Mary O'Hara

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Mary O'Hara Alsop (born July 10, 1885 in Cape May Point , New Jersey , USA ; † October 14, 1980 in Chevy Chase , Maryland , USA ) was an American author and composer.

Life

Mary O'Hara Alsop was the daughter of a clergyman. She grew up in Brooklyn Heights , New York , NY . In 1905 she married her first husband, Kent Kane Parrot, and moved with him to California , where she became a screenwriter for silent films . Among other things, she wrote the screenplay for The Prisoner of Zenda . She moved to Wyoming with her second husband, Helge Sture-Vasa, whom she married in 1922 . It was there that she wrote her best-known books My Friend Flicka (1941), Thunderhead (Sturmwind - Flickas Sohn) (1943) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1946), which have been translated into numerous languages ​​and filmed several times were. The marriage ended in divorce in 1947 and Mary O'Hara soon moved to Monroe , Connecticut , and in 1968 to Chevy Chase , Maryland , where she lived until her death.

The Flicka books are about the friendship between an initially very dreamy little boy named Kenneth McLaughlin and his mare Flicka, which in the first volume still gives him great grief as a wild young animal, but also brings him closer to reality. In the second volume she throws a foal which, because it strikes back at its wild grandfather, the Mustang "Albino", initially causes great problems, but then proves itself, and in the third volume the horses help Ken to be his first girlfriend, Carey Palmer Marsh.

Other works by Mary O'Hara include Let Us Say Grace , The Son of Adam Wyngate, Novel-in-the-Making , Wyoming Summer, and the posthumous autobiography Flicka's Friend .

Mary O'Hara has also composed numerous piano pieces, for example Esperan, Green Grass of Wyoming and May God Keep You , as well as the folk musical The Catch Colt . Together with their son Kent Kane Parrot Jr. she founded the Markane Company, Inc. in 1960.

Film adaptations of their works

Flicka , directed by Harold D. Schuster and starring Roddy McDowall , was released in 1943 in American cinemas and became a great commercial success. Then, also at 20th Century Fox , the other works of the Flicka trilogy were filmed: In Thunderhead - Son of Flicka (1945, again with Roddy McDowall) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1947, with Peggy Cummins , Robert Arthur and Charles Coburn ) was directed by Louis King .

Flicka was remade in America in 2006 and was released in German cinemas on December 21, 2006. However, the film has little in common with O'Hara's books.

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personal data
SURNAME O'Hara, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alsop, Mary O'Hara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author and composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape May Point , New Jersey , USA
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1980
Place of death Chevy Chase , Maryland , USA