Oscar Profile #259: Maureen O’Hara Updated

This is an update of the profile I wrote on the legendary Irish-born red-headed screen icon, Maureen O’Hara, five years ago. I said at the time that she may well be the greatest living actress never to have been nominated for an Oscar. The Academy rectified that deficiency when they presented her with an honorary Oscar last year. She was only the second actress to have been so honored without having ever received a single competitive nomination during her career. The first was another red-headed screen icon, Myrna Loy, who was given hers in 1991, two years before her death at the age of 88.

Discovered by Charles Laughton who mentored her in his 1939 films, Jamaica Inn and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, O’Hara’s first film without Laughton was the 1940 remake of her idol Katharine Hepburn’s film debut, A Bill of Divorcement, followed by her pairing with another famous redhead, Lucille Ball, in Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl Dance. Her star quickly rose, especially after her starring role in John Ford’s Oscar winning 1941 film, How Green Was My Valley.

She was cast opposite Tyrone Power in several films including 1946’s The Razor’s Edge, but a dispute with producer Daryl F. Zanuck led to her replacement in that film by Gene Tierney. She quickly rebounded with the perennial 1947 holiday classic, Miracle on 34th Street. Although she worked for many directors, it was under John Ford that she did her best work, not only in the previously mentioned How Green Was My Valley but in 1950’s Rio Grande, 1952’s The Quiet Man, 1955’s The Long Gray Line and 1957’s The Wings of Eagles as well

She claims in her autobiography that she was originally cast opposite Yul Brynner in 1956’s The King and I, but that another dispute with Zanuck caused her to be replaced by Deborah Kerr. A whole new career in Disney films seemed to be hers after the success of 1960’s The Parent Trap, but her insistence on star billing over Hayley Mills rubbed Disney the wrong way and he refused to consider her for Mary Poppins even though she claimed it was she who brought the property to him.

She did have several other hits in the 1960s, notably 1962’s Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation and 1963’s Spencer’s Mountain

Away from acting since the 1973 TV version of The Red Pony opposite Henry Fonda, O’Hara returned to films just once more to play John Candy’s bigoted mother in 1991’s Only the Lonely. She later starred in three made-for-TV films, the last in 2000.

O’Hara spent much of her later life in Ireland, but returned to the U.S. several years ago, establishing a home in Boise, Idaho to be near her grandson and his family. She died there on October 24, 2015 at the age of 95.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941), directed by John Ford

As the only daughter in a family of five sons, O’Hara was part of an ensemble, but received star billing opposite Walter Pidgeon as the town preacher. The film centers on twelve year-old Roddy McDowall, Oscar winning Donald Crisp as the patriarch of the Welsh coal mining family and Oscar nominated Sara Allgood as its matriarch, but O’Hara has two largely silent, yet key scenes that firmly establish her as a formidable actress. The first is the one in which she is seen sad and forlorn in the big house she has come to live in after marrying the mine owner’s son. The other is the scene at the end in which she comforts her mother while awaiting the fate of her father and brother.

RIO GRANDE (1950), directed by John Ford

In her first pairing with John Wayne, O’Hara, who was 29 at the time of filming, plays the mother of a teenage soldier, played by Claude Jarman, Jr. O’Hara is a pacifist estranged from husband Wayne, a gung-ho career soldier she must fight for control of their son’s soul. It’s a richly detailed film with good performances all around, but O’Hara outshines them all.

The remarkable thing about the film is that it got made at all. Ford had tried for years to get financing for his pet project, a planned filmed in Ireland saga called The Quiet Man, but could find no takers until Republic Pictures honcho Herbert Yates agreed to finance it if he would make a western for him first. The result was this unqualified hit that became known as the third film in a trilogy of similar films made by Ford, following Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

THE QUIET MAN (1952), directed by John Ford

Ford’s dream project was an ode to the land of his forbears. Its bucolic presentation of an Ireland that never was, remains that country’s biggest tourist magnet nearly sixty years later.

John Wayne plays an Irish born, U.S. raised prizefighter who retires to his native land after accidentally killing a man in the ring. O’Hara is the colleen he sets his cap for, Barry Fitzgerald their chaperone, Victor McLaglen O’Hara’s churlish brother, Mildred Natwick the local widow and Ward Bond the local priest. Before its release, the film was thought of as Ford’s folly, but it was a huge success for which Ford won his fourth Oscar as Best Director. It remained O’Hara’s personal favorite of all her films for the remainder of her life. It’s a perennial TV favorite, especially around St. Patrick’s Day every March 17th.

THE LONG GRAY LINE (1955), directed by John Ford

Based on the true story of a football coach at West Point, Ford is at his most sentimental here as he chronicles the life of Marty Maher, played by Tyrone Power, Maher’s beloved wife played by O’Hara, his father played by Donald Crisp, his brother played by Sean McClory and various West Point cadets and their ladies. Betsy Palmer is especially memorable as the wife of one, mother of another.

The film’s best scenes involve O’Hara – from Power’s courtship of her to various scenes revolving around the dinner table to her legendary death scene. That scene in which the elderly, frail O’Hara goes outside to warm herself, sits in a chair and quietly drifts off, her hand falling at her side is an actor’s showcase. It’s a scene that has been copied many times, but has never been done as effectively as it here by O’Hara who called it the most difficult film she made for Ford.

ONLY THE LONELY (1991), directed by Chris Columbus

O’Hara made a highly publicized comeback in a role that seemed tailor made for the long gone character actress, Una O’Connor, that of a prune- aced, bigoted, opinionated, old lady whose grown son, a fireman, is afraid to stand up to her.

An unconventional film, it was a flop at the box office, which is a shame because it’s really a one-of-a-kind gem. Written and directed by Chris Columbus between his mega-hits, Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, but superior to both of them, the film deserved a much better fate.

John Candy had his best role as O’Hara’s son, and Ally Sheedy as the mortuary hairdresser he loves, was also impressive. Anthony Quinn played the neighbor who has a love-hate relationship with O’Hara, who really shines here. It should have signaled the beginning of a whole new career for her as a character actress, but sadly it did not.