System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Mercedes McCambridge, Actress
Oscar Winning actress, Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge, was born March 17 1916, in Joliet, Illinois. Of Irish Catholic extraction, she was educated at Mundelein College, Chicago. She was a famous radio star before finding success in film. Among the popular radio shows McCambridge was heard on in the 1940s and 1950s were Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Big Sister, The Ford Theater, Studio One, Murder At Midnight, One Man's Family, I Love A Mystery, The Guiding Light and others.
McCambridge won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her screen debut in All the King's Men (1949) and continued to work in films throughout the 1950s. She also appeared on TV, the stage, and on radio. McCambridge played a memorable part in the western, Johnny Guitar (1954), before earning her second Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Rock Hudson's strong-willed sister in Giant (1956).
After headlining a short-lived television series called "Wire Service" in 1956, McCambridge returned to supporting film roles. In 1957, she played the relatively small role of Miss Van Campen, a tough head nurse A Farewell to Arms. But despite its impressive production values, the adaptation was overlong and proved unsuccessful at the box-office.
The following year, McCambridge made an uncredited appearance in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958). Unplanned, McCambridge played the role as a favour to Welles, an old friend from her radio days, who needed an actress on short notice. In 1959, McCambridge appeared in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer, playing Elizabeth Taylor's mother.
McCambridge made only sporadic film appearances during the 1960s, concentrating her attention instead on stage work, including a Broadway production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", and Neil Simon's Lost In Yonkers. In the 1970s, McCambridge was frequently heard on Himan Brown's CBS Mystery Theater program.
In 1973, she made one of the most famous film contributions of her later career when she provided the voice of the demon who possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Other films include 1950: The Scarf 1951: Inside Straight, Lightning Strikes Twice 1960: Cimarron 1961: Angel Baby 1968: The Counterfeit Killer 1977: Thieves 1979: The ConcordeAirport '79 1980: Echoes.
She appeared on the TV shows "Bewitched," "Charlie's Angels," "Lost in Space," and "Amazing Stories."
She was married twice; first to writer William Fifield (1941-1946- divorced) and then to director/producer Fletcher Markle(1950-1962-divorced). With Fifield, she had a son (John Lawrence Markle) who Markle adopted. Mercedes and Markle did not have any children, but Markle did have a son from his first marriage (actor Stephen Markle).
McCambridge made a Special Guest appearance at the 70th Anniversary Academy Awards in 1998. She published her autobiography, The Quality of Mercy, in 1981, in which she discusses her battle with alcoholism, among other things.
McCambridge died from natural causes on March 2, 2004, in San Diego She was 85.
Look for her biography, “Mercedes McCambridge”, by Ron Lackmann, to be published in December, 2004 , by McFarland Co., Inc. Jefferson, NC.
