Maureen O'Sullivan

  [This was to change dramatically. More detail on Maureen O’Sullivan’s first steps in cinema can be found in the book Emeralds in Tinseltown – The Irish in Hollywood, from which this article is condensed] From finishing school to Fox to Metro, Maureen O’Sullivan was a charming presence.

… An offer came from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio was looking for a fresh new face to play opposite strongman Johnny Weissmuller in its new jungle adventure Tarzan the Ape Man. The pairing of this new Tarzan and Jane would become one of the most enduring screen partnerships of all time. It also landed the former convent girl in hot water with some of the more extreme conservative elements in the country at the time – and also with a chimp. Cheetah was Tarzan’s primate pal. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1953 the actress complained, “At times I was fearful about working with the animal, because he would bite me. Cheetah liked Johnny Weissmuller, which is probably the reason why he hated me, because he was jealous.”
    O'Sullivan went on to play Tarzan’s Jane in five more jungle films, in which she caused something of a sensation with the very revealing costume provided by the MGM wardrobe department. ‘To be forced to go around with practically no clothes on for eight hours a day on a freezing winter [day] and to stand knee-deep in what I am sure was melted ice water and to hear the sound man yelling, “I can hear your teeth chattering, Miss O’Sullivan, you’ll have to control them”.’
    ‘Tarzan’ author Edgar Rice Burroughs said of [O’Sullivan’s portrayal of ‘Jane’]: “I am afraid I shall never be satisfied with any other heroine in my future films.”

  [Retirement from the screen did not mean that audiences had seen the last of Maureen O’Sullivan]

Her debut Broadway performance led to an active career on the stage in later life. She went on to star in a string of successful productions from The Subject Was Roses to Keep It in The Family, No Sex Please We’re British and the revival of Paul Osborn’s Morning at Seven. Woody Allen cast her in her most ‘luminous screen role,’ as the New York Times described it, when she appeared in Allen’s 1985 hit Hannah and Her Sisters. Her daughter Mia Farrow played one of her children in the film. Maureen O’Sullivan’s career in film, television and theatre gained her many admirers, but this tribute from her agent speaks volumes: “She embodied all the things you hear about Irish people,” John Springer said of his old friend. “She was warm, generous, kind and loving.”

  For more detail on Maureen O’Sullivan and the other Irish-American screen legends, read Emeralds in Tinseltown – The Irish in Hollywood by Steve Brennan and Bernadette O'Neill, published by Appletree Press.