Maureen O'Hara: The Biography

From her first appearances on the stage and screen, Maureen O'Hara (b. 1920) commanded attention with her striking beauty, radiant red hair, and impassioned portrayals of spirited heroines. Whether she was being rescued from the gallows by Charles Laughton (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939), falling in love with Walter Pidgeon against a coal-blackened sky (How Green Was My Valley, 1941), learning to believe in miracles with Natalie Wood (Miracle on 34th Street, 1947), or matching wits with John Wayne (The Quiet Man, 1952), she charmed audiences with her powerful presence and easy confidence.

Maureen O'Hara is the first book-length biography of the screen legend hailed as the "Queen of Technicolor." Following the star from her childhood in Dublin to the height of fame in Hollywood, film critic Aubrey Malone draws on new information from the Irish Film Institute, production notes from films, and details from historical film journals, newspapers, and fan magazines. Malone also examines the actress's friendship with frequent costar John Wayne and her relationship with director John Ford, and he addresses the hotly debated question of whether the screen siren was a feminist or antifeminist figure.

Though she was an icon of cinema's golden age, O'Hara's penchant for privacy and habit of making public statements that contradicted her personal choices have made her an enigma. This breakthrough biography offers the first look at the woman behind the larger-than-life persona, sorting through the myths to present a balanced assessment of one of the greatest stars of the silver screen.

Fiche Technique

• ISBN-13 : 9780813142388
• Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date : 01/10/2013
• Author : Aubrey Malone, A. Dillon-Malone

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Maureen O'Hara is a significant contribution to scholars in the field and to readers for its broad scope, rich movie lore and enlightening information about O'Hara, the woman and the actress, whose career spanned a vital period in American film history." — Mollie Gregory, author of Women Who Run the Show: How a Brilliant and Creative New Generation of Women Stormed Hollywood

Library Journal - 11/01/2013

An admirably thorough—if workmanlike—chronicle of Maureen O'Hara's life (b. 1920), this book is most valuable in that it fills in many gaps, especially regarding her first marriage, left by the actress in her 2004 autobiography, 'Tis Herself. If the intent of film critic Malone (Hemingway: The Grace and the Pressure) was to rekindle interest in a figure who may have been slipping off of the public's radar, this title is definitely a success—the reader feels a constant urge to turn on the classic movie cable station as the work covers O'Hara's life film by film.

Unfortunately, Malone's style is not very writerly, and owing to regular discordant notes such as the use of the adjective "oleaginous" twice within the first two chapters, as well as swipes at fellow celebrity biographer Darwin Porter, one never gets properly lost in the story. VERDICT O'Hara fans will enjoy this account despite its issues, as will nostalgists with a specific interest in the Golden Age of the Hollywood studio system.—Jenny Brewer, Helen Hall Lib., League City, TX

Meet the Author

Aubrey Malone, a professional film critic, has written more than seventy books, including Hemingway: The Grace and the Pressure and The Hunchback of East Hollywood: A Biography of Charles Bukowski.