When Walt Disney offered her the part in The Parent Trap, he knew O'Hara needed the work and initially offered her a third of her normal salary and billing below newbie Hayley Mills. She sued them and won her case (her passport proved she was in Spain at the time the scandal allegedly took place), but the story and trial still did enough to damage her reputation, making it harder for studios to employ her. In 1957, the gossip magazine Confidentialclaimed that O'Hara was caught having sex in the balcony of the famed Grauman's Chinese Theater. Įven though O'Hara had been a movie star for over 20 years before the release of The Parent Trap, this project launched a new chapter in her career and arrived at just the right time. But once Sharon reveals the beauty shot of her mother, there was no doubt in my young mind that that was a movie star. And the word Sharon (proper, upper-crust Hayley Mills) uses to describe her is divine, both adjectives usually reserved to describe bedazzled drag queens lip-syncing for their lives. Susan (Hayley Mills as tomboy) talks about how she used to stare at her picture and how fabulous ('Absolutely fabulous') her mother was. Even before she finally appears a half an hour into the movie, the film has already built her up as a glamorous and intriguing figure.

It was my first encounter with The Queen of Technicolor and although the appeal of twice the juvenile star wattage of teenage Brit Hayley Mills was the main selling point as a child, there was always something special about O'Hara as their mother, Margaret McKendrick.

No offense to those classics but the greatest film the star ever appeared in has to be that Disney masterpiece about a pair of long-lost twins trying to reunite their parents in The Parent Trap. Maureen O'Hara's impressive body of work includes a Best Picture winner (1941's How Green Was My Valley), a perennial Holiday favorite (1947's Miracle on 34th Street), even an early film with Hitchcock (1939's Jamacia Inn).

Welcome to ' The Honoraries'. From now until November 8th when the Governor's Awards are held, we'll be celebrating the careers of the three Honorary Oscar recipients of 2014 (Maureen O'Hara, Hayao Miyazaki, Claude Carriere) and the Jean Hersholt winner (Harry Belafonte).

Hayley mills parent trap free movie