When her husband died in a plane crash, Maureen O’Hara was devastated. Then she began to investigate the accident—and made a discovery so terrifying she kept it a secret for 25 years. With her vibrant red hair and rich green eyes, it seems like Maureen was born to become one of the biggest stars in old Hollywood. After all, she was known as the “Queen of Technicolor.”

But behind the scenes, things weren’t always so bright. From a secret marriage to on-set feuds, darkness chased her throughout her career. The fiery Irish actress always outran it, but it was never far behind. She was born Maureen FitzSimons, one of six siblings, in 1920s Dublin. When she was just five, her family hosted a peculiar visitor—a woman who claimed she could see the future.

This visitor had an eerie prediction for little Maureen. She told her, “You will leave Ireland one day and become a very famous woman known all around the world. But it will all slip through your fingers one day.” At 14, O’Hara joined the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and appeared in small stage roles. After three years of hard work, she finally won her first leading part.

Then a life-changing offer stopped her in her tracks. An American entertainer named Harry Richman became convinced she belonged in film, not on the stage, and arranged a screen test. The test at Elstree Studios in London was a disaster. The makeup artists stuffed her into a gaudy gold dress, plastered her face with makeup, and twisted her hair into an elaborate style.

The transformation made O’Hara look twice her age. Miserable and insecure, she became convinced she never should have left the Abbey Theatre. Luckily, at least one person saw through the garish façade. English actor Charles Laughton watched O’Hara’s screen test and was so impressed that he immediately offered her a valuable contract.

But O’Hara had to make one sacrifice before she hit the big time. Laughton insisted she change her last name. Thus, Maureen O’Hara was born. While filming her breakthrough role in Alfred Hitchcock’s *Jamaica Inn*, O’Hara started dating English producer George H. Brown. He fell madly in love with her—but her feelings were far cooler.

When she told him she had to go to Hollywood to film her next movie, *The Hunchback of Notre Dame*, Brown begged her to come see him one last time. She gave in, expecting a simple farewell. Instead, Brown ambushed her with a surprise wedding. In a state of shock, the 19-year-old O’Hara went through with the ceremony.

Once she arrived in Hollywood, her new husband turned their marriage into a full-blown PR disaster. He bragged to the press that he was married to Ireland’s most famous young starlet. When O’Hara’s Hollywood bosses found out about her surprise wedding, they were furious. Already looking for a way out, O’Hara was only too happy to follow the studio’s orders.

As Brown waited in Ireland for his bride to return, O’Hara stayed put in the U.S. There, she quietly had the marriage annulled. After that day, she never saw George Brown again. Even before studios released *The Hunchback of Notre Dame*, the press was buzzing about Maureen O’Hara’s Hollywood debut. She couldn’t understand the hype and worried they’d see her as a novelty with no staying power. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

O’Hara was only a few years into her contract with Laughton’s company when World War II broke out, bringing the British film industry to a halt. Laughton and O’Hara were supposed to return to London. But after years of collaboration, he dealt his friend a devastating betrayal. Needing quick cash, he sold O’Hara’s contract to RKO Pictures.

The deal forced her to stay in Hollywood, far from her family in Ireland. A heartbroken O’Hara later said Laughton’s betrayal made her feel completely abandoned. She spent her early Hollywood years in films with mediocre scripts, weak directors, or both. She grew increasingly hopeless and seriously considered abandoning her contract and returning home.

Feeling despondent, she made one last plea to her agent, hoping to land a part in John Ford’s next film, *How Green Was My Valley*. She got the part—but it turned out to be a curse disguised as a blessing. O’Hara and Ford became frequent collaborators, working on five films together over two decades. But there was a disturbing dark side to their relationship.

The director was transfixed by O’Hara. Although she rejected his advances, he didn’t seem to accept it. His behavior swung between romantic obsession and outright violence. He sent her long, drunken love letters—but he could also be incredibly cruel, allegedly going so far as to punch her in the face on set.

While she was still new and lonely in Hollywood, another director, William Houston Price, kept her company. Predictably, he fell for her too. Once her annulment from Brown was finalized, Price quickly proposed. Feeling timid and alone, she said yes. Perhaps a sign of her lack of enthusiasm, she didn’t even tell her own family until minutes before the ceremony.

If that phone call shocked them, it was nothing compared to what came next. In the days after the wedding, O’Hara realized her new husband had a chilling dark side. Price was a heavy drinker and an even heavier liar. She should have left him, but as a young actress with a carefully crafted image, she felt she had no choice but to stay.

After World War II, O’Hara truly came into her own as the Queen of Technicolor. With her red hair, green eyes, and pale skin, she was perfect for the new color process. But there was a painful price to pay. The bright, glaring lights caused her severe headaches and even a rare form of conjunctivitis. Still, she pushed through.

Despite the problems in her marriage, O’Hara was elated when she gave birth to her daughter Bronwyn in 1944. Three years later, in 1947, she starred in the now-classic Christmas movie *Miracle on 34th Street*. The film completely redeemed Hollywood in her eyes. She loved working with young Natalie Wood, who played her daughter, and the cast adored Edmund Gwenn, who played Kris Kringle.

At this point, O’Hara’s professional life was thriving—but her personal life was a disaster. Back home, she had to deal with her alcoholic husband. As if his drinking weren’t enough, she soon learned he also had a spending problem—specifically, spending her money. Price even hired a business manager who diverted half of O’Hara’s paychecks into a separate account just for him.

The couple fell into a desperate routine. Price went out drinking with his buddies every night, and in the mornings, when he was passed out, she’d call an ambulance to take him to rehab. O’Hara felt completely trapped. Because of her Catholicism, she didn’t want to be the one to file for divorce. Eventually, Price realized that if their miserable marriage was ever going to end, he’d have to be the one to pull the plug.

In 1951, he filed for divorce and left their family home on the day that would have been their 10th wedding anniversary. At last, O’Hara’s decade-long nightmare was over. After the divorce, she took a much-needed trip to Mexico to recover. She came back with an unexpected souvenir: a new lover, Enrique Parra, a prominent Mexican politician and banker.

Parra had his own money and didn’t need hers. Maureen fell for him, but men had burned her too many times. She went to great lengths to make sure he wasn’t playing her. Parra claimed he was separated from his wife, so O’Hara hired a private investigator to follow him and confirm it.

During the 1950s, she found her niche in adventure films and Westerns, especially in movies opposite John Wayne. Their on-screen chemistry was so fiery that people wondered if they were secretly a couple. O’Hara always claimed they were just close friends. However, a recent biography of Wayne insists she wasn’t telling the full truth.

The book alleges that Wayne and O’Hara had a secret romance that lasted nearly 20 years. According to it, they began seeing each other before Wayne’s third marriage and continued on and off until his death. A man who worked with both actors said Wayne was truly in love with O’Hara, but he never asked her to marry him because he knew Maureen was strong—and he only married women he thought he could control.

O’Hara threw herself into her relationship with Parra, but the couple was doomed to a painful end. In 1967, Parra’s daughter died, and his overwhelming grief caused him to pull away. After more than 15 years together, their relationship finally ended. O’Hara was heartbroken and alone once again.

Her next great love appeared where she least expected it. Back in 1946, on a flight to Ireland, a pilot named Charles F. Blair Jr. had flown her across the Atlantic. In the years that followed, he became close friends with her brothers. One night, they had plans to go out, but her brother couldn’t make it and sent Maureen in his place.

Both O’Hara and Blair were going through breakups at the time. They leaned on each other as friends until one night when Blair made a pragmatic, if unromantic, proposal. He told her he was retiring and wanted to marry her. Surprisingly—given her disastrous history with quick proposals—she accepted. Against the odds, O’Hara was deliriously happy with her new husband.

Unlike many of her Hollywood contemporaries, she was conservative and increasingly disenchanted with the film industry. She’d always stood up to handsy directors and refused provocative photoshoots. But as movies grew more explicit, the content bothered her more and more. Between that and her devotion to her marriage, she all but retired from acting in the 1970s.

That didn’t mean she was idle. She and Blair ran a small airline in the Virgin Islands, and she became editor of a local magazine. Everything was going well—until disaster struck. Blair was in the air when his plane suffered an engine failure and crashed, killing him and three passengers. O’Hara was utterly devastated. But the worst was still to come.

After her husband’s death, she became CEO and president of the airline they owned together, making her the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Behind the scenes, though, she was living a nightmare. Doctors diagnosed her with uterine cancer. She underwent surgery and was poised to make a full recovery—only to receive even more devastating news.

At the same time she was fighting for her own life, her closest friend John Wayne was losing his battle with cancer. The combined loss of Blair and Wayne plunged her into a deep depression that lasted for years. O’Hara also grew convinced that her husband’s crash hadn’t been an accident.

She believed Blair had been involved with the CIA or another government agency, or that he’d become a target because of operations involving thermonuclear weapons. She suspected the crash had been orchestrated to kill him. Her findings terrified her. Fearing for her own safety, she eventually stopped digging and kept her suspicions secret for 25 years. For the record, her claims have never been proven.

In 1989, a hurricane destroyed the home in St. Croix that she had shared with her late husband. She considered rebuilding, but a series of heart attacks forced her to slow down. Eventually, she spent most of her time in Glengarriff, Ireland, before moving to Idaho to live with her grandson in her final years.

Maureen O’Hara died peacefully in her sleep in 2015 at the age of 95. It was a quiet end to a life filled with drama, passion, and fierce independence.

If you enjoyed this story, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more incredible Hollywood histories. Your support means everything to us. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.