How green was her Hollywood?

In her recently published memoirs, entitled ??Tis Herself,? O?Hara offers a frank, wildly entertaining account of how she became a screen icon during the Golden Age of Hollywood, paving the way for women in film, while maintaining her integrity and the values her family and the Catholic Church instilled in her.
Throughout the course of the book, she notes the highs and lows of her 65-year career, including how she tried to prove to Hollywood she was more than ?window dressing? by holding her own with some of cinema?s greatest actors and toughest filmmakers. The autobiography spans her entire life, but concentrates heavily on the films she made and the people she befriended or worked with in the 1930s, ?40s and ?50s.
One of the most memorable entries early in the book details how O?Hara punched John Farrow, her director on the 1940 film ?A Bill of Divorcement,? in the face after he made unwanted advances toward her, then bad-mouthed her on-set after she rejected him.
Other tales recount how she put everyone from Errol Flynn to Rex Harrison, and from Howard Hughes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his place when she felt he said something untrue or offensive; how she fought to win dual American and Irish citizenship; how she divorced two miserable husbands, achieved bliss as a mother to daughter Bronwyn, finally found true love with aviator Charlie Blair, and was elected CEO and president of Antilles Airboats, distinguishing her as the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the United States. She also talks about retiring from film in 1973 and returning to the big screen to star in the comedy ?Only the Lonely? in 1991.
Among the other highlights of the book are colorful anecdotes from her 40-year friendship with John Wayne, the actor with whom she made ?Rio Grande? (1950, ?The Quiet Man? (1952), ?The Wings of Eagles? (1957), ?McLintock!? (1963), and ?Big Jake? (1971).
Born in 1920 in Ranelagh, Co. Dublin, Maureen FitzSimons was only 5 years old when a gypsy predicted she would grow up to be a great actress and leave Ireland.
Determined to be a great performer, but with no intention of leaving home, FitzSimons spent much of her childhood taking drama, music, voice and dance lessons, eventually landing work at Dublin?s legendary Abbey Theatre when she was 14. Three years later, just as she secured her first major role there, the young actress was invited to London for a screen test, which led to her discovery by actor and producer Charles Laughton. It was Laughton who suggested she change her name to O?Hara because it would fit better on theater marquees.
After a small role in the film ?Kicking the Moon Around? and a larger one in the low-budget musical ?My Irish Molly,? O?Hara appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock drama ?Jamaica Inn? and Victor Hugo?s classic ?The Hunchback of Notre Dame,? both costarring Laughton and released in 1939.
World War II and her blossoming career prevented O?Hara from returning home for several years, steering her into the Hollywood star system. While she would go on to make 44 movies in three decades there — and at least another dozen more as her career slowed in later years — O?Hara consistently stood up for herself, expressing her feelings about her projects, costars, directors and salaries, refusing to compromise her values in exchange for roles.
But O?Hara?s assertiveness with regard to her career is offset by the passive, strangely detached approach she took to her personal life. The book is rife with examples: at 17, she married a man she barely knew, an hour before boarding a ship to America. Her second marriage, to an spendthirft, abusive alcoholic, is doomed from the start, but lasts a full decade. Her relationship with director John Ford is volatile and, literally, abusive. She recounts one shocking incident where he slapped her in the face in front of a roomful of guests.
The 1940 drama ?How Green Was My Valley? was O?Hara?s first film with Ford, an Irish-American filmmaker with whom she formed a deep friendship and called Pappy. He also directed her in her best-known film, ?The Quiet Man,? as well as three other movies.
Referring to how long it took to get funding for the film, most major movie studios dismissed as a ?silly, stupid little Irish story,? O?Hara recalls telling Ford. ?If we don?t hurry up and make this picture, I?ll be so old, I?ll have to play the old widow and Duke will have to play Red Will.?
In order to get the funding he needed from Republic Pictures to make ?The Quiet Man,? Ford had to agree to make ?Rio Grande? first with the same cast. The western marked the first collaboration involving O?Hara, Ford and Wayne.
?We loved working with each other,? O?Hara says of Wayne. ?We looked like a couple who belonged together.?
One of the less romantic, yet most memorable scenes in ?The Quiet Man? features Sean dragging Mary Kate off a train, through the Irish countryside and back to her brother after she tries to leave Sean. O?Hara said that scene was particularly unpleasant because Wayne and Ford played a joke on her by spreading sheep dung on the hill she was to be dragged down.
Another memorable scene is at the end of the film when Mary Kate whispers something into Sean?s ear and the two of them run toward their cottage. O?Hara says she is often asked exactly what she said to elicit the shocked look on Wayne?s face. The actress says the words came from Ford and she only agreed to say them if nobody ever disclosed what they were.
?There are those who claim that they were told and know what I said,? she writes. ?They don?t and are lying. John Ford took it to the grave — so did Duke — and the answer will die with me.?