Overview (2)
| Born | in San Diego, California, USA |
| Birth Name | Angela Maxine O'Brien |
Mini Bio (1)
Born Angela Maxine O'Brien on January 15, 1937 in San Diego, California. Her film debut was one-minute shot in MGM's Babes on Broadway (1941). Her big moment came when she was cast in Journey for Margaret (1942). This film shot her into instant stardom and also resulted in Angela changing her name to Margaret. Throughout the 1940s Margaret was a major child star. Her unforgettable performance as "Tootie" in Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) won her an Academy Award as "Outstanding Child Actress" of her day. She gave brilliant performances in such films as The Canterville Ghost (1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945), The Secret Garden (1949) and Little Women (1949). By the early 1950s Margaret had made a mint for MGM and earned a personal fortune. Then she brilliantly graduated into adolescent roles and she never retired from the screen. She also remained active on TV and on the dinner-theater circuit. She frequently is appearing at prestigious events as Celebrity Host or Guest Star and popular Public Speaker.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe
Family (3)
| Spouse |
Roy T. Thorsen (8 June 1974 -
present) (1 child)
Harold Robert Allen, Jr. (9 August 1959 - 24 March 1969) (divorced) |
| Children | Mara Tolene Thorsen |
| Parents |
Lawrence O'Brien
Gladys Flores |
Trivia (12)
Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award. [1996]
In a practice common among child actors at the time, O'Brien adopted as her professional first name the name of the character who was her first credited part in Journey for Margaret (1942).
Her special Academy Award as Outstanding Juvenile Performer for Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) was stolen and she was unable to regain it for nearly fifty years when two memorabilia collectors came across it at a swap meet and managed to give it back to O'Brien.
Gave birth to her only child at age 39, a daughter Mara Tolene Thorsen, on July 12, 1976. Child's father is her second husband, Roy T. Thorsen.
In 1959, Ms. O'Brien starred in a national stage tour of "The Young And The Beautiful" by author Sally Benson (creator of the book that became O'Brien's most famous film, Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)). Co-starring opposite O'Brien in the stage play of "The Young And The Beautiful" was Dirk Wayne Summers, who later became an award winning writer and director in films and television.
In April 2006 she was presented with one of the first two Lifetime Achievement Awards ever awarded by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University. Celeste Holm received the other.
In Italy, almost all of her films were dubbed by Loredana Randisi.
Stated on Turner Classic Movie's Private Screenings: Child Stars (2006), that she is half Spanish.
For her role as "Beth" in Little Women (1949), she worked again with Mary Astor, who played her mother "Marmee", and also played her mother in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). In this film, she also worked again with Harry Davenport, who played "Dr. Barnes" and who played her grandfather in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and also with June Allyson, who had already played her sister in Music for Millions (1944).
Was suggested for the role of Emmeline as a child in The Blue Lagoon (1949) but an agreement between MGM, the company where she was under contract, and Rank, the company that financed the project, could not be reached.
Began wearing a nose ring in 2010.
Child actors were presented with an honorary award in the shape of a miniature Oscar in 1944, she got one .
Personal Quotes (5)
[at age six] When I cry, do you want the tears to run all the way or shall I stop halfway down?
I met Shirley Temple on Valentine's Day in 1945. To this day, I've never forgotten it. I was in red, she was in black, and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner together. We didn't immediately become best friends, but every winter my husband and I would send a Christmas card to Shirley and she and her family would send one back. So we kept in touch that way. It helped that we both had wonderful parents who saw that we stayed on the right path. My husband always had a crush on Shirley, but he ended up with me instead. Sometimes people put a stamp on the world, and Shirley certainly did.
[on Marjorie Main, with whom she worked on Bad Bascomb (1946)] Marjorie Main looked like she hadn't taken a bath in six months. Yet, she was a neat-freak. She'd go around looking for dust. Picking it up or wiping it off, whatever. She was also crazy as a loon. She had once been married but her husband was long dead. Yet she still talked to him--or to his ghost, just like he was there, which he wasn't. She had a place for him at lunch and babbled on to this corpse--it was bizarre. How she ever kept from being taken to the crazy house I will never know! A dozen years or so later I did a Wagon Train (1957) and Marjorie Main was on that also. She hadn't changed a bit, except she looked even older than she did in "Bad Bascomb".
[on Wallace Beery, with whom she worked in Bad Bascomb (1946)] Wallace Beery couldn't stand me and I hated him! He was a mean old man, not nice at all. We shot on location, so the studio would have a truck come around with those boxed lunches. He would steal my lunch. He was that awful. My mother would have to go and get it away from him; if she didn't I would have to go hungry! The studio often paired him with Marjorie Main in an effort to recapture the chemistry of Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler in the olden days. Now I do not know what Beery and Dressler thought about each other, but I do know he didn't like Marjorie Main, and the feeling was mutual!
[on Dan Duryea, with whom she worked on an episode of Wagon Train (1957)] Dan thought he was this great ladies' man, chasing everything in skirts. Well, not everything--he left Marjorie Main alone.
