The now 90-year-old Irish-born red-headed icon, Maureen O’Hara, may well be the greatest living actress never to have been nominated for an Oscar.

Discovered by Charles Laughton who mentored her in his films, Jamaica Inn and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, her first film without Laughton was a 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 How Green Was My Valley.

She was cast opposite Tyrone Power in The Razor’s Edge, but a dispute with producer Daryl F. Zanuck led to her replacement by Gene Tierney. She quickly rebounded with the perennial holiday classic, Miracle on 34th Street. Although she worked for many directors, it was under John Ford that she did her best work in films such as Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Long Gray Line and The Wings of Eagles. Her best scenes as writer Frank “Spig” Wead’s alcoholic wife in the latter were excised at the insistence of the real life woman’s children who didn’t want their mother seen as a drunk.

Originally cast opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I, 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 The Parent Trap, but her insistence on star billing over Hayley Mills rubbed Walt Disney the wrong way and he refused to consider her for Mary Poppins even though she claimed in her autobiography that it was she who brought the property to him.

Basically retired since the 1973 TV version of The Red Pony opposite Henry Fonda, O’Hara returned to films briefly as John Candy’s bigoted mother in 1991’s Only the Lonely. Since then she only made occasional appearances in TV movies.

Although she has been honored by groups as diverse as the Seattle Film Critics and the Irish Film and Television Awards, recognition from major organizations such as the New York Film Critics, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, continues to elude her. Maybe they believe her when she says she’s going to live to be 102, and are waiting for her to reach her centennial before they give her proper due.

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 against whom 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. Once thought of as Ford’s folly, the film was a huge success for which Ford won his fourth Oscar as Best Director. Alas, there were no awards for either Wayne or O’Hara, both of them largely responsible for the film’s success.

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 (Tyrone Power), Maher’s beloved wife played by O’Hara, his father played by Donald Crisp, his brother played by Sean McClory and various actors as 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 was here by O’Hara.

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-faced, 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. She hasn’t been seen on the big screen since.

SELECTED AWARDS FOR MAUREEN O’HARA

• Nominated Best Actress-Comedy, Laurel Awards for Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1963)
• Nominated Top Female Star, Laurel Awards (1964)
• Golden Boot Award (1991)
• Living Treasure Award, Seattle Film Critics (2002)
• Life Achievement, Irish Film and Television Awards (2004)
• Star on the Walk of Fame (7000 Hollywood Blvd.)