Trivia / Maureen O'Hara

• …But I Play One on TV: After starring in Miracle on 34th Street, she was approached by children who asked if she was the lady who knew Santa Claus. She would reply "yes, what would you like me to tell him?"
• Creator Backlash:
  • The remake of A Bill of Divorcement. She called the screenplay "mediocre at best" and suffered sexual harassment from the director on the set, and was bullied when she rejected his advances. Critics tore into her for failing to live up to Katharine Hepburn, who had starred in the original.
  • She also called the musical Do You Love Me the worst film she ever did.
• Creator Breakdown: She suffered this while filming They Meet In Argentina, frustrated over the direction her career was going and knowing the film she was in would be a disaster.
• Executive Meddling: In the film Against All Flags she was outdoing Errol Flynn in a lot of the action scenes. So many of them were cut so as not to make him look bad.
• Hollywood Hype Machine: She experienced this right before The Hunchback of Notre Dame and wasn't too keen on it, as they weren't hyping her up for what she had done. But rather what she might do. Ultimately it paid off and she became a star.
• Money, Dear Boy: Her reason for starring in Sinbad the Sailor, stating "it made a pot of money for RKO" even if she found the situation ridiculous.
• Playing Against Type:
  • As a timid socialite in Ten Gentlemen From West Point.
  • She plays a Black Widow in Lisbon.
• Production Posse: As noted on the main page, she starred in five John Ford films.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: She had been trying to get out of adventure films and Action Girl roles for a while, and a slipped disc in the late 50s meant that she could no longer do the stunt work for them.
• Star-Making Role: Despite well-received early performances, her true breakout in Hollywood didn't come until How Green Was My Valley.
• Those Two Actors:
  • With John Wayne in The Quiet Man, Rio Grande, The Wings of Eagles, McLintock! and Big Jake.
  • With Anthony Quinn in The Black Swan, Buffalo Bill, Sinbad the Sailor, Against All Flags, The Brave and the Beautiful, and Only The Lonely.
  • And alongside Charles Laughton in Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and This Land Is Mine.
• Typecasting: Maureen O'Hara was Hollywood's favorite Fiery Redhead (it even got lampshaded in The Quiet Man), and she often played Action Girls or else a Spirited Young Lady.
• Word of God: Maureen denied that she was nude when playing the eponymous Lady Godiva of Coventry, despite Universal reporting it to the press. She wore a leotard and underwear that was concealed by all the hair.
• What Could Have Been:
  • She was offered the lead role in the comedy The Paleface but turned it down because she was going through a tough time in her personal life. She later called it a huge career regret.
  • She was the first choice for Anna Leonowens in The King and I when the film was made. But Richard Rogers said he didn't want "a pirate queen" in the lead, and Deborah Kerr got the part instead.