When O'Hara was in her late eighties, a journalist asked her the secret of her longevity. She replied, “Say your ‘Hail Mary’ every night when you go to bed.”1 Such a devotion seems to sum her up. No matter who she kissed or killed onscreen, no matter how many convolutions attended her lengthy life, she hung on to the simple “Ave Maria” for direction. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. She often made statements that affirmed her faith. “How could you have had such a wonderful life as me,” she asked, “if there wasn't a God directing?”2 Even in matters of religion she used a cinematic metaphor. The fact that many people didn't have wonderful lives didn't seem to enter her quasi-theological equation. Was God directing them, too?
She often promised (threatened?) to become frumpish in later life and to wave her walking stick at people she disagreed with, but this didn't happen. Instead, she preserved her serenity and sense of self, slipping into her golden years like a comfortable old shoe.
When asked in January 2010 about the special highlights of her career, she gave an interesting answer: “When I look back at the movies I've made, the honors and awards I've received, the people I've met in the industry and loved, it all seems to blend into one big highlight.” It was a gracious paean to her near half century of screen time.3 But had she achieved all her ambitions? “I've never lost the desire to be an opera singer. It was always a passion with me but a passion that did not come to pass.”4 It was one of the few unfulfilled ambitions of this indomitable lady.
As her ninetieth birthday was approaching, she was as busy as ever. A journalist described her roster of activities: “She's caught up in meetings, suppers, a backlog of fan letters and she's the honorary president of the Glengariff Golf Club. She also attends film festivals and fashion shows. She goes to Mass and she watches soccer and Gaelic football.”5 Very little had changed since her youth.
Glengariff was buzzing with excitement over the upcoming milestone. She confided to Conor Power that she planned to mark the occasion with a “quiet party comprising 55 to 70 people.”6 By Irish standards, that was very quiet indeed.
She was uncharacteristically humble in some of the interviews she gave as her birthday approached. Maggie Armstrong wrote: “These days she has a certain punchy, streetwise self-mockery when reflecting on her talent and the astral beauty that propelled her to fame.” O'Hara confided to Dublin broadcaster Ryan Tubridy that she was a “ham” of an actress.7 Asked to sum up her career, she said simply, “I worked hard and knew my lines.”8
Mary Kennedy interviewed O'Hara in her home on the day before her birthday. “You have some nice awards,” Kennedy observed, gazing around the living room. “Well I never won the Academy Award,” O'Hara replied grumpily, “and I think I should have for The Quiet Man.” She would never stop chewing on that particular bone. She went on to say that many of her period costumes had been very hard to wear, necessitating what she referred to as a “BICO” resolve. When Kennedy expressed puzzlement at the term, the grand lady explained, “Belly in, chest out.” “The wonderful thing,” she ended elegiacally, “is to have gone out in the world and to have been a success and then to have been accepted again by the country of your birth.”9 But why shouldn't she be? Hadn't she been Ireland's prime cinematic ambassadress for the past six decades?
She entered into the spirit of her birthday celebration in the buzzy manner people had come to expect of her. Greeting cards and goodwill messages flooded through her door. She spent the day with Bronwyn, Conor Beau, and other family members and friends in Blair's Cove, Durrus, where she was greeted by St. Michael's Bandon Pipe Band. A dinner hosted by the Glengariff Golf Club followed in Casey's Hotel.
In September she traveled to Dublin to celebrate Ireland's Culture Night and to launch a local arts festival in Ranelagh, the suburb where she grew up. “Be proud of where you came from,” she exhorted the crowd, insisting on delivering her words from a standing position. “They told me I could sit down if I wanted but you don't like someone saying that to you so I'll stand.” The fiery spirit that had been her trademark in her prime was still present. She finished by saying she hoped God gave her “enough years to come back many times to visit ‘dear old dirty Dublin,’ as we used to call it when we were kids.”10
On November 11 she unveiled the Princess Grace collection of jewelry at the Newbridge Silverware Museum of Style Icons, wearing a triple-strand pearl necklace priced at 150 euro. “It's very fabulous,” she allowed, “but by the time you pay taxes, bills and mortgages, what is there left for fancy stuff?”11 Her austere mind-set and down-to-earth attitude were appreciated by the populace, reeling from the collapse of the national banking system—the last nail in the coffin of the famed “Celtic Tiger” that had raged across the world as an example of a buoyant economy before crashing like 1929 Wall Street. O'Hara had seen poverty growing up, even if her own family had been well-to-do. She now watched her country returning to those dark fiscal days as the International Monetary Fund took control of the nation's financial structures.
A few days later she was asked—again—about the secret of her longevity. This time she gave a different answer: “Be born to the right mother and father.”12 Another familiar question followed: Had she any regrets about her career? Yes, she regretted her lack of control over it. “I used to think: I wish I was in this or that movie. Or: why did she get it instead of me? The studios notified you that you were cast by them because they felt you'd earn more money for them in a particular role.” Did she feel “gorgeous” when she looked at her old posters, with her perfect posture and not a hair out of place? “I didn't do it. The director told the makeup man or makeup woman how he wanted me to look and it was up to them. If they didn't get what he wanted they lost their jobs.”13 It was gratifying to hear her play down her beauty. (Sometimes she claimed she wasn't even the best-looking girl in her own family and that Peggy was.)
She “took the fifth” when asked if there were any stars she didn't enjoy acting with, despite the interviewer's insistence that it would be “fun” to unleash some venom. “Fun for you, maybe,” O'Hara replied, “but one of these days I'm gonna kick the bucket and I don't want them to be up there waitin’ for me.”14 But surely she'd already covered this in her autobiography.
Later in the month she appeared at the Cork Film Festival to see the premiere of a documentary directed by Sé Merry Doyle, Dreaming The Quiet Man. In it she recalls doing fight scenes with Wayne: “When you had to sock Duke you always wondered whether he was going to accept it or was he going to strangle you for trying.” Martin Scorsese praises the film in the documentary, calling it a “work of art, a work of poetry, very unique and beautiful.”15 Scorsese goes so far as to cite The Quiet Man as an influence on Raging Bull (the greatest movie of the 1980s, in many people's view). The flashback sequence in which Wayne realizes he's actually killed a man (many viewers wondered how he could have known this so soon) left an indelible mark on the famous director. It was a huge honor for O'Hara to hear such a giant of the modern screen tipping his hat to a film that many intellectual snobs saw as little more than popcorn whimsy. “I'll never forget the vibrance of [John Wayne's] emerald green trunks,” Scorsese said. (In fact, they were red, not green.)
In December 2010 O'Hara launched the Maureen O'Hara Foundation, an organization set up to fund a legacy center in Glengariff to house Hollywood memorabilia and train budding film stars and movie directors. It was originally scheduled to be completed in 2013 but has been delayed. The Cork County Council handed over a one-and-a-half-acre site for the center, which is expected to cost more than $10 million to build.
Frank McCarthy, head of the foundation, announced: “Maureen had a brainchild about six years ago to give something back to the people of Ireland. This center will be the only film school of its type here. It will house a 120-seat auditorium and we'll hope to attract international students as well as providing workshops given by leading Hollywood actors. Maureen will be very involved in the management side of things and will oversee all the classes. In her acting career she was famous for only needing one take when filming. She'll demand the same standards from the students here.”16 (Needless to say, it would be a pity if all aspiring actors were judged on their first take. Perfection is more often attained only by trying different ways.)
O'Hara's longtime assistant Carolyn Murphy did much to spearhead funding for the center. O'Hara first met Murphy in 1978, when both moved to Ireland. Twenty years O'Hara's junior, Murphy was originally from Michigan, but her husband, Bill, had Irish roots. Her original function was to catalog O'Hara's memorabilia, with a view to one day donating the collection to a museum, but as time went on, the idea of the foundation was born. Said Murphy of the proposed center: “Maureen is still very friendly with the Wayne family and as we speak we have a package of memorabilia on the way to us from Gretchen Wayne, John Wayne's daughter-in-law. There will also be a Miracle on 34th Street exhibit with Macy's, who are donating one of the original Christmas windows. It just keeps evolving.”17 Elsewhere, O'Hara's awards will be on display, along with many costumes from her movies, with a special section devoted to (surprise, surprise) The Quiet Man.
O'Hara attended yet another showing of The Quiet Man at the Carnegie Arts Center in Kenmare, County Kerry, on February 25, 2011, prompting one to imagine that she could have recited the entire script by now. After the showing, a fan asked her how she occupied her time. Never short of a witty riposte, she said, “Trying to manage my walking stick.” Pressed about her advancing years, she assured people she wouldn't be going gentle into the good night.
That night she appeared on TV on The Late Late Show, looking just as good as many women in their sixties and as mentally sharp as she'd ever been. She even sparred playfully with host Ryan Tubridy when the subject of Errol Flynn came up. Tubridy asked her if Flynn had “tried his charms” on her. When she said he hadn't, Tubridy asked, “I wonder why?” O'Hara responded, “What a nasty remark!” as if he were implying she had been “that kind of girl.” She hadn't lost her ability to take on talk-show hosts, even at ninety.18
The only time she showed her age that night was when she forgot Herb Yates's name while telling the story of John Ford's exceeding his allotted two-hour running time for The Quiet Man. Messages of goodwill were beamed in to her from cinema legends Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Redford, but she seemed to get more excited while talking about all the feiseanna (Irish dancing competitions) she had won as a child. Toward the end of the interview she spoke of the legacy center, which was going to be a kind of extension of the Ena Mary Burke School. She felt indebted to the school because it had taught her how to speak properly, and now she wanted to do the same for a new generation.
In August of that year the first Quiet Man festival was held in Cong to celebrate her career. O'Hara was the guest of honor and stayed in Ashford Castle (where else?) for the duration (this time, she was given a better room than the one John Ford had arranged for her in 1951). Amazingly, it was the first time she'd ever attended a public event related to the movie.19 She looked resplendent as she paraded around town. Two nights before, her father's old Shamrock Rovers soccer club had beaten Partizan Belgrade by a score of 2–1, thereby becoming the first Irish team to make the group stages of a European competition. “I should have been at the match,” the effervescent nonagenarian told reporters, and few doubted her resolve. Time had marched on but her spirit stayed the same. “I used to be Dev's favorite pin-up girl,” she bragged to Eamon O'Cuiv, Ireland's former minister for tourism and the grandson of “Dev”—the country's first president, Eamon de Valera.20
John Wayne's daughter Marisa also attended the festival, as did his granddaughter Laura Monoz Bottini. “Ireland held a special place in his heart,” Marisa offered. “He always talked of bringing me here.”21 Everywhere she looked she saw photographs of him.
The festival was such a resounding success that some suggested it should become an annual event. Gerry Collins, who ran a museum dedicated to the movie, trilled: “People think when this generation is gone that The Quiet Man is gone [but] it's not because parents are bringing their children even to Cong.” The seventy-eight-year-old Collins had worked in Ashford Castle while the film was being shot and brought O'Hara her breakfast every morning. He remembered her as being “a lovely lady. Very, very gracious in her manners.”22 Collins also ran a bed-and-breakfast, with every room named after a character in the film. “Every moment of every day,” he reflected, “someone in the world is watching The Quiet Man.”23 Would it ever be remade? “Why would you ever re-make something that was that great?” asked O'Hara.24 If anyone “dared” try, she vowed to “kill” them—a familiar threat.25
A new movie based on the making of The Quiet Man also began shooting at this time. Starring Roger Moore, Aidan Quinn, and Geraldine Chaplin, it details the arrival of John Ford (played by Stacy Keach) in Cong and the impact on the town (obtaining electricity and the like). The main plot centers around a romance between one of Ford's production assistants and an eighteen-year-old girl played by Heather O'Dea.
In May 2012 there were allegations that O'Hara had been the victim of “elder abuse.”26 Carolyn Murphy was accused of taking excessive control of O'Hara's life—a charge she vehemently denied. A rift between Murphy and the O'Hara family developed as Conor Beau and O'Hara's nephew Charles became involved. Many people associated with O'Hara's foundation resigned amidst allegations that the monies collected had been misappropriated and misspent. The foundation was in debt, despite the many black-tie affairs held to raise money in preceding years. Murphy's power of attorney over O'Hara's affairs was revoked at this time. She employed a lawyer and threatened to sue for defamation if the allegations persisted. She felt she was a victim of “trial by media.” “I never spent a penny without asking her,” she insisted.27
By now, O'Hara had type 2 diabetes and was also suffering from short-term memory loss. She was reportedly “damned upset” over the rift with Murphy but stopped seeing her. Members of O'Hara's family were also concerned that Murphy was overworking O'Hara, scheduling too many engagements associated with the legacy center. Murphy replied, “I've always put Maureen first. She doesn't mind events. She always makes a big effort to look her best and that's often tiring.”28 As she once said, “I don't wake up as Maureen O'Hara, she has to be created.” Though now in her tenth decade, and having been out of the movies for close to twenty years, she still didn't want to look like “the girl next door.”
In May 2013 it was reported that O'Hara was leaving Ireland for good and returning to the States after forty years on her home soil. Interviewers were apparently lining up to ask her about the latest developments in her life: her health, her financial situation, the family squabbles. As she approached her ninety-third birthday there was talk of a new book and even another movie. Asked about the legal wrangle she found herself embroiled in, she replied that she was “damn angry.”29
Whether at thirty-two or ninety-two, the aging “Mary Kate Danaher” figure was still stewing.