member of the association of
american University presses
Contents
introduction 1
1. young girl in a Hurry 7
2. Maiden Voyage 21
3. The Old Son of a Bitch 29
4. Saluting Uncle Sam 45
5. Civvy Street 71
6. Sojourn in Cong 95
7. Back to Bread and Butter 111
8. Keeping Things Confidential 135
9. reality Bites 145
10. Love in the air 159
11. a Streetcar Named retire 175
12. ready for Her Close-ups 185
13. grande Dame 203
acknowledgments 211
Filmography 213
Notes 215
Bibliography 235
index 249
Illustrations follow page 138

introduction
They’ve built a statue to her in Kells. Her website receives 250,000 hits a
day. every Christmas Day somebody in the world is watching Miracle on
34th Street, and every St. patrick’s Day somebody is watching The Quiet
Man.
Maureen O’Hara (née FitzSimons) occupies an unusual place in the
film pantheon, in that she was never nominated for an Oscar, yet she’s the
only irish actress to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also
worked with all the greats, both in front of the camera (Charles Laughton,
Tyrone power, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, among others) and behind it
(alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Jean renoir, Nicholas ray, Sam peckinpah).
She always said that working with top-flight stars helped her to get the best
out of herself.
O’Hara’s belle époque was the 1940s and 1950s, when she occupied
the front ranks of female action roles. The films she appeared in had an
old-world simplicity, but that made them no less entertaining. She cantered
across burning sands in a yashmak as a harem heroine and clambered
up a ship’s rigging in hoopskirts as a love goddess–cum–pirate queen.
“There was always a fight in them between me and someone else,” the
rapier-slashing star told Joe Hyams in a 1959 Los Angeles Times interview,
“usually another girl. That made up for the bad script.” in all these roles
she leavened the exotic superstructures with a large dose of irish common
sense. “Black is black and white is white,” she declared, “i never stand on
middle ground.”1
She was good at taking her punishment in such ventures. She endured
so many on-set injuries during her career that her colleagues joked she
should have been awarded a purple Heart. The payoff was that she was
rarely out of work. “i’ve never been without a contract,” was a frequent
boast during her prime, “not for a split second. it’s better that way because
1
2 Maureen O’Hara
i’ve always hated being in competition with other actresses for roles.” She
also hated being idle, so she often settled for material that was unworthy of
her. “Show me the actress who didn’t,” she challenged.2
Was O’Hara willing to diversify to secure better roles? grace Kelly
was another irish ice queen from Hollywood’s golden age, but she forsook
makeup to render herself suitably dowdy for The Country Girl and won
an Oscar for her performance. Would O’Hara have been willing to do
likewise? (Her famous hair remained a radiant red, even into her nineties.)
Her critics accused her of having a limited range, but O’Hara begged to
disagree. She seemed to struggle in comedic roles but proved her mettle in
films that called on her to take charge of situations or find courage in the
face of adversity. an indomitable coper with an iron will and an innate
sense of the polarities of whatever conundrum she found herself in, she
comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.
The Quiet Man became the insignia of her career, but she appeared
in many other noteworthy roles, especially in the early years. Films such
as Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and How Green Was
My Valley established her credentials and her captivating beauty. Other
early highlights included the profound dramas The Fallen Sparrow and
This Land Is Mine and, in the 1950s, two other John Ford offerings, The
Long Gray Line and Wings of Eagles. She writes in her autobiography,
“One critic, the bloody bastard, [said] that it took the likes of John Ford
to drag a good performance out of me.”3 although O’Hara worked well
with other directors, the only Oscar-nominated films she appeared in were
by Ford. in the 1960s and 1970s she expanded her range to play “mature”
women and also appeared in acclaimed TV films such as Mrs. Miniver and
The Red Pony, when the dreaded “black box” ate into cinema profits and
threatened to torpedo the genre.
Versatility was one of her proudest traits. “i played every kind of
role,” she declared. “i was never petite or cute so there was never anything
about me that would go out of style.” But she never laid claim to genius. “i
worked hard and always knew my lines.” She had no time for Method act-
ing, which she dismissed as so much “tommyrot.”4 acting should be acting,
in her view, not “becoming” the role. She placed a high value on punctual-
ity and was always perfectly coiffed and made up before the cameras rolled.
She was loved for her naturalness, her lack of a diva quality. She didn’t
Introduction 3
make an entrance, like Marlene Dietrich or Joan Crawford; she simply en-
tered. acting was the shy woman’s revenge for her. in Cong in 1951 people
chatted to her as if she were one of the extras on The Quiet Man, instead
of its female lead. She mixed with kings but never lost the common touch.
another accusation was that she “made nice” with the studio bosses to
gain better parts and more money. This she also hotly disputed, claiming
it was never the FitzSimons way to be meek or sweet and that money was
never a priority for her. Nonetheless, Darryl F. Zanuck liked to advertise
the fact that O’Hara was the highest paid actress on his lot, at $5,000 a
week. if she was friendly with Zanuck and Harry Cohn and others, it was
because of her naturally cordial disposition rather than any ulterior motive.
She always told the executives what she thought of them, she insisted, but
what she thought was usually complimentary.
Despite the aforementioned temper, she was blessed with a balanced
personality. “i’ve never walked off a set,” she boasted. “i’ve never had a
temperamental fit in my life. i think i cooperate too much.”5 in fact, she
did vacate the set on one occasion—while making Ten Gentlemen from
West Point with the lascivious george Montgomery—but she wasn’t be-
ing a diva. Montgomery had made a pass at her, and she was righteously
indignant.
O’Hara was always more heroine than rebel. if you scratched the
firebrand, you found the conformist. This was probably the result of her
upbringing; domestic stability was the keynote, and an ideal evening was
one spent singing and listening to classical airs. religion was also a huge ele-
ment in her life. She rarely missed Mass and was a god-fearing woman. On
film sets, though, a different personality emerged. “i enjoyed tough direc-
tors,” she claimed, “who didn’t waste time with politeness and that sort of
nonsense. We got right down to work.”6 When they did, she gave as good as
she got, parlaying her natural vim and vinegar into innumerable set pieces.
as she made clear in her most talismanic role, “i’m not a woman to be
honked at and come running. . . . We Danahers are a fightin’ family.” She
objected to the clichéd depiction of redheaded women as spitfires, despite
the fact that she was one herself. She liked opinionated people, even those
with a tinge of nastiness and temper—all the things women aren’t supposed
to be. as regards her bossy image, she admitted it was true but claimed she
didn’t always get her way.