My friend, the movie star Maureen O’Hara,
died on Saturday, October 24, at age 95. She passed
away peacefully in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho.
Maureen made lots of movies—in fact, she
was probably in more hits than anyone else of her time.
Her notable movies include How Green Was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Street, The Quiet Man,
and scores more.
She was a real beauty, body
and soul.
Travels
With Charlie
While we of course knew her film oeuvre, we knew her
best from aviation circles. She was married to Charlie
Blair Jr., the former chief pilot at Pan Am and aviator
extraordinaire who once flew a P51 Mustang from New
York to Europe. If memory serves, he still holds the
speed record for a single-engine piston aircraft flight
across the pond.
Charlie and Maureen started
up a flying boat airline called Antilles Air Boats and
flew schedules around the Caribbean for many years.
They also secured the last
big 1930s-era flying boat: a Sikorsky VS-44A, built
in 1937, which once belonged to American Export Airlines.
They flew the thing all the way across the Atlantic
to Ireland.
Charlie was killed in 1978
when a Grumman Goose he was piloting cartwheeled on
landing near St. Croix.
First
Female Airline CEO
Charlie’s problems may have been over in an instant,
but Maureen was left in debt, with an airline to operate,
and of course in shock at having lost the love of her
life.
As the first woman in the world
to be the CEO of an operating scheduled airline, Maureen
showed the skill and determination to not only operate
the company, but also bring the business to profit.
She eventually sold the airline off to another company,
which operated the flying boat service on the Miami
Causeway for many years.
Maureen had Charlie’s
beloved VS-44A sent back to Sikorsky in Connecticut,
where it was lovingly restored. Today it sits in a place
of pride at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks,
Connecticut.
Luck
Of The Irish
Fast forward to 1980. I am sitting in my office at LaGuardia
Field when suddenly the place is full of people from
Foynes, Ireland.
Foynes was at the dawn of trans-Atlantic
air service—the first landfall by air from America—and
was, up until the outbreak of WWII, where the Pan Am
Clippers from New York first landed, bound for Southampton
England.
That day the Irish told me
they want to start an air museum, so we spent a couple
of days together. I took them out to Port Washington,
where the first New York-to-Europe flights via Foynes
began in 1939, brought them home for dinner, and called
my friend, LaGuardia Airport Manager Tim Peirce for
guidance on how we could help.
Tim knew right away what to
do and engineered to have our airport Kiwanis Club honor
Maureen O’Hara at a gala black-tie dinner. The
money raised would go to the Irish to start their museum.
Maureen showed up, stayed late,
attended the after party, stayed later, and was simply
superb.
All during the dinner I kept
hounding Harris Herman, the Pan Am Shuttle boss at the
time, to give up a pass so Maureen could fly to Boston
to see her grandkids the next day.
Of course, ever obliging, Harris
took care of business.
About
John Wayne
The next morning at 0500 I jumped into the car and went
over to the Pan Am Shuttle at the Marine Air Terminal
at LaGuardia and ran up to the VIP hold room to turn
up the heat, expecting Maureen for the 0730 take off.
Thinking I should get some
coffee, I headed toward Rocky’s place inside the
MAT.
All of a sudden I spotted a
tall lady with bright red hair and knew at once it was
Maureen.
“Oh, it’s you,”
we both said at the same time. I escorted her into the
Pan Am lounge room.
We sat and talked undisturbed
for about 15 minutes. Stories unfolded of her time flying
all over hell with Charlie, as an airline boss and life
thereafter, and how glad she was to help the people
from Foynes.
Boldly, I asked her to tell
me something about her frequent co-star in so many great
movies, John Wayne. Bolder still, and perhaps pressing
my Irish luck, I asked for something no one had ever
been told.
She made me promise not to
repeat the following until after she was gone.
“The last phone call
from Duke,” Maureen said, “was just toward
the end, when he sounded very hollow and weak.
“He said to me: ‘Why
did this happen to me?’
“All these years later,
I still think about that call often, and how his voice
sounded—that big, strapping man who was so strong
and full of life.
“He dragged me around
like a rag doll in The Quiet Man and here he
was, stricken and weak and wondering ‘why me?’”
The look on Maureen’s
face was sympathetic, thoughtful, and resolute.
One
Strong Lady
Effusive, talented people fluttered around Maureen like
moths silently serenading a lamppost. I learned after
a few face-to-face visits with her that she was stronger
than most anyone.
Moments after talking in such
sweet, honest, emotional terms about “Duke,”
dear Tim showed up with a half-dozen ramp rats and Maureen
was off to the races, signing autographs and shaking
hands all around.
I must admit, along the trail
of my 74 years, it has been my privilege to meet and
even get to know some pretty special people.
But for the few months we worked
to raise money for what is now the wonderful Irish National
Air Museum in Foynes, I always think back to how wonderful
and down to earth was the high-flying lady, Maureen
O’Hara.
We thought about her again
in 2013 when the St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) seaplane
terminal was formally dedicated to Capt. Charles F.
Blair Jr.
Charlie was great, and Maureen
kept his life and legend alive long enough for the rest
of the world to catch up.
She was a very strong lady. 
Fond
Farewell
Now, these many years later, we say goodbye to a life
well lived with a lovely 95th birthday tribute and J.R.R.
Tolkien’s words:
“ May the wind under
your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon
walks.”
Geoffrey
