Biography and 15 the Best Maureen O’Hara Movies
15.How Green Was My Valley
Maureen O’Hara, Roddy McDowall
Released: 1941
Directed by: John Ford
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 drama film directed by John Ford. The film, based on the 1939 Richard Llewellyn novel, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and scripted by Philip Dunne.
14.The Spanish Main
Maureen O’Hara, Paul Henreid
Released: 1945
Directed by: Frank Borzage
The Spanish Main is an adventure film starring Paul Henreid, Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak and Binnie Barnes, and directed by Frank Borzage. It was RKO’s first all-Technicolor film since Becky..
13.The Long Gray Line
Maureen O’Hara, Tyrone Power
Released: 1955
Directed by: John Ford
The Long Gray Line is a 1955 American Technicolor drama film in CinemaScope directed by John Ford based on the life of Marty Maher. Tyrone Power stars as the scrappy Irish immigrant
12.Jamaica Inn
Maureen O’Hara, Charles Laughton
Released: 1939
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Jamaica Inn is a 1939 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 novel of the same name, the first of three of du Maurier’s works that Hitchcock adapted. I..
11.The Christmas Box
Richard Thomas, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1995
Directed by: Marcus Cole
The Christmas Box is a 1995 film directed by Marcus Cole…
10.Rio Grande
John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1950
Directed by: John Ford
Rio Grande is a 1950 Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. The picture is the third installment of Ford’s “cavalry trilogy,” following two RKO..
9.The Black Swan
Maureen O’Hara, Anthony Quinn
Released: 1942
Directed by: Henry King
The Black Swan is a 1942 American swashbuckler Technicolor film by Henry King, based on a novel by Rafael Sabatini, and starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O’Hara. It was nominated for…
8.McLintock!
John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1963
Directed by: John Wayne, Andrew V. McLaglen
McLintock! is a 1963 comedy Western directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring John Wayne, with co-stars including Maureen O’Hara, Yvonne De Carlo, and Wayne’s son Patrick
7.Only the Lonely
Macaulay Culkin, John Candy
Released: 1991
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Only the Lonely is a 1991 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Chris Columbus and starring John Candy, Maureen O’Hara, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Quinn. The plot..
6.The Parent Trap
Maureen O’Hara, John Mills
Released: 1961
Directed by: David Swift
The Parent Trap is a 1961 Walt Disney film. It stars Hayley Mills, Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith in a story about teenage twins on a quest to reunite their divorced parents. The screenplay by..
5.Miracle on 34th Street
Natalie Wood, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1947
Directed by: George Seaton
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1947 Christmas film written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and..
4.The Rare Breed
James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1966
Directed by: Andrew V. McLaglen
The Rare Breed is a 1966 American western film starring James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith, Juliet Mills and Ben Johnson and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Loosely based on the..
3.Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1962
Directed by: Henry Koster
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation is a 1962 American comedy film directed by Henry Koster and starring James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara. The film is based on a novel by Edward Streeter..
2.The Quiet Man
John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara
Released: 1952
Directed by: John Ford
The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by John Ford. It stars John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen. The screenplay…
1.Spencer’s Mountain
Maureen O’Hara, Henry Fonda
Released: 1963
Directed by: Delmer Daves
Spencer’s Mountain is a 1963 film written, directed, and produced by Delmer Daves from a novel by Earl Hamner, Jr. The film starred Henry Fonda, Maureen O’Hara and in early appearances,
Biography
Maureen O’Hara, byname of Maureen FitzSimons, (born August 17, 1920, Rathmines and Rathgar township, County Dublin, Ireland—died October 24, 2015, Boise, Idaho, U.S.), Irish-American actress known for her portrayals of willful women.
FitzSimons was the second of six children born to the manager of a hat manufacturer and his wife, a fashion designer and sometime opera singer and actress. She began acting as a child, and, after a series of victories in amateur acting contests, she was hired to perform plays on the Irish national radio station. In 1934 she was accepted to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, where she spent the following three years. While having dinner at a hotel, she was noticed by American singer Harry Richman, who recommended her for a screen test at a London film studio. The test was seen by English actor Charles Laughton, and he and his business partner, Erich Pommer, signed her to a seven-year contract with their production company, Mayflower Pictures. Having previously delivered only a single line in Kicking the Moon Around (1938; U.S. title, The Playboy), FitzSimons graduated to a slightly larger role in My Irish Molly (1938; U.S. title, Little Miss Molly).
She then appeared as the niece of a smuggler in Jamaica Inn (1939), an Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier novel that also starred Laughton as the mastermind of the smuggling ring. At that time she adopted O’Hara as her stage name (at Laughton’s suggestion), and she appeared as Maureen O’Hara thereafter. Next the young actress played Esmeralda to Laughton’s Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Laughton then sold O’Hara’s contract to RKO Pictures—the studio that had produced Hunchback—in an effort to save Mayflower from bankruptcy.
Her work in RKO’s 1940 remake of A Bill of Divorcement was critically praised, but it was not until the John Ford picture How Green Was My Valley (1941)—about the travails of a family of Welsh miners—that O’Hara was able to showcase her talent for evincing hard-headed women. In 1942 she appeared in the pirate adventure The Black Swan. Her tough demeanour, combined with her athleticism and willingness to do her own stunts, led to her casting in a series of further swashbucklers. As a result, she was dubbed “the pirate queen.” O’Hara proved herself to be an adaptable performer, though, playing a double-crossing German spy in The Fallen Sparrow (1943) as well as the eminently practical mother of Natalie Wood’s cynical character in Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
O’Hara continued working with Ford, who cast her opposite western icon John Wayne in several films, including Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Wings of Eagles (1957). She demonstrated her ability to hold her own on-screen with appearances as Lady Godiva in Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) and as the title character in a television remake of Mrs. Miniver (1960). O’Hara also played the mother of Hayley Mills’s romantically meddlesome twins in The Parent Trap (1961). In 1963 she reunited with Wayne in McLintock!, in which she played the estranged wife of his character. She paired with Wayne a final time in the 1971 kidnapping drama Big Jake.
. In 2015 she received an honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
