Honoree actress Maureen O'Hara poses during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Governors Awards in Los Angeles, California November 8, 2014. (Photo : Reuters/Kevork Djansezian)
1. Maureen O'Hara was born Maureen FitzSimons on August 17, 1920 in Dublin, Ireland.
2. The Irish actress loved singing and sports. Her mother was an opera singer while her father owned soccer teams.
3. O'Hara was a prize student of the Abbey Theater in Dublin, where she underwent a training program.
4. Having started acting since she was a child, O'Hara was 17 when she was discovered by Charles Laughton and cast her in William Dieterle's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," which was released in 1939, NPR has learned.
5. It was Laughton who gave the Irish actress the family name O'Hara, which was more manageable than her real family name.
6. The film O'Hara is best known for is "The Quiet Man," the 1952 romantic comedy that starred her opposite John Wayne. The Irish actress helped write the movie's theme song titled "The Isle of Innisfree."
7. Because of her fiery nature, pale complexion, sea-green eyes and vivid hair, O'Hara was dubbed the Queen of Technicolor of Hollywood, particularly in the 1940s and in the 1950s.
8. O'Hara was the first female president of a commercially scheduled airline in the United States. After the death of her third husband Charles F. Blair, Jr. in 1978, she was elected CEO and president of the U.S. Virgin Islands airline Antilles Air Boats.
9. O'Hara was given her Honorary Academy Award in 2014.
10. O'Hara was 95 when she died in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho, on Oct. 24, Saturday, Irish Times reported. She was survived by Bronwyn FitzSimons Price, her daughter with her second husband Will Price, the late dialogue director of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
