Maria O’Brien, the actress and long-serving acting coach best known for her 15-year tenure on Days of Our Lives and appearances in films including Protocol and Smile, has died at the age of 75.
She passed away on 24th February, though the cause of death was not revealed.
Born on 14th August 1950 in Los Angeles, O’Brien came from genuine Hollywood royalty.
Her father, Edmond O’Brien, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1954’s The Barefoot Contessa, while her mother, Olga San Juan, was a musical comedy star who appeared in a string of films including Are You with It? and One Touch of Venus.
Maria followed them into the industry, landing her first onscreen credit in 1963 on the TV series Sam Benedict.
Over a career spanning six decades, she built up an impressive body of work across both film and television.
Her screen credits included The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Table for Five, and the 1984 Goldie Hawn comedy Protocol, and she made guest appearances on some of the most popular series of the 1980s and 90s, among them Magnum P.I., Murder She Wrote, L.A. Law, Matlock, CHiPs, and The Love Boat.
Along the way she shared scenes with Angela Lansbury, Lily Tomlin, Tom Selleck, Melanie Griffith, and Goldie Hawn.
She also won a Drama-Logue award in 1990 for her performance in Jean Genet’s The Maids at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
In the late 1990s, O’Brien moved into coaching, joining the daytime dramas Sunset Beach and Passions before taking up her long-running position as acting coach on Days of Our Lives, a role she held until her retirement in 2022.
Away from the screen, she was a passionate advocate for Alzheimer’s research.
Her father had been among the first celebrities to be publicly diagnosed with the disease, and in 1983 O’Brien testified before Congress about its devastating impact.
Her advocacy played a meaningful role in securing government funding for research into the condition.
She is survived by her three children, Thomas, Danica, and Sean Anderson, and her sister Bridget O’Brien Adelman.
