Raised in Rochester, Minnesota, O'Hara finished high school in 1942, worked at three local cinemas, then moved to Hollywood where an elevator-operator job at Saks Fifth Avenue connected her with studio personnel and led to an RKO contract at eighteen. She debuted in the 1943 Kay Kyser musical Around the World and later appeared in Tarzan and the Amazons, The Chase, Higher and Higher, and the silho…
