Profile of the Day: Maureen O’Hara

Maureen O’Hara

Today we remember legendary film actress Maureen O’Hara, who passed away this weekend.

She was born Maureen FitzSimons on August 17, 1920 in Ranelagh, Ireland. Starting from a young age, O’Hara dreamed of becoming an opera singer and stage actress like her mother, but she was convinced by actor Charles Laughton to try her hand at film.

Her first major movie was Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn. Her performance in that film led to her casting as the gypsy Esmeralda in the 1939 production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was named the “Queen of Technicolor” for Hollywood’s love affair with her vivid red hair and bright green eyes. In addition to the Oscar-nominated film How Green Was My Valley, O’Hara starred in a string of swashbuckling action movies. However, she is perhaps best remembered for starring in the holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street, in which she played a single working mother to a young Natalie Wood.

O’Hara died at her home in Boise, Idaho on October 24, 2015. She was 95.
 

View Maureen O’Hara’s Geni Profile

Image: U.S. National Archives