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Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien

Acting

January 15, 1937 (89 years old)
San Diego, California, USA
Female
55 Movies
42 TV Shows

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.

Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis

Meet Me in St. Louis

1944 7.0

as 'Tootie' Smith

Age 7 (now 89)
Little Women
Little Women

Little Women

1949 7.4

as Beth

Age 12 (now 89)
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

1943 6.9

as Adele Varens

Age 6 (now 89)
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

1949 7.1

as Mary Lennox

Age 12 (now 89)
The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost

The Canterville Ghost

1944 6.9

as Lady Jessica de Canterville

Age 7 (now 89)
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

1945 7.2

as Selma Jacobson

Age 8 (now 89)
Heller in Pink Tights
Heller in Pink Tights

Heller in Pink Tights

1960 5.8

as Della Southby

Age 23 (now 89)
Tenth Avenue Angel
Tenth Avenue Angel

Tenth Avenue Angel

1948 6.5

as Flavia Mills

Age 11 (now 89)
Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!
Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!

2017 4.8

as Bridgette's Grandmother

Age 80 (now 89)
Lost Angel
Lost Angel

Lost Angel

1943 8.0

as Alpha

Age 6 (now 89)
Big City
Big City

Big City

1948 7.8

as Midge

Age 11 (now 89)
Journey for Margaret
Journey for Margaret

Journey for Margaret

1942 6.7

as Margaret

Age 5 (now 89)
Amy
Amy

Amy

1981 7.2

as Hazel Johnson

Age 44 (now 89)
Madame Curie
Madame Curie

Madame Curie

1943 7.2

as Irene Curie - Age 5

Age 6 (now 89)
The Unfinished Dance
The Unfinished Dance

The Unfinished Dance

1947 6.3

as 'Meg' Merlin

Age 10 (now 89)
Bad Bascomb
Bad Bascomb

Bad Bascomb

1946 7.3

as Emmy

Age 9 (now 89)