Maureen O'Hara starred with John Wayne in 5 movies: Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). The first three were directed by John Ford.
Maureen O'Hara was 'discovered' by Charles Laughton.
Maureen O'Hara was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats with the added distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Later she sold the airline with the permission of the shareholders.
Maureen O'Hara was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin.
Maureen O'Hara's father insisted that she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on (just in case her performing arts career was unsuccessful). She enrolled in business school and became a proficient bookkeeper and typist. Those skills proved helpful many years later when she was able to take and transcribe production notes dictated by John Ford for the screen adaptation of Maurice Walsh's short story The Quiet Man.
Maureen O'Hara's mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful women's clothier.
Measurements: 36 1/2C-25-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).
O'Hara married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, Jr., on March 12, 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air Force, and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting. Blair died in 1978 when an engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St. Croix to St. Thomas exploded.
O'Hara's father was in the clothing business and also bought into the Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara has supported since childhood.
She and John Wayne remained friends until his death. In her home on St. Croix, she had a wing she called the John Wayne Wing because he stayed there when visiting. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, some ten years after Wayne's death.
She became an American citizen on January 25, 1946 but has retained her Irish citizenship. It was the first time in history that the United States government recognized an Irish citizen as Irish. This led to a change in process for all Irish immigrants.
She is portrayed by Liane Langland in Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (1991) (TV).
She is the last surviving cast member of Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
She is the only credited cast member of Miracle on 34th Street (1947) who is still alive.
She made headlines in 1997 by claiming that Brian Keith's suicide, while suffering from lung cancer and emphysema and mourning the suicide of his daughter, was an accident.
She was born in Churchtown, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland.
She was having lunch with actress Lucille Ball the moment Lucy first saw Cuban musician Desi Arnaz whom she later married.
She was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture.
She was the first choice to play Anna in the film version of The King and I (1956) but Richard Rodgers did not want the role played by a "pirate queen".
Siblings: Peggy (a Sisters of Charity nun); TV/film producer 'Charles B. Fitzsimons' (now deceased); actress Florrie Clare Hamilton (now deceased); Margot Fitzsimons Edwards; and actor James FitzSimons, aka James Lilburn/James O'Hara/Jim O'Hara (now deceased).