--- name: "Maureen O'Hara" canonical: "https://film.one/person/maureen-ohara" roles: ["Actor"] born: "17 August 1920" died: "24 October 2015" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 82 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T02:23:14.823308+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Maureen O'Hara Actor. Born 17 August 1920 in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland. Died 24 October 2015. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 17 August 1920, Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland - **Died:** 24 October 2015 - **Active:** 1941–1952 - **Also known as:** Maureen FitzSimons, مورین اوهارا - **Frequently works with:** [John Ford](https://film.one/person/john-ford.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 82, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 84 (2), 1950s 78 (1) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 82 to 82 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 3 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 3, Comedy 2, Family 1, Romance 1 - **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $11m across 3 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_O%27Hara, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q229276, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000058/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/70035 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*Miracle on 34th Street*](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) (85) - **Apple TV:** [*The Quiet Man*](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-man.md) (78) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Maureen O'Hara > Maureen O'Hara was the woman the studios put in Technicolor to show what the process could do, and she spent thirty years standing up to anyone the frame put beside her. Ford got the best of her; too many others settled for the hair. Watch Maureen O'Hara square up to John Wayne. The chin comes up, the shoulders set, and whatever the script has decided she is going to lose, she does not look like a woman who has read that far. She did it opposite him in five films, and the point of her in them was never the looks, though the studios thought it was. The point was that she would not be moved, and that he seemed to know it. She trained at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin from the age of fourteen, which is where the carriage comes from. Charles Laughton signed her, changed her name from FitzSimons, and put her in Hitchcock's *Jamaica Inn* (1939) and then *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939). Hollywood followed, and so did John Ford: *How Green Was My Valley* (1941) was the first of five films they made together. After that she worked steadily through the 1960s in adventure films, westerns and comedies: *Rio Grande* (1950), the first of the Wayne pictures, *The Quiet Man* (1952), which she counted her own favourite, and *The Parent Trap* (1961), a Disney comedy that let her be funny. She largely stopped after *Big Jake* (1971), came back once for *Only the Lonely* (1991), and died in 2015. Ford got the best of her, and it is not hard to see why. He loved being Irish and she was the real thing, and in his films the poise loosens into warmth. In *How Green Was My Valley* she is Angharad, the daughter of a Welsh mining household, and she plays her as the one who holds the family's decency without asking to be thanked for it. The film moved us more than it strictly earns, and she is part of the reason: there is a stillness in her that the wandering accents around her cannot touch. *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947) uses the same quality another way, a mother playing everything straight while the film around her decides whether Father Christmas is real. What did not work was the studio's idea of her. She was called the Queen of Technicolor, for the red hair and green eyes and a complexion the process flattered, and too many parts asked for nothing but that. She knew it. "Hollywood would never allow my talent to triumph over my face," she wrote, and the shelf of spirited-redhead adventures bears her out. Some of the early assignments, *Dance, Girl, Dance* (1940) among them, drew complaints that she lacked intensity or humour, which is a strange thing to say about a woman who would later go toe to toe with Wayne for a living. It says more about the parts. Start with Ford. The rest is handsome, and much of it is only that. ## Biography Maureen O'Hara, born Maureen FitzSimons, was an Irish-American actress and singer. She was born on 17 August 1920 in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland, and died on 24 October 2015 in Boise, Idaho. She began her film career in Britain with *Jamaica Inn* (1939) before moving to Hollywood, where she appeared in *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939). O'Hara is known for her roles as Angharad Morgan in *How Green Was My Valley* (1941), Doris Walker in *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), Mary Kate Danaher in *The Quiet Man* (1952), and Margaret McKendrick in *The Parent Trap* (1961). She frequently collaborated with director John Ford and actor John Wayne, and received an honorary Academy Award in 2014. *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, dib.ie, cnn.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *The Quiet Man* (1952), Fi1m 78, as Mary Kate Danaher — [page](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-man.md) - *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), Fi1m 85, as Doris Walker — [page](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) - *How Green Was My Valley* (1941), Fi1m 82, as Angharad Morgan — [page](https://film.one/film/how-green-was-my-valley.md) ## Complete filmography (68) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Last Dance* (2000), as Helen Parker - *Cab to Canada* (1998), as Katherine - *The Christmas Box* (1995), as Mary Parkin - *Only the Lonely* (1991), as Rose Muldoon - *John Wayne - Eine amerikanische Legende* (1991), Actor - *Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies* (1988), as (archive footage) (uncredited) - *Natalie - A Tribute to a Very Special Lady* (1982), Actor - *The Hollywood Greats* (1977), series, Actor - *The Red Pony* (1973), as Ruth Tiflin - *Big Jake* (1971), as Martha McCandles - *How Do I Love Thee?* (1970), as Elsie Waltz - *The Rare Breed* (1966), as Martha Price - *The Battle of the Villa Fiorita* (1965), as Moira - *A Cry of Angels* (1963), Actor - *McLintock!* (1963), as Katherine Gilhooley McLintock - *Spencer's Mountain* (1963), as Olivia Spencer - *Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation* (1962), as Peggy Hobbs - *The Deadly Companions* (1961), as Kit Tilden - *The Parent Trap* (1961), as Margaret 'Maggie' McKendrick - *Our Man in Havana* (1960), as Beatrice Severn - *Mrs. Miniver* (1960), as Mrs. Miniver - *The Bell Telephone Hour* (1959), series, Actor - *DuPont Show of the Month* (1957), series, Actor - *The Wings of Eagles* (1957), as Min Wead - *Everything But the Truth* (1956), as Joan Madison - *Lisbon* (1956), as Sylvia Merrill - *Lady Godiva of Coventry* (1955), as Lady Godiva - *The Magnificent Matador* (1955), as Karen Harrison - *The Long Gray Line* (1955), as Mary O'Donnell - *Malaga* (1954), as Joanna Dana - *War Arrow* (1953), as Elaine Corwin - *The Redhead from Wyoming* (1953), as Kate Maxwell - *Against All Flags* (1952), as Spitfire Stevens - *The Quiet Man* (1952), as Mary Kate Danaher — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-man.md) - *Kangaroo* (1952), as Dell McGuire - *At Sword's Point* (1952), as Claire - daughter of Athos - *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Susanna Cibber - *Flame of Araby* (1951), as Princess Tanya - *Rio Grande* (1950), as Mrs. Kathleen Yorke - *Tripoli* (1950), as Gräfin D'Arneau - *Comanche Territory* (1950), as Katie Howard - *Bagdad* (1949), as Princess Marjan - *Father Was a Fullback* (1949), as Elizabeth Cooper - *The Forbidden Street* (1949), as Adelaide 'Addie' Culver - *A Woman's Secret* (1949), as Marian Washburn - *Sitting Pretty* (1948), as Tacey King - *The Foxes of Harrow* (1947), as Odalie D'Arceneaux - *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), as Doris Walker — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) - *The Homestretch* (1947), as Leslie Hale Wallace - *Sinbad the Sailor* (1947), as Shireen - *Do You Love Me* (1946), as Katherine 'Kitten' Hilliard - *Sentimental Journey* (1946), as Julie Beck Weatherly - *The Spanish Main* (1945), as Contessa Francesca - *Buffalo Bill* (1944), as Louisa Frederici - *The Fallen Sparrow* (1943), as Toni Donne - *This Land Is Mine* (1943), as Louise Martin - *Immortal Sergeant* (1943), as Valentine Lee - *The Black Swan* (1942), as Lady Margaret Denby - *Ten Gentlemen from West Point* (1942), as Carolyn Bainbridge - *To the Shores of Tripoli* (1942), as Mary Carter - *How Green Was My Valley* (1941), as Angharad Morgan — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/how-green-was-my-valley.md) - *They Met in Argentina* (1941), as Lolita O'Shea - *Dance, Girl, Dance* (1940), as Judy - *A Bill of Divorcement* (1940), as Sydney Fairfield - *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939), as Esmeralda - *Jamaica Inn* (1939), as Mary Yellan - *My Irish Molly* (1938), as Eileen O'Shea - *Kicking the Moon Around* (1938), as Secretary ## Gallery - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-9d8b34d91887.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Autographed_Photograph_From_Maureen_O%27Hara_Price_to_Clifton_Cates%2C_circa_1945_%2822479452472%29.jpg/1280px-Autographed_Photograph_From_Maureen_O%27Hara_Price_to_Clifton_Cates%2C_circa_1945_%2822479452472%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Photo from the 1941 film How Green Was My Valley with Maureen O’Hara.](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-3fc7746d7407.jpg) Photo from the 1941 film How Green Was My Valley with Maureen O’Hara. — International Photographer, local 659 of IATSE, Hollywood, California., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/How_Green_Was_My_Valley_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - !["Be Lux Lovely", says Maureen O'Hara, 1952](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-178dd8397d0f.jpg) "Be Lux Lovely", says Maureen O'Hara, 1952 — Lever Brothers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Be_Lux_Lovely%2C_says_Maureen_O%27Hara%2C_1952.jpg/1280px-Be_Lux_Lovely%2C_says_Maureen_O%27Hara%2C_1952.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Photo of Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara from the 1949 film Father Was a Fullback.](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-3b39acedf4ea.jpg) Photo of Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara from the 1949 film Father Was a Fullback. — Twentieth Century Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Fred_MacMurray_Maureen_O%27Hara_Father_was_a_fullback_1949.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-c745a01b04a2.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-26e4056c6051.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-948521c201d3.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-4cf49063acca.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-3d171f45031e.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB - ![Maureen O'Hara](https://film.one/media/person/1232110/gallery-4aeb28c1807e.jpg) Maureen O'Hara — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 2 won - Academy Honorary Award 2014: Academy Honorary Award (won) - Great Immigrants Award 2009: Great Immigrants Award (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/maureen-ohara