Maureen O’Hara
August 17, 1920 – October 24, 2015
When I came upon this image from Rio Grande (1950) the other day, I had no idea this is what I’d end up using it for. The great Maureen O’Hara passed away today at 95.
October 24, 2015 by Toby
Maureen O’Hara
August 17, 1920 – October 24, 2015
When I came upon this image from Rio Grande (1950) the other day, I had no idea this is what I’d end up using it for. The great Maureen O’Hara passed away today at 95.
Posted in 1950, John Ford, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara | 11 Comments
She was truly a great actress ,one of the very, very best .RIP Maureen .
Maureen O’Hara…One of the very best. Talent and beauty
supreme. The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he created Maureen.
How wonderful to have our memories of her permanently available. Mary Kate she was and will always be. Rest In Peace to the musical score of The Quiet Man.
I absolutely agree, Mary Kate she will always be for me. A beautiful woman and a fine actress, John Wayne’s perfect celluloid mate. A legend.
I was quite shocked when I heard this, it seemed like she would go on forever. She let us all some wonderful memories though.
RIP
What a lovely lady and a great actress, my favourites are with John Wayne, although she did some other classics miracle on 34th street, Hunchback of Not
Dame, The long grey Line, Deadly Companions, Spencer’s Mountain, Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation. To to name but a few. RIP Maureen.
Dave Cutts (John Wayne Film Society )
Le premier avec Maureen O’hara que j’ai vu est ” The spanish main”, c’était dans les années 50, j’étais enfant. R.I.P.
Maureen O’Hara, in my book one of the best actresses there has ever been. We should all be thankful to Charles Laughton because if he hadn’t seen something in her first screen test for which she was turned down, we may have never had the opportunity of having this marvellous actress and screen beauty to enjoy. Whether she starred in westerns, dramas , swashbucklers or comedies her presence always enhanced the movies in which she starred.
Maureen O’Hara was indeed beautiful, talented, funny, gracious, beautiful, always ready with high praise for actors and behind the scenes people she worked with, a terrific actress and she will be sorely missed. It seems strange that she has left this earth. I somehow felt she would always be with us. Rest in peace Maureen O’Hara.
John K ,I just watched WIND ACROSS THE EVERGLADES which I received yesterday .I enjoyed it .Burl Ives always plays a good role .He did one other movie before starring in THE BIG COUNTRY and DAY OF THE OUTLAW.
John, have you seen THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN with Errol Flynn and Trevor Howard .Highly recommended .
Just feeling like I’d like to add my thoughts about Maureen O’Hara while this is still here. Like everyone here I loved her and this was a sad moment, however much we may have anticipated it.
Maureen O’Hara was one of the most special people in movies for me. She was beautiful, could carry any kind of role, and had such vibrant screen presence. It’s hard to think of another actress who carry those matinee adventure roles with such wonderful energy. I like her in most of the movies she is in and could probably happily watch AGAINST ALL FLAGS or THE PARENT TRAP today.
That said, though, her five films for John Ford are on a whole other level above the others. She herself always acknowledged that he saw her in a way no other director did, the depth she could bring to rich, challenging roles–plainly, as with other Ford regulars, she was willing to put up with an often challenging relationship with him because of this. She is really the last of this Ford company to leave us.
For the record, this is five films–HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, RIO GRANDE, THE QUIET MAN, THE LONG GRAY LINE and THE WINGS OF EAGLES. I’ve lived with all of these most of my life, seen them many times, and they are all masterpieces. Maureen O’Hara is sublime in all of them.
So much of what I love in movies is not showy theatrics by actors–instead, it’s wonderfully created and observed moments of behavioral beauty that come to life on the set with a knowing director and insightful actor. They may not be the film’s big dramatic moments but are a kind of key to why these movies are so great and always draw us back. So, I’ll just cite three of these and will hopefully indicate why I cherish O’Hara so much–and perhaps why others also do.
These are from the three Ford movies pairing O’Hara with John Wayne–the chemistry of the two could have been made in heaven it is so strong. To even think about these films makes me emotional, because the relationship of the couples in each, and taken together, expresses something very profound about men and women.
1–RIO GRANDE–in the scene when the Regimental Singers sing “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” to the estranged couple Kirby (Wayne) and Kathleen (O’Hara), they mostly stand quietly but there is a moment where O’Hara turns her head toward Wayne with a expression of deep feeling. This is piercing.
2–THE QUIET MAN–The way O”Hara sweeps with such exuberance into the room with her things after O’Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald) has brought her Sean’s marriage proposal becomes a choreographed action in which she plays her spinet and sings “The Young May Moon” (with O’Flynn briefly joining in) and then at the end, she finishes with such a wonderful, lusty laugh–that laugh seals one of the best scenes ever (and God knows, this movie is full of them).
3-THE WINGS OF EAGLES–The silent walk down the hospital corridor of Min after the now paralyzed Spig (Wayne) has told her to lead her own life without him now. O’Hara’s expression and body language in this beautiful forward tracking shot (part of it in TCM Remembers for her) are for me an ideal example of what screen acting is.
So–gone but eternal.
Thanks for this, Blake. Her Ford films, make that everybody’s Ford films are filled with so many great little moments.
She’s so good in The Wings Of Eagles. The movie’s underrated as a whole, of course, but I think it’s some of her best work — and she sure is pretty in it.
Rio Grande is a picture that gets better each time I see it. Her scenes with Wayne accomplish so much by doing so little.