Born Maureen FitzSimons in County Ranelagh, Ireland. She made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn at the age of nineteen. She then appeared as Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

She appeared in How Green Was My Valley, The Black Swan, The Spanish Main, Sinbad the Sailor, and Comanche Territory. You can see her every Christmas in Miracle on 34th Street.

She was good friends and a frequent collaborator with John Wayne. Together they starred in Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, and The Wings of Eagles. They were friends for forty years.

In the 1960s, she appeared in films such as The Deadly Companions, The Parent Trap, and The Rare Breed. She retired from the industry in 1971 after starring with John Wayne one final time in Big Jake, but returned 20 years later to appear with John Candy in Only the Lonely.

On October 24, 2015, Maureen O’Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho from natural causes. She was 95 years old. For further reading,  check out her autobiography ‘Tis Herself.