Remembering Maureen O’Hara
Before there was Meryl, there was Maureen.
As we mark the beginning of the Yuletide season, many of us will pause to watch the timeless Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. And once again we will see a groundbreaking portrayal by and of a woman ahead of her time.
In the role of Doris Walker, Maureen O’Hara brought to the big screen one of the first portrayals of a divorced working mother; one whose intellect and strength shone just as bright as her grace and maternal devotion.
Maureen O’Hara passed away Oct. 24 at the age of 95. And throughout the course of a career that spanned more than 60 years, O’Hara proved herself a talented trailblazer who brought a rich spectrum of intriguing strong heroines to the silver screen.
Aside from playing classic roles that ranged from Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Lady Godiva in Lady Godiva of Coventry, O’Hara also brought to the screen a number of unconventional heroines that resounded in their strength, valor and pure grit.
The first female Musketeer portrayed on screen, O’Hara played Claire, daughter of Athos, in the 1952 film At Sword’s Point. The same year in the film Against All Flags, O’Hara again took up the sword in the role of pirate queen Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stephens, fighting alongside none other than Errol Flynn.
She played a Marine lieutenant in the WWII adventure To the Shores of Tripoli. And in the 1963 Western McClintock!, she more than held her own against star John Wayne; playing the Duke’s estranged wife and even throwing a few punches — along with a strategic hat feather — in a brawl on the plains.
In her later years O’Hara did take her fair share of ‘mother’ roles; but even in these she invested her own fair share of toughness and aplomb. In the 1991 comedy Only the Lonely, she played a headstrong mother who at one point fights off terrorists on an airplane. And in a 1960 TV movie, she brought the iconic role of Mrs. Miniver to the small screen.
Maureen O’Hara was herself a living icon; one who graced our screens and our lives with her legendary talent.
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