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185 12 ready for Her Close-ups With Blair and Wayne both gone, life was especially lonely for O’Hara. But she was, in her own estimation, a tough irishwoman. She also had Bronwyn and a steel-strong network of siblings and friends. She spent nine months of the year in the Virgin islands and the rest split between ireland and the United States. “The weather is excellent in St. Croix,” she enthused. “Sure we get the hurricanes and the storms in September, October and the beginning of November but when they come you go down into your storm cellar. Otherwise it’s beautiful—a gorgeous sky and aquamarine sea—and you can see all the way to the sea bed.”1 in addition to the landscape and the weather, she liked the people. She sold the Virgin Islander to USa Today in 1980, giving up journalism so she could spend more time with Bronwyn and Conor Beau. She was also close to Blair’s children and visited them often. The following year she sold antilles air Boats, off-loading the controlling stock to resorts international . With 120 flights a day and a 27-plane commercial fleet ranging the upper Caribbean, it was getting to be too much for her. She loved running the company but found that dealing with men all the time made her prone to expletives, comments that she considered unladylike, and shows of temper that she didn’t like in herself. as the years went on, she was honored in many capacities outside the film world, perhaps compensating for Hollywood’s failure to recognize her talents. in 1982 she became the first recipient of the american ireland Fund Lifetime achievement award in Los angeles. That year she also became the first woman to win the John F. Kennedy Memorial award as “Outstanding american of irish Descent for Service to god and Country.” The following year she received the ireland Fund peace, Culture and Charity award. Such honors disguised (or perhaps emphasized) the fact that she was relatively inactive. 186 Maureen O’Hara For the first time in her life, she had time on her hands and wasn’t totally sure how to occupy her days. as time passed, she felt more drawn to her homeland and cut back on her nomadic lifestyle. She’d put down many roots in america over the decades, but they were very much tied to her career. Now that it was over, she returned to the girl she’d always been—the girl who failed to share Charles Laughton’s enthusiasm over the Statue of Liberty in 1939 because she was so homesick. She continued her thriftiness as a retired diva. One day at Shannon airport, Conor Beau put twenty pence into a gaming machine and nothing happened. another grandmother might have advised him to try another machine , but not Maureen O’Hara. She called for the officer on duty and got a refund, telling him plump and plain: “i worked hard for my money. These machines should work.”2 The officer was probably amused—and impressed. in 1984 she set up an annual golf tournament in glengariff to honor her late husband’s memory and encourage tourism in the area. There were two trophies for the winners: the general Charles F. Blair for men and the Maureen O’Hara Blair for women. She became a familiar figure around glengariff and made it her main home. The locals were momentarily awed, but once they got to know her better, it was as if she’d never been Maureen O’Hara the movie star. She gave interviews at irregular intervals. a frequent inquiry was whether she would ever remarry. Her answer was always the same: it was unlikely. “i don’t even date anybody. Who would put up with a woman who’s constantly talking about Charlie Blair.”3 it seemed that Blair was too hard an act to follow. The social life of glengariff offered some relief from the enforced isolation of widowhood. There were also occasional invitations to return to the glitter of Tinseltown. She usually greeted these with a mixture of mild curiosity and vague boredom, but when roddy McDowall called in 1985 to tell her he was being given a Career achievement award by the american Cinema Foundation, she pricked up her ears in deference to their strong bond. He asked her to present the award to him, and she agreed. She flew to the States and even...

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