page_title: Maureen O'Hara
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Maureen O'Hara / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Maureen O’Hara and her mother from Modern Screen magazine.
context_page_description: Maureen O'Hara was an Irish actress and singer. She was a famous redhead who was known for playing passionate, but sensible heroines, often in westerns and adventure films. On numerous occasions, she worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne. O'Hara was one of the longest-lived stars from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood.
  O'Hara grew up in Dublin in a Catholic family and aspired to become an actress from a very young age. She trained with the Rathmines Theatre Company from the age of 10 and at the Abbey Theatre from the age of 14. She was given a screen test, which was deemed unsatisfactory, but Charles Laughton saw potential and arranged for her to co-star with him in Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn in 1939. She moved to Hollywood the same year to appear with him in the production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and was given a contract by RKO Pictures. From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career, and acquired the nickname "The Queen of Technicolor".
context_section_description: Born on 17 August 1920, O'Hara began life as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. She stated that she was "born into the most remarkable and eccentric family I could have possibly hoped for". O'Hara was the second oldest of six children of Charles and Marguerite (née Lilburn) FitzSimons, and the only red-headed child in the family. Her father was in the clothing business and bought into Shamrock Rovers Football Club, a team O'Hara supported from childhood.
  She inherited her singing voice from her mother, a former operatic contralto and successful women's clothier who in her younger years was widely considered to have been one of Ireland's most beautiful women. O'Hara noted that whenever her mother left the house, men would leave their houses just so they could catch a glimpse of her in the street. O'Hara's siblings were Peggy, the oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot, and Jimmy. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, becoming a Sister of Charity.
  O'Hara earned the nickname "Baby Elephant" for being a pudgy infant. A tomboy, she enjoyed fishing in the River Dodder, riding horses, swimming and soccer, and would play boys' games and climb trees.
  O'Hara was so keen on soccer that at one point she pressed her father to found a women's team, and professed that Glenmalure Park, the home ground of Shamrock Rovers F.C., became "like a second home". She enjoyed fighting, and trained in judo as a teenager. She later admitted that she was jealous of boys in her youth and the freedom they had, and that they could steal apples from orchards and not get into trouble.
  O'Hara first attended the John Street West Girls' School near Thomas Street in Dublin's Liberties Area. She began dancing at the age of 5, when a gypsy predicted that she would become rich and famous, and she would boast to friends as they sat in her back garden that she would "become the most famous actress in the world". Her enthusiastic family fully supported the idea. When she recited a poem on stage in school at the age of six, O'Hara immediately felt an attraction to performing in front of an audience. From that age she trained in drama, music and dance along with her siblings at the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama and Elocution in Dublin. Their affinity with the arts prompted O'Hara to refer to the family as the "Irish von Trapp family".
  At the age of 10, O'Hara joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and began working in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons. One of her earliest roles was Robin Hood in a Christmas pantomime. O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress. By the age of 12, O'Hara had reached the height of 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m), and it worried her mother for a while that she would become "the tallest girl" in Ireland as Maureen's father was 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m). She expressed relief when O'Hara only grew another two inches.
  At the age of 14, O'Hara joined the Abbey Theatre. Though she was mentored by playwright Lennox Robinson, she found her time at the theatre disappointing. In 1934, at the age of 15, she won the first Dramatic Prize of the national competition of the performing arts, the Dublin Feis Award, for her performance as Portia in The Merchant of Venice. She trained as a shorthand typist, working for Crumlin Laundry before joining Eveready Battery Company, where she worked as a typist and bookkeeper. She later put her skills to use when she typed the script of The Quiet Man for John Ford.
  In 1936, she became the youngest pupil to graduate from the Guildhall School of Music at the time, and the following year she won the Dawn Beauty Competition, winning £50. As she matured into a young woman, O'Hara, like many actresses, became increasingly self-conscious, which affected her for a while. In one performance, which was watched by her father from the back of the theatre, O'Hara "sensed there was someone out front watching me, perhaps critically. My arms felt like lead. I gave a rotten show that night. I grew up with the terrible feeling that I was being laughed at".
caption: O'Hara with her mother, Marguerite FitzSimons, in 1948
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