was only eight years old,” said Natalie in later years, “but I remember very clearly that at that time, at Fox, they were doing many, many pictures. They had no high hopes for
Miracle
whatsoever. It was just a little extra picture that was sort of done on the sideline.” O’Hara, who had left for Ireland to see her parents and introduce them to her young daughter, had not even read the script.
Mud, who
had
, noticed that Susan was a pivotal role, determined that her daughter would get the part. As if Natalie were not already confused playing different characters, changing her name from Natasha to Natalie, Mud now instructed her to watch Margaret O’Brien pictures and act like
Margaret
during her screen test for the role of Susan. Maria darkened Natalie’s hair and resurrected her pigtails so she would physically resemble O’Brien. “Margaret was the top child star, and Marie was so eager for Natalie to make it,” explains a confidant. “Marie said, ‘We kind of imitated Margaret, the look and the performance.’ ” Once they were friends, Natalie confessed her secret to Margaret. “There were a million little girls trying to do it,” observes O’Brien. “Natalie just did it better, I think.”
Natalie got the part of Susan in
The Big Heart
in November, just as Darryl Zanuck was making final notes on an unusual, ethereally romantic Philip Dunne script called
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, adapted from a 1945 novel,
The Ghost of Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir
. The story, set at the turn of the century, was about a lonely young widow in London who moves with her small daughter to an English seaside cottage, where she falls in love with the spirit of a roguish sea captain. Zanuck had assigned the film to Fox producer Fred Kohlmar, who hired Dunne, admired for his tender characterization in
How Green Was My Valley
. Kohlmar convinced Joseph Mankiewicz, the literate screenwriter-director-producer, to direct. Mankiewicz was challenged by the idea ofcreating what he described as “essentially a ‘mood’ story,” a love affair between a woman and a ghost. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn agreed to play the leads, according to Dunne’s wife, Amanda, “and Tracy bowed out.” The handsome, acerbic English actor Rex Harrison, who had just had a major success with his first American film,
Anna and the King of Siam
, was cast to replace Tracy as the captain. With Tracy gone, Hepburn departed and several other actresses were considered to play Lucy Muir: Norma Shearer, Claudette Colbert, Olivia De Havilland. Zanuck decided upon Gene Tierney, the delicately beautiful brunette best known as the mysterious
Laura
from the 1944 Otto Preminger film. Petite Natalie, with her hair darkened to call to mind Margaret O’Brien, bore an amazing resemblance to Tierney, making her an obvious contender for the part of Mrs. Muir’s daughter, Anna. It was not a large role—young Anna is in a dozen or so small scenes and disappears when the film leaps forward in time—but it was a prestige film.
In the final few days before she was to start
The Big Heart
, Natalie auditioned in front of director Joseph Mankiewicz for the part of Anna Muir, the English child. Mud’s punishing preparation and Natalie’s obsessive perfectionism were in evidence at the audition. As Mankiewicz would remember: “I asked her, ‘Did you read the whole script, or just your part?’ She answered, ‘The whole script.’ I then asked her, ‘How do you spell Mankiewicz?’ and she spelled it right, all the way down to the ‘cz.’ I told her she had the part.”
Director George Seaton had decided to incorporate the actual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade into
The Big Heart
and got permission to film inside the store, so Natalie and Mud flew to New York on November 17 to start location shooting. Fox sent Maureen O’Hara a telegram in Dublin, where she had just arrived, instructing her to cut short her family reunion. O’Hara was furious. “Because I
Miracle
whatsoever. It was just a little extra picture that was sort of done on the sideline.” O’Hara, who had left for Ireland to see her parents and introduce them to her young daughter, had not even read the script.
Mud, who
had
, noticed that Susan was a pivotal role, determined that her daughter would get the part. As if Natalie were not already confused playing different characters, changing her name from Natasha to Natalie, Mud now instructed her to watch Margaret O’Brien pictures and act like
Margaret
during her screen test for the role of Susan. Maria darkened Natalie’s hair and resurrected her pigtails so she would physically resemble O’Brien. “Margaret was the top child star, and Marie was so eager for Natalie to make it,” explains a confidant. “Marie said, ‘We kind of imitated Margaret, the look and the performance.’ ” Once they were friends, Natalie confessed her secret to Margaret. “There were a million little girls trying to do it,” observes O’Brien. “Natalie just did it better, I think.”
Natalie got the part of Susan in
The Big Heart
in November, just as Darryl Zanuck was making final notes on an unusual, ethereally romantic Philip Dunne script called
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, adapted from a 1945 novel,
The Ghost of Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir
. The story, set at the turn of the century, was about a lonely young widow in London who moves with her small daughter to an English seaside cottage, where she falls in love with the spirit of a roguish sea captain. Zanuck had assigned the film to Fox producer Fred Kohlmar, who hired Dunne, admired for his tender characterization in
How Green Was My Valley
. Kohlmar convinced Joseph Mankiewicz, the literate screenwriter-director-producer, to direct. Mankiewicz was challenged by the idea ofcreating what he described as “essentially a ‘mood’ story,” a love affair between a woman and a ghost. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn agreed to play the leads, according to Dunne’s wife, Amanda, “and Tracy bowed out.” The handsome, acerbic English actor Rex Harrison, who had just had a major success with his first American film,
Anna and the King of Siam
, was cast to replace Tracy as the captain. With Tracy gone, Hepburn departed and several other actresses were considered to play Lucy Muir: Norma Shearer, Claudette Colbert, Olivia De Havilland. Zanuck decided upon Gene Tierney, the delicately beautiful brunette best known as the mysterious
Laura
from the 1944 Otto Preminger film. Petite Natalie, with her hair darkened to call to mind Margaret O’Brien, bore an amazing resemblance to Tierney, making her an obvious contender for the part of Mrs. Muir’s daughter, Anna. It was not a large role—young Anna is in a dozen or so small scenes and disappears when the film leaps forward in time—but it was a prestige film.
In the final few days before she was to start
The Big Heart
, Natalie auditioned in front of director Joseph Mankiewicz for the part of Anna Muir, the English child. Mud’s punishing preparation and Natalie’s obsessive perfectionism were in evidence at the audition. As Mankiewicz would remember: “I asked her, ‘Did you read the whole script, or just your part?’ She answered, ‘The whole script.’ I then asked her, ‘How do you spell Mankiewicz?’ and she spelled it right, all the way down to the ‘cz.’ I told her she had the part.”
Director George Seaton had decided to incorporate the actual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade into
The Big Heart
and got permission to film inside the store, so Natalie and Mud flew to New York on November 17 to start location shooting. Fox sent Maureen O’Hara a telegram in Dublin, where she had just arrived, instructing her to cut short her family reunion. O’Hara was furious. “Because I
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