Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien

  • Birthday: 1937-01-15
  • Place of birth: San Diego, California, USA
  • Also know as: Angela Maxine O'Brien

Biography

Margaret O'Brien (born January 15, 1937) is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history. In her later career, she appeared on stage and in supporting film roles. She was born Angela Maxine O'Brien; (she later changed her name to Margaret following the success of the film Journey for Margaret, in which she played the title role). Her father Lawrence O'Brien, a circus performer, died before she was born.[1]; Margaret's mother, Gladys Flores, was a well-known flamenco dancer who often performed with her sister Marissa, also a dancer. Margaret is of half-Irish and half-Spanish ancestry. She made her first film appearance in Babes on Broadway (1941) at the age of four, but it was the following year that her first major role brought her widespread attention. As a five-year-old in Journey for Margaret (1942), O'Brien won wide praise for her convincing acting style. By 1943, she was considered a big enough star to have a cameo appearance in the all-star military show finale of Thousands Cheer. She played a young French girl, and spoke and sang all her dialogue with a French accent, in Jane Eyre (1944). Arguably her most memorable role was as "Tootie" in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), opposite Judy Garland. O'Brien had by this time added singing and dancing to her achievements and was rewarded with an Academy Juvenile Award the following year as the "outstanding child actress of 1944." Her other successes included The Canterville Ghost (1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945), and the first sound version of The Secret Garden (1949), but she was unable to make the transition to adult roles. A 1946 Looney Tunes short, Book Revue, placed a caricature of O'Brien in the role of Little Red Riding Hood. Margaret later shed her child star image in 1958 by appearing on the cover of Life Magazine with the caption "The Girl's Grown", and was a mystery guest on the TV panel show What's My Line?. O'Brien's acting roles as an adult have been few and far between, mostly in small independent films. However, she does do occasional interviews, mostly for the Turner Classic Movies cable network. She played the role of Betsy Stauffer, a small town nurse, in "The Incident of the Town in Terror" on television's Rawhide. Another rare television outing was as a guest star on the popular Marcus Welby, M.D. in the early 1970s, reuniting Margaret with her Journey For Margaret and The Canterville Ghost co-star Robert Young. Description above from the Wikipedia article Margaret O'Brien, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

The Secret Garden

1949

As Mary Lennox

The Unfinished Dance

1947

As 'Meg' Merlin

Tenth Avenue Angel

1948

As Flavia Mills

Lost Angel

1943

As Alpha

Her First Romance

1951

As Betty Foster

Glory

1956

As Clarabel Tilbee

Music for Millions

1944

As Mike

Three Wise Fools

1946

As Sheila O'Monahan

Big City

1948

As Midge

Meet Me in St. Louis

1944

As "Tootie" Smith

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

1945

As Selma Jacobson

Bad Bascomb

1946

As Emmy

The Pledge of Allegiance

1971

As Narrator

Jane Eyre

1943

As Adele Varens

Heller in Pink Tights

1960

As Della Southby

Little Women

1949

As Beth

The Canterville Ghost

1944

As Lady Jessica de Canterville

You, John Jones!

1943

As Daughter

Death in Space

1974

As Pam Rhodes

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!

2017

As Bridgette's Grandmother

Prepper's Grove

2018

As Gigi

Love Is in Bel Air

0000

As Vivienne

Journey for Margaret

1942

As Margaret

Amy

1981

As Hazel Johnson

Anabelle Lee

1974

As

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2017

As Ms. Stevenson

The Eyes of Two People

1952

As Catherine McDermott

Impact Event

2018

As Amanda

Split Second to an Epitaph

1968

As Louise Prescott

The Story of Lassie

1994

As Self

A Night at the Movies: Merry Christmas!

2011

As Self - Interviewee

Sunset After Dark

1996

As Betty Corman

This Is Our Christmas

2018

As Mrs. Foxworth

Hollywood Mortuary

1998

As Herself

The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli

1973

As Self (archive footage)

Madame Curie

1943

As Irene Curie - Age 5

Babes on Broadway

1941

As Maxine (uncredited)

Thousands Cheer

1943

As Customer in Red Skelton Skit

Hollywood’s Children

1982

As Self (archive footage)

Twenty Years After

1944

As (archive footage)

Showbiz Goes to War

1982

As (archive footage)

That's Entertainment!

1974

As (archive footage)

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