Maureen ( /mɔːˈriːn/) is a female given name. Anglicized form of Máirín, a pet form of Máire, which is the Irish cognate of Mary, which is in turn derived from the Hebrew Miriam. It may also be a feminine form of Maurice.

Some variant forms are: Maura, Maury, Maurene, Maurianne, Marien, Maurine, Maurisa, Maurise, Maurissa, Marissa, Maurita, Maurizia, Mavra, Moira, Mora, Moreen, Morena, Morene, Moria and Morine.

Alternately, the term Maure derives from the Phoenician term Mahurin (Westerners). From Mahurin, ancient Latin derives Mauri, meaning black African, and modern Greek derives mauro (black). From the same root is derived moor, maroon, Mohr, Moore, Morin, Morisco, Moreto, Mauretania, Mauritania, Mauritius, Maurus, Maurice/Moritz/Maurikos, Meuric/Meurig, Maureta and Maureen.

People with this given name[link]

Television and film

• Maureen Dowd, journalist
• Maureen Lipman, actress
• Maureen McCormick, actress
• Maureen Naylor, television news anchor
• Maureen O'Hara, actress
• Maureen O'Sullivan, actress
• Maureen Stapleton, actress

Literature

• Maureen Duffy, writer

Music

• Maureen Forrester, Canadian opera singer
• Maureen Herman, rock musician
• Maureen McGovern, singer
• Maureen (Moe) Tucker, drummer with The Velvet Underground

Other

• Maureen Connolly (1934–1969), American tennis player

Other[link]

• Maureen, a song by Fountains of Wayne
• Maureen, a song by Sade from the album Promise

This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article.

Maureen Therese McGovern (born July 27, 1949) is an American singer and Broadway actress, well known for her premier renditions of the Oscar-winning songs "The Morning After" from the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno in 1974.^[1][2]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

McGovern was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the daughter of James Terrence McGovern and Mary Rita (née Welsh).^[3] She has Irish ancestry.^[1] As a child, McGovern would listen to her father's singing quartet rehearse in their home. She was told by her elders that she began singing at the age of three, and would sometimes sing herself to sleep with things she heard on the radio. She decided at age eight that she wanted to be a professional singer. Her influences include Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick.

Breakthrough recording[link]

After graduating from Boardman High School in 1967, she worked as a secretary and performed part-time as a singer for a local folk band called Sweet Rain. Her singing caught the attention of Russ Regan (then head of 20th Century Records) in 1972 when he heard a demonstration she had recorded. At the time, Regan was searching for a singer to record "The Morning After" (the theme from The Poseidon Adventure) for release as a record.^[2] He hired McGovern sight unseen to record the song, which resulted in her contracting with 20th Century Records. After it won an Oscar for Best Original Song,^[2] "The Morning After" scored well on the popular music charts, reaching #1 during 1973.^[1] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in August 1973.^[4] Following the success of "The Morning After," she received a Grammy Award nomination in 1974 for Best New Artist.

During 1974, she recorded two movie themes: "We May Never Love Like This Again" from the disaster film The Towering Inferno,^[2] in which she made a short appearance when she is seen singing the song as the evening's entertainment, and "Wherever Love Takes Me" from the British disaster film Gold. The former won an Oscar^[2] (though it was only a minor pop hit), and the latter received an Oscar nomination.

In 1976, she recorded her cover version of "The Continental", the very first Oscar-winning track for Best Original Song.^[2] It proved to be her only hit in the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #16.^[2]

Challenges[link]

McGovern's contract with 20th Century ended during 1976. Her career declined and so did her finances.^{[citation needed]} In an interview on BBC Woman's Hour on 18 May 2009, McGovern stated that exorbitant fees charged by her manager (40%) together with her band being on a full-time salary, whether she was performing or not, were the cause of her perilous financial state. Ready to begin her life over again, she moved to Marina del Rey and took a secretarial job under an assumed name, Glenda Schwartz. Nevertheless, she was still in demand occasionally for international live concerts. Her career improved when McGovern was asked to record a version of "Can You Read My Mind", the love theme from 1978's Superman, which was not recorded for the film. The single achieved minor success on the Popular charts. Toward the end of the decade, McGovern recorded "Different Worlds," the theme from the ABC-TV sitcom Angie. The song, her only other Top 40 Pop single aside from "The Morning After," soared to #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 during 1979 and hit at #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. During 1980, McGovern made a brief appearance as Sister Angelina, the singing nun, in the comedy-disaster movie Airplane!.

Broadway career[link]

At the beginning of the 1980s, McGovern gave up singing movie themes to begin a career on Broadway, despite not having any acting experience. During 1981, she made her Broadway debut as Mabel in a revival of Gilbert & Sullivan's musical The Pirates of Penzance, taking over for fellow 1970s popular singer Linda Ronstadt. She then performed in two productions with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera: The Sound of Music (1981; as Maria) and South Pacific (1982; as Nellie Forbush). She continued her theatrical career throughout the 1980s and originated the role of Mary in the Off-Broadway production of Brownstone in 1985. She also was in Little Women The Musical as Marmee.

Carnegie Hall performance[link]

She slowly returned to music during the mid-1980s, contributing songs to musical soundtracks and recording for various-artist compilations. She also returned to touring and performing in concerts and began establishing herself as a nightclub and cabaret performer. Starting in 1987, she released three albums for CBS in three years - Another Woman in Love (a voice/piano album), State of the Heart (a fully orchestrated album), and Naughty Baby (Recorded LIVE on November 20, 1988, Studio A at Clinton Recording Studios, New York City - it features a very first recording of a lost Gershwin song, "A Corner of Heaven With You" (written ca. 1917). The album was released in 1989 coinciding with McGovern's Gershwin concert at Carnegie Hall). In 1989, she performed her first concert in Carnegie Hall, singing a collection of songs by George Gershwin.

Recent career[link]

From the 1990s into the 21st century, McGovern continued her careers in musical theatre, performing in concerts, and recording albums, and she occasionally made guest appearances on television. Other recordings include Baby I'm Yours (1992), a collection of her favorite songs from 1955 to 1970, and Out of This World (1996), a collection of songs by Harold Arlen. She was nominated twice for a Grammy, for her albums The Music Never Ends (1997), a collection of songs by Alan & Marilyn Bergman, and The Pleasure of His Company (1998), another voice/piano album.

In 2003, Out of This World and The Music Never Ends were re-released by Fynsworth Alley Records; both albums included bonus tracks, the former two, and the latter three.

In 2005, McGovern returned to the Broadway stage as Marmee opposite Sutton Foster's Jo in the musical adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. With negative reviews, it ended quickly, but McGovern reprised her role for the successful subsequent national tour.^[1]

She continues to appear in concert as a headliner and as a guest with symphony orchestras around the country. Her new CD A Long and Winding Road, on the PS Classics label, salutes singer–songwriters of the 1960s like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Lennon–McCartney and Randy Newman. She performed a concert act based on this material at the Metropolitan Room in New York City, the Rrazz Room in San Francisco and will tour with it throughout the next few years.

McGovern also continues her work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, where she appears annually on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

She created, along with Philip Himberg, a one woman biographical musical Carry It On which premiered at Geva Theatre Center October 12 - November 14, 2010.^[5][6]

In 2012 she was listed as a guest star with The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs, California.^[7]

Other projects[link]

McGovern voiced the character of Rachel in the animated film Joseph: King of Dreams.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• 1973: The Morning After
• 1974: Nice to Be Around
• 1975: Academy Award Performance
• 1979: Maureen McGovern
• 1987: Another Woman in Love
• 1988: State of the Heart
• 1990: Christmas With Maureen McGovern
• 1992: Baby I'm Yours
• 1996: Out of This World (reissued in 2003 with two bonus tracks)
• 1997: The Music Never Ends (reissued in 2003 with three bonus tracks)
• 1998: The Pleasure of His Company
• 2008: A Long and Winding Road

Live albums[link]

• 1989: Naughty Baby

Compilations[link]

• 1990: Greatest Hits
• 2005: 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Maureen McGovern

Singles[link]

• "Very Special Love" (1979)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Maureen McGovern Web Site
• Maureen McGovern at Discogs
• Maureen McGovern at the Internet Movie Database
• Maureen McGovern at the Internet Broadway Database

Joy Denalane
Joy Denalane in Munich in 2006
Background information
Birth name	Joy Maureen Denalane
Born	(1973-06-11) 11 June 1973 (age 39) Berlin, Germany
Genres	Soul, R&B, jazz, folk
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Four Music, Nesola
Website	www.joydenalane.com

Joy Maureen Denalane (born 11 June 1973), known as Joy Denalane, is a German singer-songwriter, known for her mixture of soul, R&B, and African folk music with lyrics in German and English.

Early life[link]

Denalane, the third of six children, was born in the Berlin-Schöneberg, the eldest daughter of a German mother and a South African father. A little later, the family relocated to the Kreuzberg dictrict where Denalane spent much of her childhood years.

At the age of sixteen Denalane left home and started focusing on music with first stage performances and the joining of the reggae and soul bands Culture Roots and Family Affair. At nineteen she was signed to a major pop label but she and her management could not agree on what her music and image should be like and Denalane soon asked for a release. Afterwards she moved to Stuttgart where she met DJ Thomilla and Tiefschwarz (two already well-known producers active in the Kolchose) with whom Denalane co-wrote and produced the club hit "Music".

Career[link]

[edit] 1999—2005: Debut and Mamani

Denalane on-stage with Freundeskreis at the Gurtenfestival in Bern, Switzerland in 2000.

Around the same time Denalane came in first contact with hip hop group Freundeskreis, who searched for a female counterpart to lead singer Max Herre's voice on their track "Mit Dir" then. However, the duet was released as a single in July 1999 and made the top ten in Germany, the top thirty in Austria, and the top fifteen in Switzerland—pushed by the fact Denalane and Herre had become a couple simultaneously.

Afterwards Denalane joined the FK Allstars, which also consisted of Afrob, Gentleman, Sekou, and Brooke Russell, among others, and went on tour with them for more than two years. Later on she signed a contract with Four Music (founded by Die Fantastischen Vier) and began working on her debut album Mamani, which was released in June 2002 and debuted at number eight on the German Albums Chart. Inspired by African roots, the album was primarily produced by husband Max Herre. In total Mamani spawned six singles, including the lead single "Sag's Mir", the socially critical track "Im Ghetto von Soweto" (featuring her uncle South African flugelhorn legend Hugh Masekela), and "Kinderlied", a song dedicated to her oldest son Isaiah.

In 2003 Denalane went on a solo tour and finished collaborations with Youssou N'Dour, ASD, and Till Brönner. She also performed in New York City and Philadelphia for the first time and eventually received a Comet for Best Hip-Hop/R&B National and three ECHO nominations, including Best Female Artist. Soon after she released a live edition of Mamani on CD and DVD, which was recorded during a special performance at Berlin's Tränenpalast and involved a set of previously unreleased remakes. In summer 2005 Denalane contributed vocals to the German version of Common's 2005 single "Go!".sada

[edit] 2006—present: Born & Raised and Maureen

In April 2006 Denalane and husband Herre founded their own label, Nesola Records. Simultaneously Denalane prepared the release of her second album, Born & Raised, her first record in English. Pre-programmed in Germany, the album was entirely recorded in Philadelphia and features appearances by American rappers Lupe Fiasco, Raekwon, and Governor. While its lead single "Let Go" reached a moderately successful number forty on the German Singles Chart, the critically acclaimed Born & Raised (released on 11 August 2006) debuted at number two (behind Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics) on the national albums chart, making it Denalane's highest chart entry to date. Further singles from the album, "Heaven or Hell" and "Sometimes Love", failed to chart within the top one hundred. In spring 2007 Denalane released the single "Change" (featuring Lupe Fiasco) in the United Kingdom, but it failed to chart.

In 2008 Joy Denalane worked with Tweet, Dwele and Bilal on the project The Dresden Soul Symphony in Dresden, Germany. They performed classic soul cuts like "Let's stay together", "Natural woman", "Its a man´s man´s man's world", "Ain´t nothing like a real thing" etc. with the MDR Symphony Orchestra. An album The Dresden Soul Symphony and DVD were later released on October 24, 2008.

Denalane's third studio Maureen, titled after her middle name, is expected to be released in May 2011.^{[dated info]} It will be her second German-language album after Mamani (2002).

Discography[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joy Denalane

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joy Denalane

• JoyDenalane.com — official site
• Joy Denalane at Allmusic
• Joy Denalane on Myspace
• Joy Denalane at the Internet Movie Database

Maureen Johnson
Born	(1973-02-16) February 16, 1973 (age 39) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	United States
Period	2004 - present
Genres	Young adult fiction
www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com

Maureen Johnson (b. February 16, 1973, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American author of young adult fiction. She has published eight young adult novels to date, including the Suite Scarlett series and The Last Little Blue Envelope.

Early life[link]

Maureen Johnson is a graduate of the University of Delaware. Prior to that she attended an all-girl Catholic preparatory high school. In the short period between her undergraduate and graduate careers, Johnson worked in Philadelphia, London, and New York City. She was the literary manager of a Philadelphia theater company, a waitress in a theme restaurant, a secretary, a bartender in Piccadilly, and an occasional performer. She studied both writing and theatrical dramaturgy at Columbia University, where she received her MFA in Writing.^[1]

Career[link]

Maureen Johnson's first novel, The Key to the Golden Firebird, was published in 2004. It was followed by The Bermudez Triangle and 13 Little Blue Envelopes in 2005, Devilish in 2006, and Girl at Sea in 2007.

In June 2007, Johnson's book ''The Bermudez Triangle'' was challenged by the parent of a student in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.^[2] While book challenges are not uncommon in the United States, Johnson's response on her blog is notable for its immediacy and for its call for greater transparency in the school system's challenge process. To resolve the controversy, the school board did not officially ban the book but placed it in a restricted area of the high school's library.^[3]

In September 2008 Johnson launched the political social networking community YA for Obama.^[4] The site was designed for those who wished to support 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama. It is hosted by Ning and includes archives of discussion forums, user-generated content such as videos and photos, and daily blog updates written by well-known YA authors such as Scott Westerfeld, Lauren Myracle, Cecily von Ziegesar and Megan McCafferty.

Suite Scarlett, the first book in the "Suite Scarlett" series, was published by Scholastic in May 2008. The second book, Scarlett Fever, was released on February 1, 2010.^[5] On November 27, 2009, Johnson became a New York Times Best Selling author when Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances, a book that she co-wrote with John Green and Lauren Myracle in 2008, reached number ten on the Children's Paperback list.^[6]

The Last Little Blue Envelope, the sequel to Johnson's 2005 novel, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, was published in April 2011.^[7] Her next book, The Name of the Star, first in the Shades of London series, was published in September 2011.^[8]

Johnson was also a scriptwriter for the Nintendo DS and PSP versions of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Johnson currently lives in New York City. She also has a loyal following on Twitter of more than 50,000 people, using this medium to connect with her followers on a daily (and often hourly) basis.^[10] Johnson is part of an unofficial group of well-established YA authors in New York City, including Scott Westerfeld, John Green (who no longer lives in New York), Justine Larbalestier, Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Lauren Myracle and others. She was an occasional participant, and a "secret sister", on John and Hank Green's Brotherhood 2.0 project^[11], and is responsible for starting the "in your pants" joke frequently used throughout the project. She briefly replaced John on the channel while he was away on paternity leave in 2010.

Charity Work[link]

On February 23–24, 2011, Johnson led a Twitter campaign that raised over $15,000 for ShelterBox after the earthquake in New Zealand. The donations provided 16 boxes of aid sent to areas affected by natural disasters.^[12] On March 11–13, Johnson raised more money for ShelterBox in response to the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan. This campaign raised $14,202, bringing the total amount of money raised by her and her followers to $29,404.^[13] In May, in response to the tornadoes in Joplin, MO and elsewhere, she raised over $4,000 for ShelterBox and the American Red Cross.^[14]

Bibliography[link]

Standalone novels[link]

• The Key to the Golden Firebird (2005)
• The Bermudez Triangle (2004)
• Devilish (2006)
• Girl at Sea (2007)

13 Little Blue Envelopes series[link]

• 13 Little Blue Envelopes (2005)
• The Last Little Blue Envelope (April 26, 2011)

Suite Scarlett series[link]

• Suite Scarlett (2008)
• Scarlett Fever (2010)

Shades of London series[link]

• The Name of the Star (September 29, 2011)^[15]
• The Madness Underneath (forthcoming)

Stories in Anthologies[link]

• "Jubilee Express" in Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (with John Green and Lauren Myracle, 2008)
• "The Law of Suspects" in Vacations From Hell (with Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Claudia Gray and Sarah Mlynowski, 2009)
• "The Children of the Revolution" in Zombies vs. Unicorns (with Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carrie Ryan, Scott Westerfeld, Meg Cabot, Kathleen Duey, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, and Diana Peterfreund, 2010)

Essays[link]

• "Hot Sex and Horrific Parenting in His Dark Materials" (published in The World of the Golden Compass, 2007)

Awards and Nominations[link]

• 13 Little Blue Envelopes - ALA Teens' Top Ten 2006 ^[16]
• Devilish - 2007 Andre Norton Award nomination ^[17]
• "Most Interesting Twitter User to Follow" Mashable Open Web Awards 2009 ^[18]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Scholastic Point author bio
• Blog

Maureen O'Hara
O'Hara in c.1940
Born	Maureen FitzSimons (1920-08-17) 17 August 1920 (age 91) Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Actress/Singer
Years active	1938–1973 1991–2000
Spouse	George H. Brown (m.1939-1941; annulled) Will Price (m.1941-1953; divorced) Charles F. Blair, Jr. (m.1968-1978; his death)

Maureen O'Hara (born 17 August 1920) is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne. Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, was published in 2004 and was a New York Times Bestseller.

Early life and career[link]

O'Hara was born as Maureen FitzSimons on Beechwood Avenue in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh.^[1] She was the second oldest of the six children of Charles Stewart Parnell FitzSimons and Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons. Her father was in the clothing business and also bought into Shamrock Rovers Football Club,^[2] a team O'Hara has supported since childhood.^[3] Her mother, a former operatic contralto, was a successful women's clothier. O'Hara was raised as, and still is, a Roman Catholic.^[4] Her siblings were Peggy, the oldest, and younger Charles, Florrie, Margot and Jimmy. Peggy dedicated her life to a religious order, the Sisters of Charity, and the younger children all went on to receive training at the Abbey Theatre and the Ena Mary Burke School of Drama and Elocution in Dublin. O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress. She was first educated at the John Street West Girls' School near Thomas Street in Dublin's Liberties Area. From the age of 6–17 she trained in drama, music and dance, and at the age of 10 joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and worked in amateur theatre in the evenings, after her lessons.^[5]

O'Hara's father was a very practical man and did not entirely support her theatrical aspirations. He insisted she learn a skill so that she would have something to fall back on to earn a living in case her experience in the performing arts was not successful. She enrolled in a business school and became a proficient bookkeeper and typist. Those skills proved helpful many years later when she was able to take and transcribe production notes dictated by John Ford for the screen adaptation of Maurice Walsh's short story The Quiet Man.

She did well in her Abbey training and was given an opportunity for a screen test in London. The studio adorned her in a "gold lamé dress with flapping sleeves like wings"^[6] and heavy make-up with an ornate hair style. Reportedly, her thoughts concerning the incident were, "If this is the movies, I want nothing to do with them!"^[7] The screen test was deemed to be far from satisfactory; however, actor Charles Laughton later saw the test and, despite the overdone makeup and costume, was intrigued, paying particular notice to her large and expressive eyes.

Laughton subsequently asked his business partner Erich Pommer to see the film clip. Pommer agreed with Laughton and O'Hara was offered an initial seven-year contract with their new company, Mayflower Pictures. Her first major film was Jamaica Inn (1939) directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Laughton was so pleased with O'Hara's performance that he cast her in the role of Esmeralda opposite him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), which was to be filmed at RKO Studios in Hollywood that same year. After the successful completion of Hunchback, World War II began, and Laughton, realizing their studio could no longer film in London, sold O'Hara's contract to RKO. That studio cast her in low-budget films until she was rescued by director John Ford, who cast her as Angharad in How Green Was My Valley, which won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Picture. Six years later, in 1947, she made what is perhaps her best-remembered film, starring as Doris Walker and the mother of a young Natalie Wood in 20th Century Fox's Miracle on 34th Street, which, despite being released in May, has become a perennial Christmas classic, with a traditional network television airing every Thanksgiving Day on NBC. The film also helped to further establish O'Hara's career after the film garnered several awards, including an Academy Award Nomination for Best Picture.

In 1946, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States and now holds dual citizenship with the U.S. and her native Ireland.

In addition to her acting skills, O'Hara had a soprano voice and described singing as her first love. The studio heads never capitalized on her musical talent, as she was already big box office in other genres of film. However, she was able to channel her love of singing through television. In the late '50s and early '60s, she was a guest on musical variety shows with Perry Como, Andy Williams, Betty Grable and Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1960, she starred on Broadway in the musical Christine which ran for 12 performances. That year she released two successful recordings, Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara and Maureen O'Hara Sings her Favorite Irish Songs. Love Letters from Maureen O'Hara has been released on CD in Japan and is now out of print; Maureen O'Hara Sings Her Favorite Irish Songs has yet to be released on CD.

With Tyrone Power in the trailer for The Black Swan (1942)

An icon of Hollywood's Golden Age, at the height of her career, O'Hara was considered one of the world's most beautiful women. She is often remembered for her on-screen chemistry with John Wayne. They made five films together between 1948 and 1972: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, McLintock! and Big Jake. A clip of O'Hara's radiant face as she waves from a gate in John Ford's Academy Award-winning How Green Was My Valley, remains one of the most classic images preserved on film, and is often featured as a clip in montages and promotions.

Marriage, retirement and comeback[link]

In 1939, at the age of 19, O'Hara secretly married Englishman George H. Brown,^[8] a film producer, production assistant and occasional scriptwriter whose best known work is the first of Margaret Rutherford's 1960s Miss Marple mysteries, Murder She Said. The marriage was annulled in 1941. Later that year, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price (dialog director in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the union ended in 1953, reportedly as a result of his alcohol abuse. They had one child in 1944, a daughter named Bronwyn FitzSimons Price. Bronwyn has one son, Conor Beau FitzSimons, who was born on September 8, 1970. From 1953 until 1967 O'Hara had a relationship with Enrique Parra, a Mexican politician and banker. She wrote in her autobiography; "Enrique saved me from the darkness of an abusive marriage and brought me back into the warm light of life again. Leaving him was one of the most painful things I have ever had to do."^[9]

She married her third husband, Charles F. Blair, Jr., on March 12, 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlantic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the U.S. Air Force, and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting. Blair died in 1978 when an engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St. Croix to St. Thomas exploded. She was elected CEO and President of Antilles Airboats with the added distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the U.S. Later she sold the airline with the permission of the shareholders.

O'Hara remained retired from acting until 1991, when she starred in the film Only the Lonely, playing Rose Muldoon, the domineering mother of a Chicago cop played by John Candy. In the following years, she continued to work, starring in several made-for-TV movies, including The Christmas Box, Cab for Canada and The Last Dance, the latter her last film to date, released in 2000.

Now retired, she has homes in Arizona and the Virgin Islands but lives mainly in Glengarriff, County Cork. In June 2011 she participated at the Maureen O'Hara Film Festival in Glengarriff.^[10]

O'Hara is scheduled to make a public appearence in Kells Co. Meath on the 26th of May 2012 to commemerate her father, who was born in the town.

In May 2012, O'Hara's family contacted social workers regarding claims that O'Hara was a victim of elder abuse^[11].

Achievements[link]

O'Hara was named Irish America magazine's "Irish American of the Year" in 2005, with festivities held at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

She was given the Heritage Award by the Ireland-American Fund in 1991.

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, O'Hara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7004 Hollywood Blvd. In 1993, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was also awarded the Golden Boot Award.

She wrote the foreword for the cookbook At Home in Ireland. In March 1999, O'Hara was selected to be Grand Marshal of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade. In 2007, she wrote the foreword for the biography of her dear friend, actress Anna Lee.

In 2004, O'Hara released her autobiography 'Tis Herself, co-authored with Johnny Nicoletti and published by Simon & Schuster. In the same year, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin.

In 2006, O'Hara attended the Grand Reopening and Expansion of the Flying Boats Museum in Foynes, Limerick, Ireland, as a patron of the museum. A significant portion of the museum is dedicated to her late husband Charles.

O'Hara donated her late husband's seaplane (a Sikorsky VS-44A) "The Queen of the Skies" to the New England Air Museum. The restoration of the plane took 8 years and time was donated by former pilots and mechanics in honour of Charles Blair. It is the only surviving example of this type of plane.

In 2011, Maureen O'Hara was formally inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at an event in New Ross, County Wexford, receiving letters from Mary McAleese and Bill Clinton.^[12] O'Hara was also named president of UFFO, The Universal Film & Festival Organization which promotes a code of conduct for film festivals and the film industry.^[13]

Maureen O'Hara is credited with helping to win WWII. She starred with John Payne and Randolph Scott in the 1942 hit To the Shores of Tripoli. The attack on Pearl Harbor happened while the film was in post-production, so they changed the ending to include everybody going off to war. The U.S. Marine Corps says this film was the number one recruiting device for Marines in 1942.^{[citation needed]} In 1940 there were only 19,400 Marines. By the end of WWII there were 485,052 U.S. Marines. Hence the pun "The Maureen Corps".

Filmography[link]

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• The Hoops by Paul Doolan and Robert Goggins (ISBN 0-7171-2121-6)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maureen O'Hara

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Maureen O'Hara

• Maureen O'Hara at the Internet Movie Database
• Maureen O'Hara at the TCM Movie Database
• Photo gallery
• Maureen O'Hara Magazine
• Maureen biography and facts
• Doctor Macro's photo gallery