"Which one of you is Doherty?"
Maureen O’Hara is in fine form. It’s a sunny afternoon and the RTÉ Guide is preparing the parlour of Casey’s Hotel in Glengarriff for an interview and photoshoot with the woman who has defined Irishness for generations of cinemagoers. Now 84, O’Hara has clearly lost none of her feistiness. The sparkle is still in her eyes as, having successfully ascertained the identity of her interviewer, she turns to photographer John Cooney and surveys his lighting set-up. "Keep that key-light low," she pronounces. "When you’re young you can take it high; but when you’re my age, you need it straight on."
When it comes to lighting set-ups, few would argue with a woman who has been photographed almost all of her life, or at least since the age of 17 when Maureen FitzSimons from Ranelagh signed her first movie contract with the great Charles Laughton. But more of that anon.
We’re here to talk about Maureen’s autobiography, 'Tis Herself', and Glengarriff is an appropriate venue for the actress to look back on a life less ordinary. It was here in 1969 that Maureen and her third husband, aviator Charles Blair, settled down in a place that, as she mentions in her memoirs, "had all the cozy charm we were looking for". Blair died in a tragic plane crash in 1978, but O’Hara still divides her time between their homes in West Cork, New York and the island of St Croix. And she has clearly not forgotten the man she calls her "heart’s desire". Indeed our interview proper doesn’t start until Maureen has shown me photographs of Charles Blair’s plane, currently hanging in the Smithonsonian Institute, and she searches frantically through her papers to find a photograph of her husband’s grave in Arlington cemetery.
Though many of today’s cinemagoers know Maureen O’Hara through her performance as Mary Kate Danaher in John Ford’s 'The Quiet Man', it’s worth recalling that no Irish actor or actress before or since has enjoyed such a level of Hollywood success. During a career that spanned 60 films, O’Hara worked with many legendary actors (Wayne, Fonda, Stewart, Flynn) and many legendary directors (Ford, Renoir, Hitchcock, Ray) and held her own with all of them. "Oh, I always gave as good as I got," she declares, proudly.
Off-screen, the woman known as The Queen of Technicolor was equally tenacious, campaigning for her great pal John Wayne to get the Congressional Medal of Honour before he died; shutting down one tabloid magazine (Confidential) that printed a scurrilous story about her; and paving the way for Irish citizens to have their nationality recognised by the US Government. Given all that, it’s surprising that the actress took so long to commit her life story to print. "You’re kinda loath to write about yourself," she counters, "but certain things that people say about you over the years are depressing and rude and eventually the day comes when you want to write your own story. It was my grandson who kept nagging me to do it, so eventually I gave in."
At the tender age of 17 Maureen O’Hara was about half her grandson’s age when she boarded the Queen Mary bound for America and Hollywood stardom, but looking back on it, she doesn’t recall any sense of trepidation. "I was never afraid," she recalls. "But remember, I didn’t go to Hollywood, I was taken. I didn’t go cold looking for a job; Charles Laughton signed me for seven years. I had just made Jamaica Inn with him and Laughton was signed to go to Hollywood for 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and he told them – 'she plays Esmerelda'. They didn’t dare say 'No, Mr Laughton'." The positive response to Jamaica Inn didn’t just lead to a change in Maureen’s career path, it led to a change of name as well. "I didn’t want to change my name," she states now, "but early on Charles Laughton told me I could be Maureen O’Hara or Maureen O’Mara. I told him I wanted to be Maureen FitzSimons so he said, very well, you’re Maureen O’Hara! But I have never ceased to be Maureen FitzSimons and I never will cease to be her. I am Maureen FitzSimons from Beechwood Road in Ranelagh."
The success that newly-monikered Maureen O’Hara enjoyed in Hunchback was quickly followed by a starring role in 'How Green Was My Valley' which began O’Hara’s tempestuous relationship with John Ford. The actress recounts in vivid detail the genius of the director but also the meanness of the man whose bitterness permeated his personality. "He was terrible," says Maureen, "not just to me and John Wayne, but to all of us. He wanted to be born in Ireland and he wanted to be an Irish rebel. The fact that he wasn’t, left him very bitter. But by God he was the best director in Hollywood. He knew where to put that camera."
Though the actress herself is bitter about her treatment at the hands of Ford, theirs was an extraordinary relationship. In her memoirs, the actress comments for the first time on a list of love letters which the director sent her in the early 1950s. "He wrote them to me," she explains, "but you realise when reading them that he was writing the letters from Sean Thornton to Mary Kate Danaher."
Ah yes, Mary Kate Danaher. Despite her long list of onscreen and offscreen achievements (did we mention she became the first woman president of a scheduled airline in US history?), even if she were to find a cure for cancer, Maureen O’Hara will forever be remembered as the woman who played pattifingers in the holy water with John Wayne. Not surprisingly, she looks back on that time with great fondness and recalls being absolutely certain of its success. "I knew it would be a big hit," she states. "Why do you think we fought so hard to make it? In 1944 John Ford, John Wayne and I shook hands to make that film. We tried to raise the money but all the major studios turned it down saying it was a silly little story that would never make a penny. But we believed in it. Years before we had money to make it, I remember sitting with John Ford as he dictated the story and I took it all down in my Pitman shorthand."
In addition to printing many stories, good and bad, about the characters she encountered on the road to success, Maureen’s memoirs pull no punches when it comes to the painful subject of her first two marriages which she describes as "the comedy of youth and the tragedy of inexperience". When I ask her how a strong woman such as she could have persevered with two bad marriages, she stops for the first time in our interview and a sadness descends upon her.
"I’m a Catholic," she sighs, "that’s the answer. And I couldn’t hurt my mother and father. It was terrible but I was mad with myself. I kept saying, 'how could you be so stupid?'. You do get astounded by certain things you did in your life but all you can do is the best you can do."
Those certain things that Maureen did in her life, she feels, didn’t just happen by accident. "I’ve always been a strong believer in fate and in God," she states, firmly. "He’s number one. If he doesn’t want it to happen, you don’t have a hope in hell. I think the reason I’m still alive today is that up there you have Laughton and Charlie Blair and John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and they’re all saying, 'for God’s sake, don’t let that woman up here!' I’m still here and I’d like to live till 102, like my mother-in-law, Grace McGonigal!"
You wouldn’t bet against Maureen FitzSimons O’Hara Blair reaching that milestone. Before we take our leave of the actress, she shows us more photographs of her past and even has time to relax over a glass of whiskey while she regales us with yet more fascinating stories. We’d probably still be in that parlour in Glengarriff now were it not for the need to move on to the next job.
Make no mistake – they threw away the mould when they made Maureen O’Hara.
Maureen O’Hara - 10 key films
Only the Lonely (1991)
The Parent Trap (1961)
Wings of Eagles (1957)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Rio Grande (1950)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
The Black Swan (1942)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Michael Doherty
