You can never stop being Irish, O'Hara says

Audiences couldn't really appreciate Maureen O'Hara's flaming red tresses in such black-and-white movies as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with Charles Laughton or the Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street," but the Irish actress's fiery personality nevertheless burned through the screen.

In director John Ford's 1952 "The Quiet Man," however, O'Hara was revealed in all her glory. Here, the Dublin-born actress is not just fiery but a force of nature — "a fine healthy girl" with "freckles in her temper," according to human leprechaun Barry Fitzgerald, who adds: "That red head of hers is no lie." When John Wayne first spies this spirited colleen tending her sheep in a field that matches the emerald shine of her eyes, he asks: "Hey, is that real?"

"You can never stop being Irish," said O'Hara, 82, in a telephone interview from her Los Angeles home, conducted to promote the recent "Collector's Edition" DVD release of "The Quiet Man" from Artisan Home Entertainment.

Artisan also has released a "Collector's Edition" DVD of Ford's masterful Western "Rio Grande" (1950), which also stars Wayne and O'Hara. The actress contributed commentaries to both discs and is featured on making-of documentaries and other special features.

O'Hara, who speaks with a noticeable Irish lilt, seems very much a countrywoman of the Emerald Isle, her recollections infused with both swagger and sentiment.

"Let me tell you, I do miss 'em, I miss 'em like hell," said O'Hara, speaking of Ford and Wayne and Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart and other departed friends and co-stars from the golden era of the Hollywood studio system. "I miss them mostly at nighttime and early in the morning — you've no idea what a lonesome feeling it is. I miss picking up the phone and talking to them or being polite to them or giving them hell."

Ford, best known for such Westerns as "Stagecoach" and "The Searchers," was "the most brilliant director in the picture business," said O'Hara, who was something of a good-luck charm for the filmmaker. He earned Best Director Oscars after working with O'Hara in both "The Quiet Man" and "How Green Was My Valley" (1941).

"He was soft-hearted, sentimental, tough, mean, an old devil — every word you could think of in the English language applies to him. To watch him work, it was like watching a man with a magical brush in his hand paint magical pictures."

She is currently working on her autobiography for Simon & Schuster. "If you don't mind me saying so, I'm a very good writer," she said.