Background
O'Brien, Margaret was born on January 15, 1937 in San Diego, California, United States. Daughter of Lawrence and Gladys O'Brien.
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O'Brien, Margaret was born on January 15, 1937 in San Diego, California, United States. Daughter of Lawrence and Gladys O'Brien.
She made her debut at the age of four and had ten good years at MGM; Babes on Broadway (41, Busbv Berkeley); Journey for Margaret (42, W. S. Van Dyke); Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case (43, Willis Goldbeck); singing “In a Little Spanish Town” in Thousands Cheer (43, George Sidney); Lost Angel (43, Rowland); Madame Curie (43, Mervyn Le Roy); Jane Eyre (44, Robert Stevenson); The Canterville Ghost (44, Jules Dassin); Music for Millions (44, Henry Foster); The Unfinished Dance (47, Foster); Tenth Avenue Angel (48, Rowland); Big City (48, Norman Taurog); as Beth in Little Women (49, Le Roy); The Secret Garden (49, Fred M. Wilcox), her finest performance, a study in the rigid dignity of an orphan quelling panic; and Her First Romance (51, Seymour Friedman).
She made only two films as a young adult; the horsy Glonj (55, David Butler) and Heller in Pink Tights (60, George Cukor) when, as the inept daughter, her talent for comedy still seemed real. But perhaps she had been formed by an earlier age and style. When she auditioned for the Natalie Wood part in Rebel Without a Cause she lost the role because “she answered all the questions by professing love for parents and teachers." The mood and pace of a cakewalk can last a lifetime. She was seen in Amy (81, Vincent McEveety).
Civilian aide to secretary army for Southern California, since 1979.
Downstairs at the Smith house in a suburb ot St Louis, circa 1904, there is a teenage party. The two younger children of the house creep out of bed and watch from the stairs. But they are noticed and called down by their tolerant elders. No party was ever more fruitfully interrupted.
For one of those children, "Tootie, was played by Margaret O'Brien, and with her sister, Esther, played by Judy Garland, she performs a gorgeous front-parlor cakewalk to the tune “Under the Bamboo Tree. We need not be too surprised that a seven-year-old could carry that off without disrupting the marvelous grace of Vincente Minnelli's camera in Meet Me in St. Louis (44). More subtle is the discretion and intimacy of the number. for Meet Me in St. Louis is a family story that happens to be illustrated by songs. The cakewalk sequence never loses sight of Tootie s moment of glorv nor the light of nostalgia that warms the entire film.
The spectacle is allowed to rest with character and plausibility. Add to that her full- blooded conviction in the Halloween sequence and you can see what an extraordinary young actress Margaret O’Brien was. The droll overplaying in, for instance, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (45, Roy Rowland) is a great comic achievement, so that one regrets the number of times she was restricted to the sentimental stereotype of children.
Married Harold Allen, Junior, August 8, 1959 (divorced 1968). Married Roy T. Thorsen, June 8, 1974. 1 daughter, Mara Tolene.
