MIKE HUGHES, On the tube for the Holidays., Gannett News Service

Beth Polson, a gifted Hollywood producer, had options of the screen play for "The Christmas Box", the best seeler about a couple moving tough-minded woman.
"I knew I wanted Maureen O'Hara," Pollock says. "But I didn't know the odds she would do it."
Not high. After making "Big Jake" in 1971, she seemed to disappear form site.
"I've been having too much fun," O'Hara says. "I was traveling to places all over the world."
She made "Only the Lonely" in '92, but stopped again when her brother was sending her the "Christmas Box" script, in a round box. "My brother called me up, "O'Hara says. "He said, I've sent you this script and this you'll do.' I said, 'No way. I don't want to give up my life."
Still, O'Hara says, her brother is usually right. "He said the same thing about 'Only the Lonely'".
So she read the script in her home in rural Ireland, and then she promptly phoned Polson.
"She wasn't there," Polson says, "but I was left a message that came from Maureen O'Hara. The answer is 'Yes!"'
That may not have been the strongest negotiating ploy, but it made an impact. Suddenly, "Christmas Box" had an icon.
O'Hara made five John Ford movies, including the legendary film "The Quiet Man" She did popular classics, from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" to "Parent Trap" and "The Miracle on 34th Street."
Now she was making a TV movie, along with Annette O'Toole and Richard Thomas. "It was a very Celtic cast," she says. Strange things can happen. Maybe a queen really could walk into a train station.

In the sweetest zone of Maureen O'Hara's life, the techno-world simply vanishes. Yes, that's the Irish zone.
"I have no computer, no fax," she says. "If a fax does come, it will be at the inn in the village. I'll come in for it, when I get around to it." There's no real reason for Hollywood to e-mail her, anyway. Her answer has always been the same- "no"- for 24 years. Since 1971, she's accepted only two roles. The second is "The Christmas Box" (9 p.m. EST Sunday on CBS), which starts slowly, then becomes deeply and profoundly moving.
That script managed to reach O'Hara's doorstep, in the Irish countryside. "I read it and said, 'Oh, yes. This one, I'll do!"' So O'hara returned to the american part of her life. She even did phone interviews, struggling with a fancy phone system. "I hate it," she says with a laugh. "Every time you pick it up you lose whomever you were talking to."
In a dream world, things might stay the same. O'Hara would keep making epics, often with John Wayne or John Ford. They would be made in classic ways. "I love black-and-white," she says. "They used to say, "There's no poverty in Technicolor."'
Let's pause, though, to adjust this picture. You might be envisioning some sweet little lady, from the smelling-salts era. Erase that. O'Hara may be old, at 74, but she was a prototype for future generations.
"I like to play tough, strong characters," she says. "I like opinionated people, with a tinge of nastiness and temper - all the things women weren't supposed to be." That's what she's done for most of her 57 movies. Directors so had her going jaw-to-jaw with the largest heroes in Hollywood. "I loved working with Brian Keith or Henry Fonda or old Duke (Wayne)," O'Hara says. "We could bounce off each other. we could stand toe-to-toe and fight it out."
Sometimes, those were figurative fights. Verbal warfare and emotional warfare richocheted through her films. Then again, some fights were literal and lively. "I did a little judo. I did whatever I had to ." This seemed natural enough. O'Hara didn't have a princess background.
"We're a big, roaring Irish family," she says. "We fight and sing and have a fine time." So she was ready to take the movies by storm.
O'Hara had a bit part in a film that was never finished, but that brought her to the attention of actor Charles Laughton. He starred opposite her in "Jamaica Inn," a 1939 pirate tale. They promptly paired up again in the 1939 "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and Jean Renoir's 1943 melodrama, "The Land is Mine." Much more was ahead.
O"Hara has done plenty of light films, including "Miracle on 34th Street," "The Parent Trap" and "Sinbad the Sailor." Still, she may be best known for the films with epic elements in a larger-than-life setting, subject, co-star and director. That phase peaked with the 1952 "The Quiet Man."
This was one of five films O'Hara made for director John Ford. "He was tough, mean, nasty. But he was also the sweetest, deareat man you could ever know." It was also one of five she made with Wayne. He remained friends with O'Hara and her husband, a retired pilot and pioneer. "Duke was down in St. Croix one day, playing chess with my husband," O'Hara recalls. "They turned to me in unison and said, "Don't you think that you shuld stay at home now?'" She did. In the years that followed, O'Hara flew the globe.
Widowed and almost-retired, O'Hara still races across continents. She has a Hollywood home, plus a country home- and a golf tournament- in Ireland. "Especially with the golf, I'm busy all the time." So if those faxes arrived, the answer was an automatic no. "She gets asked all the time," says producer Beth Polson. "She always turns everything down." Then Polson noticed a slim, self-published novel about a harried couple that moves in with a solemn old woman. "I got three copies of 'The Christmas Box' as Christmas gifts, she says. "I thought I'd better look into it."
So Polson bought the rights, wrote a script and sent it to O'Hara's brother. He told O'Hara to do it - just as he did for her other film, the 1989 "Only the Lonely". O'Hara returned to Hollywood, to play a strong and steely woman. The film starts slowly, then becomes richly involving. "The Christmas Gift" is a rarity - a sentimental film without a false note or a cheap hub. Maureen O'Hara has been there before, you know. The past - the time of Duke and Ford and hand-written letters- looks great on her.

MIKE HUGHES, Maureen O'hara returns to TV in 'The Christmas Box'., Gannett News Service