O'Hara's career spanned more than 60 films, including How Green Was My Valley and the The Quiet Man, the classic 1952 romance directed by John Ford and set in Ireland. Just last year, O'Hara received a Lifetime Honorary Oscar.
Born Maureen FitzSimons in Dublin on August 17, 1920, she loved singing Irish songs and even helped write the lyrics to "The Isle of Innisfree," the theme song from The Quiet Man, the film she was best known for.
She had a way with Irish sayings, as well as a way with John Wayne, her most celebrated co-star.
In one of their most famous scenes from The Quiet Man, O'Hara plays village lass Mary Kate Danaher. John Wayne plays the hero, Sean Thornton, a retired boxer who returns to his family's ancestral home. It's love at first sight when he spies Mary Kate in the fields, but they don't speak. When they finally meet, he yanks her into his arms. They kiss — then she tries to hit him.
"It's a bold one you are, and who gave you leave to be kissing me?" she says.
"So you can talk," Wayne's Thornton replies
"Yes, I can, I will, and I do."
In 2000, she told NPR's Scott Simon that behind the scenes, she "hauled off and socked him in the jaw ... broke a bone in my own wrist."
O'Hara and Wayne made five successful movies together, including the Westerns McLintock! and Rio Grande. They were an electrifying cinematic pair, and O'Hara said that she "always stood toe-to-toe with Duke."
And in fact, she says she stood toe-to-toe with all of the leading men she worked with, including Jimmy Stewart, Tyrone Power and Walter Pidgeon. A tall, athletic woman, O'Hara did almost all of her own stunts, including fencing.
Maureen O’Hara was one of my all-time favorites. She was a
grand lady and wonderful actress. I’m just a fan, but I miss her already… One happy thought though, she’s in heaven
now, where she can banter with John Wayne all they want…
Live Long and Prosper...
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