There are no second acts, they say, in American lives. Are there in Irish American ones? The penchant for escapism that had gripped Hollywood immediately after World War II had more or less abated. This meant that O'Hara's decorative, exotic roles were largely a thing of the past. Angry young men—and women—were fashionable now, along with gritty urban dramas dealing with issues of the day. You couldn't really “do” neorealism in a flouncy skirt and a bonnet.
The Confidential imbroglio didn't help. Sometimes it seemed that even winning a legal case had undesirable undertones, or even overtones. It was one thing to bite the hand that feeds, but O'Hara had bitten the one that poisons. (Unfortunately, in Hollywood's murky underbelly, sometimes the two were well-nigh indistinguishable.) The fact that the case had wider ripples than she anticipated was evident in certain small but significant details. For instance, the poster for Everything but the Truth was altered so that its tagline read: “They Were Caught with Their Scandals Showing”—the only concrete indication that O'Hara's lawsuit had some connection to the lack of work coming her way.
But she didn't let the hiatus get her down; nor did she sit waiting for the phone to ring. “The Irish,” she announced ambivalently, “although they sink into the depths very easily, are basically happy people. Very few Irish people go to psychiatrists because whatever happens to them, they accept it.”1 (Is this true? Hardly then, and certainly not now.) To fill the gap, she embraced the world of television, where she got to show off her singing ability. (She often said she regretted not singing professionally for a living. She sang briefly in The Quiet Man, Bagdad, The Foxes of Harrow, and How Green Was My Valley.) In 1958 she appeared on The Dinah Shore Show and later with Ernie Ford. Other engagements followed, and her affable Irish charm was a hit with people like Perry Como, Bob Hope, and Andy Williams. At one point there was even talk that she might host her own show, but that didn't happen.
RCA invited her to join its record label later that year, and she released an album called Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara. “Hollywood would not trust me with a musical,” she complained, “so this is my revenge. I've paid for all my own singing lessons so it's gratifying to feel I haven't been wasting my time.” The album performed moderately well, but the genre (pop music) didn't appeal to her as much as opera or folk music. Her choice of pop standards wasn't going to set any rivers on fire, but she managed to win the Music Critics of California Award for the album. More surprisingly, the National Hosiery Manufacturers presented her with the “Most Beautiful Legs in America” award that year. (She never thought her legs were particularly great.)
She also appeared on a quiz show in 1959 called What's My Line? The premise was that a quartet of blindfolded interrogators threw questions at a secret celebrity and tried to guess who he or she was, based on the answers they received. O'Hara put on a Deep South accent to confuse them, and when asked if she was American, she replied that she was.2 This didn't sit well with those who recalled her groundbreaking 1946 crusade, when she'd flown the Irish flag so convincingly on the “subjugation to Britain” issue.
After a lengthy hiatus, at least by her standards, O'Hara was offered Our Man in Havana, a spy spoof with a quality cast: Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Ernie Kovacs, Noel Coward, and Ralph Richardson—a veritable shopping list of cinema and theater legends. The film was based on a book written by Graham Greene, who had been a spy in real life, working for MI6 in his youth. (His uncle, also called Graham, had been one of the founders of Naval Intelligence during World War I and continued in that capacity as an old man when World War II broke out.) When Greene was serving in Portugal near the end of the war, he met some German spies who were sending fabricated reports back to Germany. As a result, he developed a screenplay about an Englishman who does the same thing in prewar Estonia. The British film censors rejected it because it showed the British Secret Service in such a poor light, so he relocated the story to Havana (and changed the wife into a daughter). This eventually became the novel Our Man in Havana.
Guinness plays Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner distributor who is recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service. He takes the job mainly because he needs the money, as his daughter is something of a spendthrift. What the BSIS doesn't know is that Wormold is just pretending to recruit new agents, thereby earning more money for himself. He also tricks British Intelligence by drawing up plans for a new military weapon, but these are just elaborate variations on his trusty vacuum cleaner. When one of his fake recruits is killed by a real agent, Wormold's life is in danger, and he has to become a genuine spy.
Guinness was looking forward to appearing in the film. He was an avid reader of Greene's work and also admired director Carol Reed, with whom he'd worked on The Third Man. (Greene himself had somewhat less respect for the book, referring to it as a minor entertainment.) Reed decided to play the story mainly for laughs, apparently not unduly concerned about the possibility of losing the effects of a dark thriller.
Coward plays Hawthorne, the agent who recruits Wormold. Kovacs is a corrupt police chief, and Burl Ives is the enigmatic Mr. Hasselbacher. O'Hara is the secretary sent over from London to find out what Wormold is really up to. She knew she was in sterling company. She also knew she was lucky to be in the film at all (Lauren Bacall had been first choice, but she was unavailable).
O'Hara arrived in Havana on April 15, 1959. Six months earlier, Greene and Reed had gone to Cuba for preproduction. At the time, Fulgencio Batista was barely hanging on, and the United States had withdrawn military aid to him. After he fled the country in January, the way was clear for Fidel Castro and his “Fidelistas” to take control. Castro was reveling in his newfound glory as the crew prepared to start shooting. His army was everywhere. Guinness was perturbed because his wife couldn't get her hair done in the hotel salon, “as it was always crowded with Castro's officers having their shoulder-length hair permed and their beards curled while they sat with sub-machine guns across their knees, being flattered and cossetted by adoring Cuban hand-maidens.”3
Reed had a more serious problem. Although the film poked fun at British Intelligence, its satirical nature could have been interpreted as being aimed at Cuba as well. It was a delicate balancing act, particularly because Castro's new regime was so sensitive. The Cuban authorities were persnickety about some of the details they wanted changed. A shoeshine boy, for example, wasn't allowed to be seen in ragged clothes. Kovacs also got a shock when he heard he would have to shave off his beard (Cubans associated facial hair with the present Cuban leaders rather than the overthrown government). For the scenes in the Tropicana, Cuba's famous strip club, there was a censor among the extras who jumped up to protest whenever he thought one of the strippers was revealing too much flesh. One scene shot in the Tropicana featured a riotous floor show that annoyed the censor so much he ordered filming to stop immediately. Afterward, Reed had to hand over all of that day's footage so the censor could vet it.4 Greene was well aware of the awkwardness of the situation. “Those who had suffered during the years of dictatorship,” he reasoned, “could hardly be expected to appreciate that my real subject was the absurdity of the British agent, and not the justice of a revolution.”5
Guinness couldn't do much with the part of Wormold, as Reed had exhorted him to play it straight. “We don't want any of your character acting,” he scolded.6 This caused Guinness to go to the other extreme, underacting to the point of flatness. Anthony Carthew later reproached: “He glides through the picture colorless, ordinary, negative—a ghost of the Guinness of previous films.”7 O'Hara enjoyed working with him, though, and the feeling was mutual. He admired her as an actress and complimented her on her English accent. (Wormold's daughter was played by an American actress, Jo Morrow, so her accent seemed out of place.)
Castro visited the set one day and talked to O'Hara in such a whisper that she couldn't make out a word he said. The press reported that he had asked her out on a date, but she denied this. She also met Che Guevara during filming and was astounded to learn that his grandmother was from Galway.8
The final cut of the film ran almost three hours. This was obviously unsustainable, but when it was edited, O'Hara felt her part suffered. Nonetheless, she won guarded praise for her performance in the trades. Our Man in Havana wasn't cutting edge, but at least it was work. “You're only as good as your last movie,” is the classic Hollywood saw.
In the absence of other film offers, O'Hara appeared in a CBS version of Mrs. Miniver in 1960. She received positive notices for her performance, but the general view was that the project was mistimed. It was a wartime drama, but there was no current war that would allow the audience to relate to the sentiments it espoused. And no matter how impressive O'Hara was, Greer Garson seemed to be on everyone's mind. As one critic wrote, “Maureen O'Hara was wholly convincing in the title role but Mrs. Miniver is still Greer Garson, and vice versa.”9
O'Hara considered acting on the stage to fill in the gap in her career. Interesting things were happening on Broadway at the time. She'd been considered for Fanny in 1954, but that didn't take off. Now she had a project called Christine that seemed to have potential: it was based on a book by Pearl Buck and had songs by Oscar winners Sammy Fain and Paul Francis: “Welcome Song,” “My Indian Family,” “A Doctor's Soliloquy,” “I Never Meant to Fall in Love,” and “Ireland Was Never Like This.” She played an Irish lady, the widow of a baronet, who falls in love with her dead daughter's Hindu husband in India—an unlikely plot. What concerned O'Hara more was that her voice was deemed “reedy,” especially on the high notes.
Broadway was a new experience for her, and perhaps she didn't factor in how different it was from Hollywood. Whatever went wrong, the show didn't grip the public's imagination. Christine was fraught with problems, receiving derisory reviews when it went on the road for a dummy run. It was restructured as a result, but this worked to its detriment, and two of the writers had a public spat about it afterward. Jerome Chodorov, the director, even asked that his name be removed from the program. It played to modest houses but shut down after a week. O'Hara was bewildered and broken. For many years she had wanted to do stage work, and now that dream lay in tatters.
It was time to take stock again and try to reinvent herself, even though screen beauties generally weren't renowned for doing this. Many actresses felt that once they reached a certain age, that was it. Their faces were their fortunes, and once they began to show signs of wear and tear, depression set in.
O'Hara's next role came from an unlikely source: Walt Disney. Disney had adapted a 1953 comedy called Twice upon a Time from Emeric Pressburger: in short, a pair of twin girls meet up at summer camp and hatch an elaborate scheme to get their estranged parents back together. David Swift, who also wrote the screenplay, was directing. O'Hara's excitement about the project was clear from this outpouring: “My love for David Swift started the day I read his script.”10 Swift, a former animator's assistant, had a keen cinematic sense and liked working for Disney for the same reason O'Hara did: he was reminded of the “old days” in the movies, when a single vision prevailed, in contrast to the new breed of executives who presided over the film business by committee. Disney wanted O'Hara for $25,000, a mere third of her usual asking price, but she dug in her heels and demanded “$75,000 or nothing.” Disney gave in—a tribute to both O'Hara's gumption and the respect she had earned in the industry. The fact that she was a household name also helped.
The main roles of the twin sisters (Sharon and Susan) are played by Hayley Mills, the teenage sensation who'd come to prominence in Pollyanna (also directed by Swift) the previous year. O'Hara is their “trendy” mother Maggie McKendrick—more like an older sister than a matriarch (her secret is not to present herself as the “opposition” to the young girls). Here O'Hara rejects the frumpy, middle-aged types that some starlets turned into when they stopped playing sirens. Brian Keith plays her ex-husband Mitch. Keith, who was more accustomed to playing heavies than cuddly fathers, rises to the challenge. The scene in which he finds Maggie's bra and thinks it's Susan's is the first time a bra is seen in a Disney movie. Swift was surprised when it somehow escaped the censor's scissors. (We're not exactly talking Deep Throat here, but it was still a development.)
The film is credible, if one overlooks Mills's mid-Atlantic accent.11 The “family values” theme was just what Middle America wanted after the frenzied decade of teenage-rebel movies that had just passed, with its wicked, wicked ways. The idea of Mills playing a dual role was also a big selling point. Trick photography wasn't as sophisticated back then (no computer-generated special effects), so it was quite an achievement to pull it off.
For its time, the story line was as original as the camera work. Mills claimed young people wrote to her for years, telling her they loved the film because it empowered them.12 In contrast to most films of the time, children were in control of the situation, instead of adults. Less distinctive was the frequently road-tested theme at its core—that the alienated couple care for each other more than they realize. The new woman in the ex-husband's life has to be portrayed as thoroughly unlikeable to torpedo that point home, and Joanna Barnes plays her with a commendable degree of bitchiness.
Swift berated himself for not being more daring with O'Hara's wardrobe in the scene toward the end when Keith finally realizes he still loves her. Even though she's wearing a low-cut blouse, her skirt looks too “housewifely,” in his view. He wanted her to appear sexier to convey Keith's desire, but O'Hara disagreed, arguing that it was precisely the homemaker aspect of his ex-wife that he missed. Both made valid points, but the scene would have worked better if O'Hara had been facing Keith at the time (she has her back to him and is standing on a stool).13
The film cost only $2 million to make and recouped nearly five times that amount at the box office. It made a star of Mills and became the third most profitable film of 1961. It also revived O'Hara's flagging career. “My Irish luck is holding out,” she told reporters.14 If Natalie Wood had rescued her career back in 1947 with Miracle on 34th Street, another child star was doing the same thing fourteen years later. Because O'Hara liked children, she was more natural in their presence. (In her teens, she'd taught children with cleft palates to talk properly.) Being a mother helped too. She remembered Bronwyn playing a game of “Let's Pretend” with a doll and convincing herself it was a real baby. Acting began early, she realized. We're all actors, in a way. The trick is to harness it.
O'Hara was on a high after making the movie. Never slow to ring the bell on her bike when she believed she'd done a creditable job, she told Roddy McDowall, “I thought I was wonderful in it. In fact one critic said it was the first time somebody had come along who could do the same kind of sophisticated comedy as Irene Dunne. I consider that a great compliment.”15
When the movie was released, though, she was shocked to discover that Mills's name preceded hers in the credits. She was outraged with Disney, as her contract clearly stipulated that she was to receive top billing. She approached MCA with her gripe. Disney was contacted, but he was obdurate and refused to budge. The Screen Actors Guild then got involved and was prepared to back her claim against the studio. The day before she was due to file court papers, she got a message from Disney: “Sue me and I'll destroy you.” Her first instinct was to contest it, but her advisers told her that even though she might win the case, she'd probably never work again: it would be a Pyrrhic victory.
O'Hara had always been particular about her billing, and she often appeared before the male lead, a courtesy accorded to few actresses of the time. As early as 1951, her contract for The Quiet Man specified: “Costar preceded only by Wayne in type of same size and prominence used for Wayne. If name of any member of cast displayed above title, her name to appear above title. If her name displayed below title, lines upon which her name and Wayne's name appear to be immediately preceded by ‘starring.’”16 She backed off in this instance, though. She'd outmaneuvered Disney on the salary issue, and he wasn't the type of man to roll over a second time.
The story has an interesting coda. After the hullabaloo about The Parent Trap died down, O'Hara and her brother Charles approached Disney with an idea for a film based on Mary Poppins, Bronwyn's favorite book. Disney's reaction to her proposal was a blunt “Rubbish.”17 As we all know, he eventually made the movie, and it was an enormous hit, but O'Hara had effectively committed career suicide with him.
Some years later, the famous producer lay seriously ill in the hospital and O'Hara's agent, Helen Morgan, stopped by to visit him (her brother was his doctor). When she introduced herself as O'Hara's agent, Disney hissed, “That bitch.”18 Quizzed about the insult, O'Hara reacted in fighting mode: “I don't mind what Walt Disney said. He didn't like me because I wouldn't let him get out of a contract. Not many people had the guts to stand up to him. At least he didn't say ‘That wimp.’”19 Notwithstanding her row with Disney, the film remained one of her favorites. It still turns up on television frequently and has aged well.
O'Hara also appeared with Brian Keith in her next movie, a western called The Deadly Companions. It was Sam Peckinpah's directorial debut, but not an auspicious one. As the shooting progressed—or, more appropriately, deteriorated—the film's title became more applicable to the relationship between Peckinpah and O'Hara than to anything in the plot.
Peckinpah was chosen to helm the film based on his success with TV's The Westerner. When the show was canceled due to poor ratings, Peckinpah reacted with bemused derision. “It was too good for television,” he concluded scornfully.20 His marriage was breaking up at that point, due to his heavy drinking and his immersion in his work. This left him little time for his wife or daughter, whom he refused to visit even when she was in the hospital. He readily admitted being “married to a camera.”21
The script of The Deadly Companions, written by A. S. Fleischman, had been in dry dock in Hollywood for more than three years. Nobody showed much interest in it until Fleischman novelized it, at which point people started to sit up and take note. O'Hara formed a production company with her brother Charles (FitzSimons) to help finance the film. Her stock was high after the success of The Parent Trap so it wasn't too difficult to raise money on the property. Pathé-America eventually came through. It was Keith who suggested Peckinpah as director; the two had been friends since The Westerner. But FitzSimons didn't like the director from the moment they met, and the feeling was apparently mutual. O'Hara didn't like him either, finding him oblique and somewhat creepy.
Keith plays a character called Yellowleg, a former Union soldier who has a grudge against a former Confederate, Turk (Chill Wills), because he tried to scalp him during the Civil War. (Yellowleg's head is scarred as a result, which is why he rarely removes his hat.) Yellowleg persuades Turk to rob a bank along with a third party, Billy (Steve Cochran). Yellowleg intends to kill Turk after the robbery, but the plan goes awry when another gang of robbers gets to the bank before them. Yellowleg shoots at one of the robbers, but the bullet kills a young boy instead—the son of saloon dancer Kit Tilden (O'Hara). Kit wants to take her son's body to a town far away so he can be buried beside his father, and Yellowleg is so remorseful that he offers to accompany her. She berates him for trying to salve his conscience by riding shotgun, but reluctantly agrees. Billy and Turk go along on the journey, but after Billy tries to rape Kit, Yellowleg beats him and forces him to leave. Turk goes with him. Yellowleg and Kit are now alone with the body. They're beset by various misfortunes, including snakes and Indians, but somehow they manage to reach their destination. When they get to the town, they find that Turk and Billy have already arrived.
Peckinpah didn't like the screenplay from the outset and set about rewriting it, but he met stiff opposition from FitzSimons, who distrusted his judgment and was protective of the property he'd been nurturing for so long. Whenever Peckinpah suggested a change, FitzSimons shot him down, creating tension on the set that impeded progress. The film's budget was low—a mere $500,000—which meant it had to be shot quickly. Peckinpah, who was used to fast-paced work in television, was given twenty days to bring the project to fruition.
Keith also made many suggestions to improve the script, which helped Peckinpah get a decent performance from him. But FitzSimons forbade Peckinpah to speak to O'Hara (perhaps a first in Hollywood history), which meant he couldn't offer suggestions about her interpretation. Because he wasn't allowed to speak to O'Hara, Peckinpah said in a Playboy interview, “all of [her scenes] were dead.”22
O'Hara was ill advised to go along with her brother. If she'd liked Peckinpah, she probably wouldn't have, but she didn't. Neither of them believed Peckinpah knew what he was doing. When he called “Cut,” O'Hara stayed in the shot for a few extra seconds, on her brother's advice. FitzSimons didn't think Peckinpah understood editing, and he intended to paper over the cracks and splice the scenes together himself.
As things panned out, there were effectively two directors on the film. There were also two distinct camps. O'Hara was obviously going to align with her brother, but Keith liked both Peckinpah and O'Hara and tried to placate them both. In so doing, he succeeded in keeping at least a semblance of civility on the set.
Today, The Deadly Companions has acquired something of a cult following (like Ride the High Country, another early Peckinpah film that was virtually ignored when it was made but has earned many plaudits since). It's not a great film; in fact, it's sometimes an exceedingly poor one. Its greatest interest lies in the clues it provides to Peckinpah's later style—to the extent FitzSimons allowed it to seep through.
Peckinpah and FitzSimons had their most abrasive argument about the film's ending. Yellowleg shoots Billy when he gets in the way as Yellowleg is about to kill Turk. FitzSimons didn't like this idea, so he recut the scene to make it look like Turk shoots Billy. But why would Turk try to kill his friend? It doesn't make sense. Peckinpah wanted to convey the fact that Yellowleg is so focused on killing Turk that shooting Billy means nothing to him. FitzSimons couldn't accept that a man could be this brutal, particularly when he refuses to kill his archenemy (Turk) a few seconds later. Peckinpah was indignant, protesting, “At the end of the picture, Mr. FitzSimons took over the editing, scrapping my original cut. He then got in such a mess that he had to return to my original pattern, although I defy anyone to make sense of it.”23
What was intended to be an experimental western ends up being a traditional one—without any of the traditional données of the genre. In such circumstances, O'Hara's character is radically underdeveloped. There's some muttering about her being a lady of low virtue in an early scene, and this raises her hackles. Periodically, in later scenes, she becomes defiant about her integrity. Most of Kit's anger seems to focus on the question of whether she was married to the father of her son. She's adamant that she was. She's equally adamant that the boy be buried beside him, which seems to weigh more heavily on her mind than his death. At one point, she even threatens to kill Yellowleg if he buries her son anywhere but beside his father. These are unusual priorities.
O'Hara begrudged Peckinpah his subsequent fame, railing, “I didn't enjoy Sam at all. I have to be honest—I didn't think he was a very good director. I think he was lucky that whatever happened in his career happened. I think it was luck, not talent. I'm sorry. You have to forgive me. He was not a good director…. Different people protecting him made him look good.”24
After finishing the film, O'Hara went to visit John Ford at his office. She was dismayed to discover that he was more depressed than ever. One day he said to her, out of the blue, “I have over a million dollars stashed away in France. Why don't the three of us just run away and escape all this?” (His wife, Mary, with whom he was growing increasingly tetchy, was the third member of the proposed party.) O'Hara felt more sad than shocked by his offer. He then started to visit her at all hours of the night, usually drunk. When she let him in, he'd roar something like, “Bring me coffee!” When she did, he'd often spill it on the carpet deliberately, just to annoy her.25 At other times, he'd rant in a quasi-sentimental mode, indulging his fantasies about the Celtic Twilight. He did this with O'Hara's parents, too, but her father had less patience than she did. One night when Ford was going on about the IRA's armed struggle, he barked, “Why the hell don't you stop talking about things you know nothing about?” O'Hara thought Ford was going to explode. “I was ready to run,” she said, “but he clammed up immediately and was quiet as a church mouse the rest of the night.”26
She was back to routine situation comedy again with Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, starring as James Stewart's wife in a film about a family's holiday along the California coast. It was directed by Henry Koster. After the first day of filming, Jack Bolton from MCA told O'Hara that Stewart wanted her off the picture. His fear, apparently, was that she would exert too much control over the production. She put two and two together and concluded that Ford had planted the idea in Stewart's head (they'd just finished making The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance together). Stewart was eventually convinced this wouldn't happen, so everything went ahead as planned, but the experience shook O'Hara. She became subdued on set, which seemed to please Stewart. Maybe that was his plan. Was it possible Ford hadn't spoken to Stewart at all, that Stewart had pulled rank on her simply to, as it were, put her in her place? Possibly.
The fact that the film's title refers to “Mr.” Hobbs rather than “Mrs.” didn't bode well for O'Hara. Mrs. Hobbs has few opportunities to relate to her children, spending most of her time trying to allay her husband's fear about their welfare. The turmoils about their upbringing are his, not hers. She exists as a pacifying force, cuddling up to him at nightfall for their daily kiss, appearing at doorways as he discusses literature with a sexy beach babe, carrying towels and doing other wifely things as he stutters and stumbles in that very Jimmy Stewart way. She's just there to hold down the fort.
The film deals with the generation gap in a contrived manner that is condescending to young people. In one exchange, we're proffered the observation that there are no juvenile delinquents, only parents with guilt complexes. Elsewhere, Benjamin Spock gets a mention. Wherever one looks there are pampered children and overfussy parents.
Everything is related in flashback, with an occasional voice-over from Stewart that overdramatizes what happens—he even jokes about speaking from the grave about his tragic vacation. One chuckles mildly as the plumbing goes crazy, as Hobbs's out-of-work son-in-law leaves the house, as the beach babe talks about War and Peace as if it's the latest blockbuster from Harold Robbins. It ends on a whimper, with Mr. Hobbs back in the city smog and contemplating another summer in the House of Horrors. How does O'Hara manage to look so cheery throughout it all? Maybe she sensed it was going to do well at the box office.
It was, as she forecast, a moneymaker. Coming on the heels of The Parent Trap, it seemed to suggest that O'Hara was back on the winning trail. She also received the Exhibitors Award for best performance by an actress in a comedy role, an attribution that was doubly sweet, as it confirmed the notion that she could do herself justice outside her preferred genres.
But there were some negative noises. “I received more criticism than you could ever imagine,” she complained, “for playing a grandmother.” This despite the fact that she'd been a mother to some thirty-six children onscreen to date, “and that's not even counting the grandchildren. But then I was born and raised in Europe, where a woman isn't considered really attractive until she's past 35.”27
In the 1960s many of her contemporaries were contemplating retirement or appearing in second-string roles as a new breed of stars leapfrogged over them. Not O'Hara. As determined as ever to preserve her perch in the middle of the Hollywood road, she felt she was good for another decade. At least, if they'd have her.