Mercedes McCambridge

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Mercedes McCambridge
Image:Mercymc.jpg
Birth name Mercedes Agnes Carlotta McCambridge
Born March 16 1916(1916-03-16)
Joliet, Illinois, United States
Died March 2 2004 (aged 87)
La Jolla, California, United States
Spouse(s) William Fifield
(1941-1946)
Fletcher Markle
(1950-1962)

Mercedes Agnes Carlotta McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004), nicknamed Mercy, was an Academy Award-winning American film actress, also known for her acting in radio dramas.

McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois to Irish Catholic immigrant parents; she later falsely claimed to have been born on March 17, 1918.

Contents

[edit] Radio

She began her career as a radio actor during the 1940s while also performing on Broadway. Her radio work in this period included her portrayal of Rosemary Levy on Abie's Irish Rose and various characters on the radio series I Love A Mystery in both its West Coast and East Coast incarnations (most notably as "Charity Martin" in The Thing That Cries in the Night, "Nasha" and "Laura" in Bury Your Dead, Arizona, "Sunny Richards" in both The Million Dollar Curse and The Temple of Vampires and "Jacqueline 'Jack' Dempsey Ross" in The Battle of the Century). She frequently did feature roles on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

[edit] Films

Her Hollywood break came when she was cast opposite Broderick Crawford in the 1949 film All the King's Men. McCambridge cemented her fame when she won the 1949 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, which won Best Picture for that year. McCambridge also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer - Female for that film.

In 1954, McCambridge co-starred with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden in the offbeat western drama, Johnny Guitar, now regarded as a cult classic. McCambridge and Hayden publicly declared their dislike of Crawford, with McCambridge labeling Crawford "a bad egg."

In 1956, McCambridge played the supporting role of "Luz" in the George Stevens classic Giant, which starred James Dean. She was nominated for another Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress but lost to Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind.

McCambridge was also well-known for providing the dubbed-in voice of the demonically possessed character in The Exorcist, acted by Linda Blair. McCambridge, however, was not originally credited for the voice in the film's initial release. McCambridge later went public in the 1970s in her dispute with the film's creator William Friedkin and the Warner Bros. brass over her exclusion, and with the help of the Screen Actors Guild, she was ultimately properly credited for her vocal work in future releases of the film. In interviews with E!'s True Hollywood Story regarding the so-called "Curse of the Exorcist," it was said that McCambridge's already deep voice was made to sound raspy and frightening via sleep deprivation, cigarettes, and drinking raw egg yolks and liquor until it "really became the Devil's."

In the 1970s, she toured in a road company production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as Big Mama, opposite John Carradine as Big Daddy. She appeared as a guest artist in college productions such as El Centro College's 1979 The Mousetrap, in which she received top billing despite being murdered (by actor Jim Beaver) less than 15 minutes into the play. El Centro brought her back the following year as title role in "The Madwoman of Chaillot".

McCambridge has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, located at 1722 Vine Street, and one for television located at 6243 Hollywood Boulevard. She told the story of her life in The Quality of Mercy: An Autobiography (Times Books, 1981), ISBN 0-8129-0945-3.

[edit] Private life

In an interview in 1950 (Syracuse Herald-Journal, December 18, 1950, p. 13) with Earl Wilson — "The Man of the Hour (After Midnight)" —
Women should give up the vote, says Mercedes McCambridge. "We asked for it, we got it, the world's never been more jumbled--so we should get rid of it," says she.
The Academy Award actress spoke these inflammable words at the Algonquin in her position as founder of McCambridge "Magnolias Anonymous."
That's an organization to make women quit trying to prove they are smarter than men--with the slogan, "More rustling, less hustling." The "rustling" refers to rustling garments.
We spoke of Eva Peron, of Perle Mesta, of Anna Rosenberg--of Sylvia Porter, the woman financial columnist.
"How can she buy a brassiere and then go write about Wall Street" she wanted to know. She was assuming, of course, that Miss Porter wears brassieres and not saying this because of any information I had smuggled to her... "At parties the blonde who acts dumb and says, 'Oh, I don't know how you ever write a column' is the one who gets the mink," she says.

McCambridge's only child, her son John Lawrence Fifield (who later adopted his stepfather's surname and became known as John Markle), killed his family and then himself in a murder/suicide in 1987.

After making her first film All the King's Men, McCambridge infamously had an affair with Gary Merrill during his marriage to his first wife Barbara Leeds and, subsequently, caused them to break up. Merrill later married Bette Davis, before going on to have an affair with Rita Hayworth.

She died on March 2, 2004 in La Jolla, California, of natural causes, aged 87.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  • Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924-1984. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1999. ISBN 0-7864-0351-9

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
Claire Trevor
for Key Largo 		Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1949
for All the King's Men 		Succeeded by
Josephine Hull
for Harvey
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