Maureen O'Sullivan (1911 - 1998)

Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen O'Sullivan was a fresh-faced beauty with flowing brunette locks, and an often bikini-clad curvaceous figure. She played the heroine Jane, to Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan.

Maureen O'Sullivan was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, in May, 1911. After schooling in Dublin, Paris and London, (where she was a classmate of Vivien Leigh) Mureen returned to Ireland. She had always been interested in acting as a career and it seemed like fate when she was spotted by director Frank Borzage when both were at a horse show. She took up his invitation to move to Hollywood and made her debut in 'So This is London' in 1939.

She was then swiftly shuffled through a series of movies incuding musicals such as 'Just Imagine' in 1930 and 'A Connecticut Yankee' in 1931. She was given a contract with MGM and after several minor roles in movies there she landed her signature role as Jane Parker in 'Tarzan the Ape Man' in 1932.

Freshly beautiful, O'Sullivan's Jane looks as comfortable in Paris fashion jungle outfits as the miminal skin bikini of 'Tarzan and His Mate' in 1934. Her relationship with Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan is complex; sexual but also maternal, because Jane is as intrepid in protecting her man from emotional complexities he is unequipped ,as he is in defending her from rampaging wildlife, headhunters, and evil white hunters.

Censorship tamed the series and O'Sullivan got stuck with more motherly roles in later fims, slipping out of the franchise after 'Tarzan's New York Adventure' in 1942. Sadly, she rarely got the roles she deserved. She was the second female lead in 'the Barretts of Wimpole Street' in 1934, 'Anna Karenina' in 1935, and 'Pride and Prejudice' in 1940; pretty but surplus in 'The Devil-Doll' in 1936 and 'A Day at the Races' in 1937.

She retired from films in 1942 to devote her time to her husband, Austrlian writer and director John Farrow, who had just left the navy with typhoid, and her seven children two of whom grew up to be actresses Mia Farrow and Tisa Farrow. She and her husband were married from 1936 until John Farrow's death in 1963.

She returned to the big screen in 1948 in films such as 'The Big Clock' in 1948, directed by her husband, and 'Bonzo Goes to College' in 1950, then made occasional movie and TV appearances such as 'Peggy Sue Got Married' in 1986, and 'Hannah and Her Sisters' also in 1986, when she played mother to her daughter Mia Farrow. One of her last appearnces was on television in 1994, when she appeared with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers in 'Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is'.

Maureen O'Sullivan died in Scottsdale, Arizona of a heart attack, on June 23, 1998. She was 87 years old.