LOS ANGELES — Maureen O'Hara, the flame-haired Irish movie star who appeared in classics ranging from the grim How Green Was My Valley to the uplifting Miracle on 34th Street and bantered unforgettably with John Wayne in several films. She was 95.
O'Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho, said Johnny Nicoletti, her longtime manager.
"She passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family as they celebrated her life listening to music from her favorite movie, The Quiet Man," said a statement from her family.
"As an actress, Maureen O'Hara brought unyielding strength and sudden sensitivity to every role she played. Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life. She was also proudly Irish and spent her entire lifetime sharing her heritage and the wonderful culture of the Emerald Isle with the world," said a family biography.
O'Hara came to Hollywood to star in the 1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame and went on to a long career.
During her movie heyday, she became known as the Queen of Technicolor because of the camera's love affair with her vivid hair, pale complexion and fiery nature.
After her start in Hollywood with Hunchback and some minor films at RKO, she was borrowed by 20th Century Fox to play the beautiful young daughter in the 1941 saga of a coal-mining family, How Green Was My Valley.