Margaret O'Brien
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.
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Photos
Films (55)
This Is Our Christmas
2018 · Mrs. Foxworth
Prepper's Grove
2018 · Gigi
Impact Event
2018 · Amanda
Near Myth: The Oskar Knight Story
2018 · Self
Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!
2017 · Bridgette's Grandmother
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2017 · Ms. Stevenson
Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity
2015 · Self
A Night at the Movies: Merry Christmas!
2011 · Self - Interviewee
Frankenstein Rising
2010
Elf Sparkle Meets Christmas the Horse
2009 · Miss Coyote (voice)
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs: America's Greatest Music in the Movies
2004 · Self
The Craven Cove Murders
2002 · Fan
Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star
2002 · Self - Actress
Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's
1998 · Self
Creaturealm: From the Dead
1998 · Herself
Hollywood Mortuary
1998 · Herself
Sunset After Dark
1996 · Betty Corman
The Story of Lassie
1994 · Self
Meet Me in St. Louis: The Making of an American Classic
1994 · Self
When We Were Young: Growing Up on the Silver Screen
1989 · Self
Showbiz Goes to War
1982 · Self (archive footage)
Hollywood’s Children
1982 · Self (archive footage)
Amy
1981 · Hazel Johnson
That's Entertainment!
1974 · (archive footage) (uncredited)
Death in Space
1974 · Pam Rhodes
The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli
1973 · Self (archive footage)
Diabolic Wedding
1971
The Pledge of Allegiance
1971 · Narrator
Split Second to an Epitaph
1968 · Louise Prescott
Heller in Pink Tights
1960 · Della Southby
The Mystery of Thirteen
1957 · Annie Brookes
Glory
1956 · Clarabel Tilbee
The Eyes of Two People
1952 · Catherine McDermott
Her First Romance
1951 · Betty Foster
The Secret Garden
1949 · Mary Lennox
Little Women
1949 · Beth
Big City
1948 · Midge
Tenth Avenue Angel
1948 · Flavia Mills
The Unfinished Dance
1947 · 'Meg' Merlin
Three Wise Fools
1946 · Sheila O'Monahan
Bad Bascomb
1946 · Emmy
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
1945 · Selma Jacobson
Music for Millions
1944 · Mike
Meet Me in St. Louis
1944 · 'Tootie' Smith
The Canterville Ghost
1944 · Lady Jessica de Canterville
Twenty Years After
1944 · (archive footage)
Jane Eyre
1943 · Adele Varens
Lost Angel
1943 · Alpha
Madame Curie
1943 · Irene Curie - Age 5
Thousands Cheer
1943 · Drug Store Customer
Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case
1943 · Margaret
You, John Jones!
1943 · Daughter
Journey for Margaret
1942 · Margaret
Babes on Broadway
1941 · Maxine (uncredited)
Love Is in Bel Air
· Vivienne
Séries (35)
E! True Hollywood Story
1996
The New Lassie
1989
Tales from the Darkside
1984 · Mildred Webster
Murder, She Wrote
1984 · Jane
Hotel
1982 · Martha Connelly
Testimony of Two Men
1977 · Flora Bumpstead Eaton
Love, American Style
1969
Marcus Welby, M.D.
1969 · Neva Phillips
Adam-12
1968 · Mrs. Pendleton
Ironside
1967 · Louise Prescott
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
1967 · Self
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963 · Anne Lipscott
Combat!
1962 · Marianne Fraisnet
The Tonight Show avec Johnny Carson
1962 · Self
The Mike Douglas Show
1961 · Self
Dr. Kildare
1961 · Nurse Lori Palmer
The Aquanauts
1960 · Ellen Marstand
Adventures in Paradise
1959 · Phyllis Willoughby
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
1959 · Jean
Rawhide
1959 · Betsy Stauffer
Perry Mason
1957 · Virginia Trent
Wagon Train
1957 · Julie Revere
The Steve Allen Show
1956 · Self - Singer
Matinee Theater
1955
Hollywood Preview
1955 · Self
MGM Parade
1955 · Self
Climax!
1954 · Kathy Fathian, Chip, Angie Hawley
The Oscars
1953 · Self
General Electric Theater
1953 · Sarah Trask
Lux Video Theatre
1950 · Margaret, Laura, Elaine, Self - Intermission Guest
What's My Line?
1950 · Self
Robert Montgomery Presents
1950 · Ginny
Studio One
1948 · Julie Denton, Jenny Walker
The Ed Sullivan Show
1948 · Self
Kraft Television Theatre
1947