"The rose speaks of love silently in a language known only to the heart."
An Actor With Character….
Edmond O’Brien
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There was just something about those eyes that reminded you of shamrocks and lovely Irish ballads. In his first career as a romantic leading man, he was known to give the gals goose bumps when he smiled. The Young Women’s League of America voted him the guy with “more magnetism than any of the other sixty million American males”. But even when his second film career took him to roles on the dark side, Edmond O’Brien was spine-tingling.
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He was born Eamon Joseph O’Brien on September 10th, 1915 in the Bronx, New York, the youngest of 7 children. His father, James O’Brien, died when he was 4 years old and Edmond had to learn early about the high cost of living. It would shape his work ethic for a life time. Before he left grammar school he was a delivery boy, a paper boy, a bookstore clerk and….a magician. You see, Edmond lived across the street from The Great Houdini and pestered his famous neighbor until the magician taught him a few of the basics. In no time at all, “Tiger” (his nickname back then) persuaded his neighborhood pals to pay a penny to watch the Great Neirbo (O’Brien spelled backward) perform. The actor O’Brien had surfaced.
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When “Tiger” (that was his nickname now) entered high school and went back to being just Eddie, he had already decided that acting was what he wanted to do. He was at Fordham University a scarce six weeks when he auditioned for the Neighborhood Playhouse where his drama teacher was the famed Sandy Meisner. When he wasn’t in class, Eddie was working with the Columbia Laboratory Players or doing summer stock. In 1946 he replaced actors doing the gravedigger and the Marcellus role in the Broadway production of“Hamlet” and the very next week had the role of Pylades in “Daughters of Atreus”. On Broadway Eddie was becoming known as a very exceptional Shakespearean actor.
 Nancy Kelly |
But it was his penchant for doing radio when he was not on stage that gave Eddie his biggest career boost. He met Orson Welles and became one of the original members of Welles’ Mercury Theater repertory company. It was his appearance as Prince Hal in Mercury’s successful Broadway production of “Henry IV” that caught Hollywood’s attention. RKO signed him to play Gringoire in the Hunchback of Notre Dame”. He went almost unnoticed in the film but, by 1941, Edmond O’Brien was in Hollywood to stay.
During the filming of his 4th picture “Parachute Battalion” in 1941, Eddie met the lovely actress Nancy Kelly and they married soon after the filming wrapped. But it was a tempestuous relationship and they were divorced before a year was out. Eddie’s drinking, a curse from his Irish heritage, was alleged to have some part in the break-up. O’Brien enlisted in the Army soon after and was studying to be a radio operator when Moss Hart came to call. Moss was making movies for the armed forces and scooped Eddie up for his film “Winged Victory”. He was billed as “Sgt, Edmond O’Brien”. Moss also took the show on the road as a live stage production with a cast that included Eddie and a young tenor Hart had hired by the name of Mario Lanza.
 Olga San Juan |
After the war, Edmond returned to discover a big change in Tinseltown. New and younger actors were filling the top spots and Edmond O’Brien was virtually an unknown. Ann Sheridan told Eddie to look up Mark Hellinger. Hellinger was planning a new film called “The Killers” with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. and gave the quiet cop role to Eddie. It was the beginning of Eddie’s second career in moody films called appropriately film noir….black, dark films in a new genre that was fast becoming classic.
 Neville Brand, Edmond and Michael Ross in "D.O.A." |
In 1948 Eddie met and married singer-actress Olga San Juan and a year later they had their first child, a daughter they named Maria. She was followed by another sister and a brother and to house this growing family, Eddie built a lovely home in Brentwood. To facilitate his love of parties, there was a piano and stage in the living room. Maria recalls the famous names that came to make merry….Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, and Alan Ladd were among those who sat around the pool while Mel Torme, Vic Damone and Hoagy Carmichael made the house hum with music. But parties only added to Eddie’s problem with demon rum.
By the 1950s Eddie had scored professionally on four fronts…theater, radio, television and motion pictures. In early 1950 he made the movie he is still most remembered for….”D.O.A.” In 1954 he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “The Barefoot Contessa”. But he was getting heavy and his health was beginning to deteriorate. Eddie suffered his first heart attack in 1961 while on location in the hot desert near Wadi Rum, Jordan for “Lawrence of Arabia”. The role of Jackson Bentley went to Arthur Kennedy.
 Edmond and Frederic March in "Seven Days in May". |
Eddie was nominated again in 1964 as BSA in “Seven days In May” but lost to Peter Ustinov (“Topkapi”). Then he had to drop out of “The Glass Bottom Boat” with Doris Day because of another heart attack. Eddie was only 50 years old but had aged beyond his years. He was even having trouble remembering lines. Things at home also came unglued and the O’Briens ended their 28-year marriage in 1976. But they remained friends and Olga was always there when he needed her.
 ...as Freddie Sykes in "The Wild Bunch" 1969 |
Eddie was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease at a time when the Motion Picture and Television Hospital was not equipped to handle patients with the disease.(see Issue #32). Eddie spent his last days in a Santa Monica nursing home. Olga visited him regularly until his death there on May 9th, 1985. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
 The simple gravestone |
Edmond O’Brien left us 73 films, some good, some exceptional and a few only worth the value of his performance…. time well spent.
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Edmond O'Brien's stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
for television and motion pictures
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The Audrey Hepburn Rose |
