By Rachel Pritchett
rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
SEABECK
She was here, living among us, and we didn’t even know.
At 76, Erin O’Brien still has the luxurious voice, the soft,
haunting eyes that made her a television mainstay in the ’50s and
’60s. With her long, black mane and hat with black rose, she still
carries the bigger-than-life aura of Elizabeth, the coyness of
Audrey, the intimacy of Natalie.
And though even the people on her street didn’t know, she’s been
right here, first in Kingston for five years, now in Seabeck for
another three. She likes the Northwest.
Her days are spent inside her tucked-away home, compiling photo
albums for her five children, maybe venturing into the garden to
tend to her irises, but not much farther.
The limelight was so bright for so many years.
“I stay home a lot,” said O’Brien, sitting in her living room
thickly filled with rare Middle Eastern and European furniture
pieces, intricate lace curtains, and Persian rugs and art. Framed
album covers, photographs and news clippings line the walls. Each
room has the sense of a Hollywood set.
O’Brien sang regularly on variety shows like The Steve Allen Show,
and she was the beauty on Old West shows like “Maverick,”
“Cheyenne,” “Bat Masterson,” “Laramie” and “Death Valley Days”
opposite James Garner.
She was the beauty on “Girl on the Run,” the movie that led to hit
TV series “77 Sunset Strip,” and in movies like “In Like Flint”
with James Coburn.
She was a cover girl for Life magazine.
The Warner Brothers contract actress entertained the troops in
Korea with Bob Hope in Korea, leaned over Liberace’s piano, but was
dismissed by Gene Kelly as too tall for a role opposite him in the
movie for a role in the 1958 movie “Marjorie Morningstar.”
National advertisers exploited her Irish heritage to make her “the
Schlitz Girl” and later the face for Smirnoff vodka.
Along the way, she married what Hollywood columnists called at the
time called a shiek, actor Kanan Abdullah Awni Al-Zaidy. They have
been married 47 years.
O’Brien is not well.
She needs oxygen and tires easily. The diaphragm and vocal chords
behind her sad, mellow voice no longer work.
“I’m not going to give up,” she said.
And so they are downsizing, finally going pubic just long enough to
sell of a lifetime’s accumulation of treasured possessions. After
that, they will move to the Tacoma area.
The public is invited to O’Brien’s sale, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday at her Seabeck home. Prepare to see —
and pay for — some exquisite furniture pieces and all her other
house belongings.
The quiet, exceedingly polite actress will be on hand to greet her
fans, if health permits.
The most satisfying string of songs O’Brien ever delivered at age
15, to Helen Keller, staying at a nunnery in Pasadena.
The girl sang three songs as attending nuns surrounded Keller’s
bed.
Keller reached up and held her hand to O’Brien’s throat, so she
could feel the vibrato.
Keller began crying.
“Afterward she kept kissing my hand again and again and again,”
O’Brien said, approaching tears even now.
She had this advice for young starlets:
“In my honest hear of hearts … if you’re going to perform, study,
for young girls, study.”
“That’s how you learn.”
Steve Allen described O’Brien like this in notes for one of her
albums.
“She has a simplicity and quaint charm that sets her apart as an
individual and as a singer.”
O’Brien said of her life, “It’s been interesting.”
Estate Sale
Fine furniture, rugs and other items belonging to singer/actress
Erin O’Brien and husband Kanan Abdullah Awni Al-Zaidy are available
in a public estate sale taking place at the couple’s home at 7231
Snapdragon Place, Seabeck, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday
and Sunday. O’Brien will be on hand to greet visitors, her health
permitting. A preview of some items is at
www.mikewallandassociates.com.
