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Kevin McCarthy (actor)
Encyclopedia
- For other people named Kevin McCarthy, see Kevin McCarthyKevin McCarthy-Politicians:*Kevin McCarthy , United States Representative from California's 22nd congressional district*Kevin McCarthy , member of the Iowa House of Representatives...
.
Kevin McCarthy (February 15, 1914 – September 11, 2010) was an American stage, film, and television actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman (1951 film)
Death of a Salesman is a 1951 film adapted from the play of the same name by Arthur Miller. It was directed by László Benedek and written for the screen by Stanley Roberts. It received numerous nominations for awards, and won several of them, including four Golden Globe Awards and the Volpi Cup...
, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor
The Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor originated in 1948. Between 1954 and 1965, multiple winners were announced. The category was discontinued following the 1983 ceremonies.-Winners:*1948: Richard Widmark*1950: Richard Todd, Gene Nelson...
. McCarthy is probably best known for his starring role in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a 1956 horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
.
Early life and career
McCarthy was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Martha Therese (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Preston) and Roy Winfield McCarthy. McCarthy's father was from a wealthy Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
family based in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, and his mother was born in Washington state to a Protestant father and a Jewish mother. He was the brother of the author Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy (author)
Mary Therese McCarthy was an American author, critic and political activist.- Early life :Born in Seattle, Washington, to Roy Winfield McCarthy and his wife, the former Therese Preston, McCarthy was orphaned at the age of six when both her parents died in the great flu epidemic of 1918...
, and a distant cousin of former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
. His parents both died in the 1918 flu pandemic and the four children "were sent to live with relatives in Minneapolis. After five years of near-Dickensian
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
mistreatment, described in [Mary] McCarthy’s memoirs, the youngsters moved in with their maternal grandfather." McCarthy graduated from Campion High School
Campion High School
Campion Jesuit High School was a Jesuit-run boarding school for boys in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin named for the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion. The school operated from its founding in 1880 until closing in 1975, and educated several notable figures during its existence. The former school's campus...
in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census. Its Zip Code is 53821....
in 1932, and attended the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, where he participated in his first play Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...
, and discovered a love of acting.
McCarthy went on to have a long and distinguished career as a character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
. He has had some starring roles sprinkled in his career, most notably the science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. On television, he had roles in two short-lived series: The Survivors with Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
; and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Flamingo Road as Claude Weldon, father of the Morgan Fairchild
Morgan Fairchild
Morgan Fairchild is an American actress. She achieved prominence during the late 1970s and early 1980s with continuing roles in several television series, in which she usually conveyed a glamorous image. Fairchild has also performed in live theater and played guest roles in television comedies...
character. In 1956, he appeared with Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:...
in the NBC anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show
The Joseph Cotten Show
The Joseph Cotten Show is an American anthology series series hosted by and occasionally starring Joseph Cotten. The series, which first aired on NBC, aired 31 episodes from September 14, 1956, to September 13, 1957...
in the episode "We Who Love Her". McCarthy appeared too in the 1959 episode "The Wall Between" of CBS's anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
The DuPont Show with June Allyson is an American anthology drama series which aired on CBS from September 21, 1959 to April 3, 1961 with rebroadcasts continuing until June 12, 1961...
. He guest starred in the 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
entitled "Long Live Walter Jameson
Long Live Walter Jameson
"Long Live Walter Jameson" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:Walter Jameson, a college professor, is engaged to a young doctoral student named Susanna Kittridge...
", as the title character.
In 1963, McCarthy appeared in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
medical drama
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...
Breaking Point in the episode entitled "Fire and Ice". In 1966 he appeared in the episode "Wife Killer" of the ABC series The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
. In 1967, he appeared in the episode "Never Chase a Rainbow" of NBC's western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series The Road West
The Road West
The Road West is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from September 12, 1966 to May 1, 1967 for twenty-nine episodes with rebroadcasts continuing until August 28. The hour-long series, sponsored by Kraft Foods, aired in the 9 p.m...
starring Barry Sullivan
Barry Sullivan (actor)
Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.Born in New York City, Sullivan fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football...
. In 1971, he guest starred in the "Conqueror's Gold" episode of Bearcats! which starred Rod Taylor with whom he appeared in the films "A Gathering of Eagles
A Gathering of Eagles
A Gathering of Eagles is a 1963 film about the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War and the pressures of command. The plot is patterned after the World War II film Twelve O'Clock High, which producer-screenwriter Sy Bartlett also wrote, with elements also mirroring Above and Beyond and Toward the...
," "Hotel (1967 film)" and "The Hell With Heroes". In 1977, he and Clu Gulager
Clu Gulager
Clu Gulager is an American television and film actor. He is particularly noted for his co-starring role as William H. Bonney in the 1960–62 NBC TV series The Tall Man and for his role in the later NBC series The Virginian...
appeared in the episode "The Army Deserter" of another NBC western series, The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail (TV series)
The Oregon Trail is a 14-episode NBC western television series starring Rod Taylor as the widower Evan Thorpe, who leaves his Illinois farm in 1842 to take the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest. The show also starred Andrew Stevens, Tony Becker, and Gina Marie Smika as Thorpe's children...
, which also starred Rod Taylor. In 1985, McCarthy guest-starred in a fourth Season episode of The A-Team called "Members Only".
He starred in the 1976 Broadway play Poor Murderer
Poor Murderer
Poor Murderer was a 1976 Broadway play written by Pavel Kohout that premiered at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on October 20, 1976 and closed on January 2, 1977 after 87 performances.-Setting:...
.
McCarthy was one of three actors (along with Dick Miller
Dick Miller
Richard "Dick" Miller is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 films, particularly those produced by Roger Corman, and later in films of directors who started their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante, with the distinction of appearing in every film made...
and Robert Picardo
Robert Picardo
Robert Picardo is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayals of Dr. Dick Richards on ABC's China Beach, the Emergency Medical Hologram , also known as The Doctor, on UPN's Star Trek: Voyager, The Cowboy in Innerspace, Coach Cutlip on The Wonder Years , Ben Wheeler in Wagons East, and as...
) frequently cast by director Joe Dante
Joe Dante
Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....
.
In 2007 McCarthy appeared as himself in the Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
film Slipstream
Slipstream (2007 film)
Slipstream is a 2007 American science fiction film starring, written, scored, and directed by Anthony Hopkins, which explores the premise of a screen writer who is caught in a slipstream of time, memories, fantasy and reality. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival...
. The film made several references to his Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
On October 24, 2009, McCarthy was honored at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.
His last appearance in a feature-length movie was as Bishop Ryder in the period drama Wesley
Wesley (film)
Wesley is a 2009 biopic about John Wesley and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist movement. The movie is based largely on the Wesley brother's own journals, including John's private journal which was kept in a shorthand-like code that was not translated until the 1980s by Dr...
.
Personal life
McCarthy was married to Augusta DabneyAugusta Dabney
Augusta Dabney was an American actress known for her role as Isabelle Alden on the daytime series Loving...
, with whom he had three children, from 1941 until their divorce in 1961. In 1979, he married Kate Crane, who survived him. The couple had two children.
From 1942, McCarthy had a long and close friendship with the actor Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
. McCarthy and Clift were cast in the same play together, Ramon Naya's Mexican Mural. The two of them, along with McCarthy's wife Augusta Dabney, quickly became the best of friends. They socialized together and acted in several projects together. The two also collaborated on a screenplay for a film adaptation of the Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
/Windham
Donald Windham
Donald Windham was an American novelist and memoirist. He is perhaps best known for his close friendships with Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Windham moved with his then-boyfriend Fred Melton, an artist, to New York City in 1939. Windham collaborated with Williams...
play You Touched Me!, but the project never came to fruition.
Selected filmography
- Winged VictoryWinged Victory (play)Winged Victory is a play and, later, a film by Moss Hart, originally created and produced by the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II as a morale booster and as a fundraiser for the Army Emergency Relief Fund. Upon recommendation of Lt. Col. Dudley S. Dean, who had been approached with the...
(1944) - Death of a SalesmanDeath of a Salesman (1951 film)Death of a Salesman is a 1951 film adapted from the play of the same name by Arthur Miller. It was directed by László Benedek and written for the screen by Stanley Roberts. It received numerous nominations for awards, and won several of them, including four Golden Globe Awards and the Volpi Cup...
(1951) - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- NightmareNightmare (1956 film)Nightmare is a 1956 psychological thriller starring Edward G. Robinson. The story is based on a novel by William Irish . The novel was also made into a film in 1947 titled Fear in the Night. The film was directed by long-time movie writer Maxwell Shane, later the producer of the classic horror...
(1956) - The MisfitsThe Misfits (film)The Misfits is a 1961 American drama film written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach. It was the final film appearance for both Gable and Monroe...
(1961) - Way Out (1961) (TV)
- A Gathering of EaglesA Gathering of EaglesA Gathering of Eagles is a 1963 film about the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War and the pressures of command. The plot is patterned after the World War II film Twelve O'Clock High, which producer-screenwriter Sy Bartlett also wrote, with elements also mirroring Above and Beyond and Toward the...
(1963) - The Prize (1963)
- The Best ManThe Best Man (1964 film)The Best Man is a 1964 film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner with a screenplay by Gore Vidal based on his play of the same title. Starring Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, and Lee Tracy, the film details the seamy political maneuverings behind the nomination of a presidential candidate...
(1964) - Mirage (1965)
- A Big Hand for the Little LadyA Big Hand for the Little LadyA Big Hand for the Little Lady is a 1966 western film, made by Eden Productions Inc. and released by Warner Bros...
(1966) - Hotel (1967)
- Kansas City BomberKansas City BomberKansas City Bomber is a 1972 American drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Jerrold Freedman and starring Raquel Welch.- Plot summary :The film is an inside look at the world of co-ed Roller Derby, then a popular league sport....
(1972) - June MoonJune MoonJune Moon is a play by George S. Kaufman and Ring Lardner. Based on the Lardner short story "Some Like Them Cold," about a love affair that loses steam before it ever gets started, it includes songs with words and music by Lardner but is not considered a musical per se.At its center is Fred...
(1974) - Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History LessonBuffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History LessonBuffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson is a 1976 revisionist Western directed by Robert Altman and based on the play Indians by Arthur Kopit. It stars Paul Newman as William F...
(1976) - Invasion of the Body SnatchersInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 film)Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 science fiction film based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. It is a remake of the 1956 film of the same name. It was directed by Philip Kaufman and starred Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Leonard Nimoy.A San Francisco health inspector and...
(1978), (Cameo appearanceCameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
) - Piranha (1978)
- The HowlingThe Howling (film)The Howling is a 1981 werewolf-themed horror film directed by Joe Dante. Based on the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner, the screenplay is written by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless...
(1981) - Twilight Zone: The MovieTwilight Zone: The MovieTwilight Zone: The Movie is a 1983 science fiction horror film produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis as a theatrical version of The Twilight Zone, a 1959 and '60s TV series created by Rod Serling. Those starring in the film are: Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow, Scatman Crothers,...
(1983) - My TutorMy TutorMy Tutor is a 1983 film directed by George Bowers. It stars Matt Lattanzi, Caren Kaye, Kevin McCarthy and Crispin Glover.-Premise:The film details high school graduates' attempts to lose their virginity during the summer vacation before leaving to college, and one's eventual relationship with his...
(1983) - Terror in the AislesTerror in the AislesTerror in the Aisles is a 1984 documentary film about horror films featuring clips from Friday the 13th I and/or II, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween I and II, Jaws 1 and 2, Alien, John Carpenter's The Thing, The Shining and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds. The film is hosted by...
(1984) (archival footage) - InnerspaceInnerspaceInnerspace is a 1987 science fiction comedy film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Michael Finnell. Steven Spielberg served as executive producer. The film was inspired by the classic 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage. It stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Robert Picardo and...
(1987) - Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton StoryPoor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton StoryPoor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story is a 1987 television biographical drama starring Farrah Fawcett. The film chronicles the life of Barbara Hutton, who was one of the richest American socialite women, but was never happy. Released in two versions, as a TV miniseries and TV movie, the...
(1987) (TV) - UHFUHF (film)UHF is a 1989 American comedy film starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Barty, Anthony Geary, Emo Philips and Trinidad Silva, in whose memory the film is dedicated.The title refers to Ultra High Frequency...
(1989) - The Distinguished GentlemanThe Distinguished GentlemanThe Distinguished Gentleman is a comedy starring Eddie Murphy. The film was directed by Jonathan Lynn. In addition to Murphy, the film stars Lane Smith, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Joe Don Baker, Victoria Rowell, Grant Shaud, Kevin McCarthy, Charles S...
(1992) - GreedyGreedy (film)Greedy is a 1994 comedy film starring Michael J. Fox, Kirk Douglas, Phil Hartman and Nancy Travis, directed by Jonathan Lynn and written by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel. The original music score was composed by Randy Edelman...
(1994) - Just CauseJust Cause (film)Just Cause is a 1995 film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.-Plot:...
(1995) - Addams Family ReunionAddams Family ReunionAddams Family Reunion is a film released straight-to-video in 1998. It was also distributed to television by Fox Family. It is unrelated to the two Paramount films from 1991 and 1993. So far, the film is only available on VHS and has not had a DVD release. It was shot in Los Angeles, California...
(1998) (straight to video) - Looney Tunes: Back in ActionLooney Tunes: Back in ActionLooney Tunes: Back in Action is a 2003 American live action/animated adventure comedy film directed by Joe Dante and starring Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Timothy Dalton, and Steve Martin. The film is essentially a feature-length Looney Tunes cartoon, with all the wackiness and surrealism typical...
(2003) - Loving AnnabelleLoving AnnabelleLoving Annabelle is a 2006 film directed by Katherine Brooks. Based on Mädchen in Uniform, it tells the story of a boarding school student who falls in love with her teacher. It was filmed at Marymount High School in Los Angeles.-Plot:...
(2006) - Fallen Angels (2006) - Pastor Waltz
- Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007) - Latecomer
- Her Morbid Desires (2008) - The Monk
- WesleyWesley (film)Wesley is a 2009 biopic about John Wesley and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist movement. The movie is based largely on the Wesley brother's own journals, including John's private journal which was kept in a shorthand-like code that was not translated until the 1980s by Dr...
(2009) - Bishop Ryder - The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2009) (filming) - The Grand Inquisitor
External links
- Official site (last updated in 2007)
- Kevin McCarthy at Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...