Elsa Chauvel wrote in her 1973 memoirs: "This lovely child was brought to our notice by a Brisbane publicity man... fresh from a Queensland convent.

[9] Mander gave her an introduction to fellow Australian expat John Farrow, who arranged for an interview with a casting director that led to a contract with Warner Bros.[10] Maguire made her U.S. debut in the B movie That Man's Here Again with comedian Hugh Herbert, followed by Confession with Kay Francis and Ian Hunter, Alcatraz Island with Ann Sheridan and John Litel, and Sergeant Murphy with Ronald Reagan.

In mid 1939, she announced her engagement to Robert Gordon-Canning MC, a First World War veteran thirty years her senior.

[16] When their engagement was announced, Maguire felt the need to publicly disassociate herself from Gordon-Canning's political views and anti-Semitism.

In July 1939, she told a journalist from The Australian Women's Weekly: "I have no Fascist sympathies... and do not intend to take part in my fiancé's political life...

"[17] They married in August 1939, attracting great publicity, partly because she was carried to the wedding in an invalid chair, supposedly with a broken ankle.

[7] The oldest Maguire girl, Patricia, married Peter Rudyard Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook, and was the mother of the current 6th Baronet Green of Wakefield.

[30] The youngest of the girls, "Lupe" (actually christened Mary), married British hire car "king" Godfrey Davis, also having appeared in a minor part in The Man in Grey (1943).