This elfin, bird like character actress was born in Belfast, Ireland. Her mother died when she was 2 years old then her father left for Australia leaving her to be raised by a spinster aunt. Una became interested in drama and joined the school of the Abbey Theater in Dublin becoming a fine classically trained actress performing in plays by Shakespeare, Shaw, Yeats and Ibsen saying later that her all time favorite role was playing one of the witches in Macbeth. Her appearance in the play Cavalcade in London won attention from Hollywood where she was summoned to reprise her role for the film and there she stayed to make over 30 films such as David Copperfield, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Lloyd’s of London, How Green was my Valley, The Invisible Man, The Canterville Ghost, and her most memorable role in Bride of Frankenstein playing English maids, spinsters, gossips and many times a combination of the three.

Held in high regard by directors (she was remembered in the will of James Whale), peers and horror film fans for her comic performances, O’Connor continued until 1957 playing the role of the nearly deaf Janet McKenzie in Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution which sadly was her last screen appearance. After working with such luminaries as Noel Coward, James Whale, Boris Karloff, Alfred Hitchcock, Errol Flynn and Marlene Deitrich, O’Connor retired from a full and satisfying acting career, both on stage and screen, in her late 70?s. She never married or had children and died in New York of heart disease.