Journal & Topics Media Group

Off The Beaten Path: Wings Of Love


The day after Christmas, while the cattle were still “lowing” and the calendar had not yet turned over, Valentine’s Day items already stocked store shelves. It didn’t take long to pull the plug on the lights, box up the cheer, recycle the tree and break out the sugar hearts. While the “Miracle on 34th Street” movie may be silenced for another year, the true-life love story of the film’s beautiful red-haired actress Maureen O’Hara and Brigadier General Charles F. Blair, Jr. provides the perfect introduction to Cupid’s favorite February 14th holiday. (Given that the Hollywood lassie was more than just a wee bit Irish, we might also be inspired to start celebrating St. Paddy’s Day!)

The saying, “You can’t write this stuff,” seems often to ring true. A recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, led to a chance encounter with a very large rectangular tombstone (identified as being in Section 2, Grave 4966) bearing the inscription:

AVIATOR

CHARLES F. BLAIR JR.

BRIGADIER GENERAL

AIR FORCE of the UNITED STATES

JULY 19, 1909 + SEPT. 2, 1978

MAUREEN FITZSIMONS BLAIR

LEGENDARY MAUREEN O’HARA

BORN IN DUBLIN, IRELAND

AUG. 17, 1920-Oct. 24, 2015

Cemeteries may not necessarily be a place associated with romance, but the story regarding the kindled remains of these two is certainly worth repeating.

Hollywood star Maureen O’Hara is from many of our parents’ and grandparents’ era (her career spanning from the late 1930s through the 1990s), yet many younger people recall her role as Doris, Macy’s dedicated employee, who learns to have faith when “common sense tells you not to” and who comes to believe in Santa Claus in “Miracle on 34th Street.”

The feisty O’Hara, who often insisted on doing her own stunt work, had a for-real Irish brogue, which she could disguise and starred in movies, destined to become classics, often alongside John Wayne (“Duke”). The Quiet Man is one that forever sealed O’Hara and Duke as a couple on the screen. According to Cladrite Radio, Maureen (originally Fitzsimons) was born in the Ranelagh section of Dublin and began an acting career at the age of 14 when she joined the Abbey Theatre in Ireland. Recognizing her talent, actor and singer Harry Richard arranged for her to undergo a screen test in London. It didn’t take long for her skills, beauty, confidence, and the luck of the Irish to move the pot o’gold a little closer.

Charles Laughton, actor, director and producer, also impressed with Maureen’s style and independence, signed a seven year contract with her. In 1938 she appeared in Kicking the Moon and in 1939, when she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn she had officially adopted the O’Hara name. Laughton sold her contract after the war broke out to RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., an American film production and distribution company that was one of the major film studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and she began working with Director John Ford on “How Green Was My Valley.” Four leaf clover or not, O’Hara’s career was underway. At one point she opened a store, Maureen O’Hara’s Seasonal Clothes, in Tarzana, California, starred in a Broadway musical, “Christine”, released record albums and even published a magazine in the Caribbean.

O’Hara’s first marriage was in 1939 at the age of 19 to George H. Brown, a film producer. They were divorced in 1941. She and her second husband Director William Houston Price, who she married in 1941, had one daughter Bronwyn (named after a character in “How Green Was My Valley”), born in 1944. The couple divorced in 1953.

O’Hara met Brigadier General Charles F. Blair, Jr., “Charlie,” as she affectionately called him, when he was piloting her flight to Ireland for Pan Am in 1968. In an interview on CBS in 1995 O’Hara talks about how she quit Hollywood after her marriage (in 1968) to “perhaps the most wonderful, exciting, gorgeous, handsome man.” The couple lived in the Virgin Islands and enjoyed traveling. Charlie and John Wayne were good friends and frequently played chess together. During one of their bonding sessions they convinced O’Hara to give acting a rest and she did…for awhile.

A biography supplied by Maureen O’Hara herself regarding her husband explained that Blair, born in Buffalo, New York, learned to fly at the Ryan Flying School, San Diego, California. He soloed there at the age of 19. He received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont and entered the Naval Flying School, Pensacola, Florida, graduating in 1932 as an ensign, a commissioned officer. Shortly after he was assigned to the Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego, California.

He was a pilot during World War II flying for Naval Transport and the Air Transport Command (Air Force). As a Grumman Aircraft Company test pilot he flew Navy fighters and the Martin Mars flying boat, a large, four-engined cargo transport flying boat (actually a plane) designed and built for the Navy. He was the pilot in command of the five fastest seaplane crossings of the Atlantic on five consecutive trips in 1944. His best time was 14 hours and 17 minutes.

After the war, he commanded the first scheduled flights of Lockheed Constellations and Boeing Stratocruisers, and owned and operated Associated Air Transport flying between New York and Europe and the Middle East and South America.

Blair became a Pan Am pilot in 1950. That same year he bought and modified the single engine P-51 Mustang fighter, installing a more efficient Rolls Royce 1650-HP Merlin engine, longe range fuel tanks, and naval navigation equipment. He flew the plane, which he named Excalibur III, nonstop from New York to Heathrow Airport, evaluating air currents and jet streams, and setting records for crossing the Atlantic in a piston engine plane. According to the O’Hara biography, “He covered the 3,478 statue [statute] miles at an average speed of 446 miles an hour. His elapsed time of seven hour and 48 minutes set a record…”

Four months later while flying the first solo flight over the Arctic and North Pole in Excalibur III, Blair dropped a letter from the cockpit window written by his young son Chris to Santa Claus as he flew over the pole.

Today the exhibit of Excalibur III, on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., bears the the words: “On May 29, 1951, Capt. Charles F. Blair flew Excalibur III from Norway across the North Pole to Alaska in a record-setting 10½ hours. Using a system of carefully plotted ‘sun lines’ he developed, Blair was able to navigate with precision where conventional magnetic compasses often failed…”

Blair’s efforts were recognized by President Harry S. Truman as he was presented the Harmon International Aviation Award. He was also the recipient of the Gold Medal of the Norwegian Aero Club. He wrote a book Red Ball in the Sky, co-authored a novel “Thunder Above” and wrote many articles for professional publications.

Following his retirement from Pan Am in 1969 he founded his own airline operation, Antilles Air Boats, Inc., based in St. Croix. He bought an extensive seaplane fleet. Blair’s business, known as “The Streetcar Line of the Virgin Islands” met wit great success. In addition to running the company, he was flying between 40-50 hours a month.

All changed forever on September 2, 1978. Blair was piloting a seaplane from St. Croix to St. Thomas when his plane developed engine trouble and crashed. He was killed instantly. His widow called it “the most tragic moment of my life.” He was laid to rest on September 11, 1978. Survivors mentioned at the time of his death included his wife Maureen and four children from two previous marriages: Suzanne, Christopher, Charles Lee and Stephen.

O’Hara went on to become the CEO and president of Antilles Air Boats, Inc., making her the first woman president of a US airline. She did return to occasional acting. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo destroyed her home and she established a new residence in Ireland. Later she moved to Boise, Idaho. In 2004 O’Hara, with John Nicoletti, published her memoir “’Tis Herself.” In 2014 she was the second actress, the first being Myrna Loy, to be given an honorary Oscar. She died in her sleep on October 24, 2015.

O’Hara’s final resting spot in the country’s largest veteran cemetery was the result of her third marriage to Blair. Staff writer Julia LeDoux of the Pentagram reported on the day of O’Hara’s burial: “The strains of ‘Garryowen’ echoed across Arlington National Cemetery… as friends and family gathered to say goodbye to one of the Golden Age of Hollywood’s most iconic leading ladies. ‘In honor of Maureen O’Hara, our very own,’ the pipe major of the Shannon Rovers Irish Band of Chicago said as the first notes of the refrain sounded.’”

And the two kindred souls soared.

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