This Month

August 8th

A delicate beauty whose poise and charm captivated audiences throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, Maureen O’Sullivan was best known for her role as Jane Parker in the popular Tarzan series. Starring in six movies alongside Olympic swimmer-turned-actor Johnny Weissmuller, the role brought O’Sullivan immense fame and scrutiny. As the phrase “me Tarzan, you Jane” entered the cultural lexicon, O’Sullivan’s celebrity often overshadowed her other acting work which include a string of leading roles at MGM. O’Sullivan had a long career in film, television and stage and would also come to be known for her marriage to writer-director John Farrow with whom she raised seven children, including actress Mia Farrow.

Maureen O’Sullivan was born on May 17th, 1911 in Boyle, Ireland. O’Sullivan grew up Catholic, attended convent school with future actress Vivien Leigh and later went on to attend finishing school in Paris. Initially, O’Sullivan wanted to become an aviatrix. But a chance encounter at the Dublin International Horse Show in 1929 would change the course of her life forever. Director Frank Borzage, who was in Ireland shooting exteriors for Fox Film Corporation’s Song o’ My Heart (1930), spotted O’Sullivan at a dinner-dance. He passed along a note by a waiter that read “If you are interested in being in a film, please come to my office tomorrow at 11 AM.” O’Sullivan was intrigued but worried that her father wouldn’t approve. Accompanied by her mother, she met with Borzage for a screen test. Despite having no formal training, Borzage was impressed with O’Sullivan’s beauty, charisma and her natural ability to be herself in front of a camera. Borzage cast her as Eileen, a plum supporting role for which she received third billing and had several scenes with the film’s star, Irish tenor John McCormack. After filming in Ireland was completed, O’Sullivan traveled with her mother to Hollywood to shoot interiors for Fox. According to film historians James Robert Parish and Ronald L. Bowers, O’Sullivan recalled “the whole episode as a fluke, but she jumped at the chance to spread her wings [proclaiming] ’Boy, did I fly!’”

Upon completing Song o’ My Heart, O’Sullivan signed a contract with Fox. The studio was mostly interested in O’Sullivan as a Janet Gaynor type. Their top contract star was under suspension due to contract negotiations and O’Sullivan seemed suited to be the “new sentimental sensation with all the wistful sweetness of a Gaynor.” O’Sullivan appeared in leading roles in films like So This is London (1930) and A Connecticut Yankee (1931) both with Will Rogers, The Princess and the Plumber (1930) with Gaynor’s frequent co-star Charles Farrell and the kooky futuristic musical Just Imagine (1930). O’Sullivan was quickly gaining attention and was frequently featured in movie magazines. The Filmgoers’ Annual proclaimed her “the little Irish girl who captured Hollywood.” At Fox, O’Sullivan met Myrna Loy with whom she’d work on three films together including The Thin Man (1934) at MGM. In Loy’s memoir “Being and Becoming” she wrote, “Maureen was lovely. I’ve always loved her warm exuberance…” O’Sullivan was ultimately unhappy at Fox and when the studio patched things up with Gaynor, she and Fox parted ways. O’Sullivan was quoted as saying that she felt “lonely, forsaken and unwanted.” She briefly considered abandoning her career and going home to Ireland but instead kept working in films as an independent contractor.

Her next big break came in the form of a long-term contract with MGM, her home studio for the next decade. There she had a prolific career starring in B-movies, playing supporting ingénue roles in prestige pictures and starring as Jane in the Tarzan series. O’Sullivan was realistic about her talents as an actress. Film historians Parish and Bowers wrote “Maureen… did not consider herself a lofty artist but had great respect for her profession.” She was naturally tuned into her instincts as a performer and her work ethic made her a reliable player among MGM’s stable of talent.

Her first film at MGM was Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), a big budget adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ best-selling novel. The original 1914 adaptation of the book, and was a smash hit at the box office—a wise investment for producer Irving Thalberg given the success of MGM’s exotic adventure story Trader Horn (1931) and the fact that Depression era audiences were craving escapist fare. MGM had already cast Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan when they began their search for Jane. O’Sullivan credits Felix Feist, the director of her screen test, for helping her get the part. In a 1994 interview with journalist Ron Miller, O’Sullivan said “I don’t think I’d have gotten the role without the help of Felix Feist…I’d been playing nothing but wispy, forlorn little things, so that’s the way I thought I’d play the test. It was all I knew how to do. But Felix Feist told me to drop all that and be more direct, the way I really was. I guess it worked because the movie’s director, W.S. ‘Woody’ Van Dyke, wanted someone else until he saw my test.”

Tarzan the Ape Man was a big crowd pleaser and one of MGM’s top films for 1932. Weissmuller and O’Sullivan had great onscreen chemistry and the film helped catapult the two actors to stardom. A sequel, Tarzan and His Mate (1934), soon went into production. While it wasn’t as profitable as the first movie, it drew more attention given the film’s distinct eroticism. The two stars were scantily dressed with O’Sullivan wearing a revealing leather bra and loin cloth in the film. The film became notorious for its underwater ballet sequence which featured a nude Jane— with Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim doubling for O’Sullivan. The Production Code Office, which would enforce the Hays Code more strictly starting in 1934, objected to the nudity and the film was released in various edited versions depending on the market. O’Sullivan herself received much backlash in the form of hate mail and a botched kidnapping attempt. The negative attention didn’t stop MGM from wanting to make more films in the series, but a rights issue did stall their efforts. After Tarzan Escapes (1936) there was a three-year gap before the next film because independent Sol Lesser had obtained the previously lapsed rights to Burroughs’ story. Once MGM regained the rights, the subsequent Tarzan movies were much tamer than their pre-code counterparts. In Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan and Jane could not be depicted as having their own child because they were not legally married. The storyline was modified to have them adopt an orphaned child in the jungle. O’Sullivan tried to negotiate out of her contractual obligations to play Jane Parker. A plot line in which her character is killed off did so poorly with test audiences that an alternate ending where she survives was ultimately filmed. Weissmuller and O’Sullivan would go on to make Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942) before O’Sullivan bid adieu to the series.

In the decade in which Maureen O’Sullivan starred in the Tarzan series, she made almost 30 other films for MGM. She was the leading lady in a variety of quality B-movies churned out by the studio. She starred with Warren William in Skyscraper Souls (1932), another sexy pre-code but this time with an urban setting, opposite Alice Brady in the backstage drama Stage Mother (1933) and with up-and-comer Joel McCrea in the crime drama Woman Wanted (1935). Proving her versatility, she nabbed roles in the comedy The Bishop Misbehaves (1935), the Marx Bros. film in A Day at the Races (1937), Tod Browning’s bizarre horror film The Devil Doll (1936), the dog sporting film The Voice of Bugle Ann (1936), the medical drama Between Two Women (1937) and the crime drama Let Us Live (1939). O’Sullivan also played a career woman in My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937), a society girl in Hold That Kiss (1938) and a college sweetheart in West Point of the Air (1935) and A Yank at Oxford (1938). In addition, the contract star played supporting roles in popular series or sequels including The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble (1933), Tugboat Annie (1933), The Thin Man (1934) and Maisie Was a Lady (1941).

After parting ways with MGM in 1942, O’Sullivan decided to focus her attention on her growing family. She had met writer and director John Farrow in 1931 and after an off-and-on courtship they married in 1936. Together they had seven children: Michael, Patrick, Mia, John, Prudence, Stephanie and Tisa. Their oldest son Michael tragically died at the age of 19 while taking flying lessons. Their second daughter Prudence was the inspiration behind the Beatles’ song “Dear Prudence.” The most famous of the Farrow children is Mia Farrow who followed in her mother’s footsteps and became an actress. In Mia’s memoir “What Falls Away,” she wrote: “She was Maureen O’Sullivan, a famous movie star, and her voice was soft with a light Irish accent. She seemed possessed of magical qualities, an unending supply of stories, and the ability to make me feel safe and happy. She was, of course, unaware of her own perfection or the unsettling, elusive quality that could flood me with yearning and loneliness.”

O’Sullivan retired from acting numerous times and would eventually make her way back to the big screen. She had a supporting role in her husband’s gripping film noir thriller The Big Clock (1948) starring Ray Milland and Charles Laughton. She agreed to the role as a favor to her husband. However, being back on set must have also reignited her interest in acting. From there, O’Sullivan had small roles in a variety of dramas including another Farrow directed noir Where Danger Lives (1950), the Douglas Sirk soap All I Desire (1953) and the film that she was the most proud of, the western The Tall T (1956). When Farrow died suddenly of a heart attack in 1963, O’Sullivan moved the family to New York. With the encouragement of fellow Irish actor Patrick O’Brien, she took to the stage. She reprised one her Broadway roles in the quirky sex comedy Never Too Late (1965) playing a suburban housewife with a grown daughter who finds herself pregnant again in her middle age.

Throughout the last three decades of her career, O’Sullivan mostly focused on television work but took on a few more film roles. She reunited with her Tarzan co-star Johnny Weissmuller in the cult classic The Phynx (1970) and had a small role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). In Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), O’Sullivan plays mom to her real-life daughter Mia Farrow in what would be their only film collaboration. She was set to star in another film with her daughter, September (1987), but was fired by Allen and ultimately replaced by Elaine Stritch. 

In her final days, O’Sullivan looked back at her famous role as Jane in the Tarzan movies with mixed emotions. She would often bring up the struggles she faced including lengthy production times, laborious physical work and her volatile relationship with Cheetah the chimp, who seemed to prefer Weissmuller over O’Sullivan. She also acknowledged that Jane was a part she was meant to play because Jane reflected her own spirit of adventure. In interviews O’Sullivan said, “I have a definite feeling about Tarzan—a feeling of gratitude— because Tarzan saved me. I was listless, worried, uninterested in things up until the moment I walked on the set, and then suddenly my whole viewpoint changed… We didn’t see any future in the films. We certainly didn’t think they’d go on like they have—in perpetuity. They’re classic, aren’t they?”