Kevin McCarthy

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Kevin McCarthy
in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Born	February 15, 1914 (1914-02-15) (age 95) Seattle, Washington, USA

Kevin McCarthy (born February 15, 1914) is an American actor.

Career

In 1949, McCarthy was cast as Biff Loman in the London company production of Death of a Salesman, starring Paul Muni. He reprised his role in the 1951 film version, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor.^[1]

McCarthy went on to have a long and distinguished career as an in-demand character actor. He has had some starring roles sprinkled in his career, most notably the science fiction film classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. On television, he had roles in two short-lived series: The Survivors with Lana Turner; and NBC's Flamingo Road as Claude Weldon, father of the Morgan Fairchild character. In 1956, he appeared with Alexis Smith in the NBC anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show 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. He guest starred in the 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone entitled Long Live Walter Jameson, having portrayed the title character.

In 1963, McCarthy appeared in the ABC medical drama Breaking Point in the episode entitled "Fire and Ice". In 1966 he appeared in the episode "Wife Killer" of the ABC series The Fugitive. In 1967, he appeared in the episode "Never Chase a Rainbow" of NBC's western series The Road West starring Barry Sullivan. In 1977, he and Clu Gulager appeared in the episode "The Army Deserter" of another NBC western series, The Oregon Trail, starring Rod Taylor, a program cancelled after only six weeks on the air.

McCarthy is one of three actors (along with Dick Miller and Robert Picardo) frequently cast by director Joe Dante.

Personal life

McCarthy was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Martha Therese (née Preston) and Roy Winfield McCarthy.^[2] McCarthy's father was from a wealthy Irish Catholic family based in Minnesota, and his mother was born in Washington state to a Protestant father and a Jewish mother.^[3] He is the brother of the late author Mary McCarthy, and a distant cousin of former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. He graduated from Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1932 and attended the University of Minnesota where he participated in his first play Henry IV, Part 1 and discovered a love of acting.

Beginning in 1942, McCarthy had a long and close friendship with the acclaimed actor Montgomery Clift. 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 McCarthy, 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/Windham play You Touched Me!, but the project never came to fruition.

McCarthy was also present on the night of May 12, 1956 when Clift crashed his car into a telephone pole in Coldwater Canyon. They had spent the evening at a dinner party at the home of Elizabeth Taylor in Beverly Hills. They left, with Clift driving behind McCarthy's car, but minutes later McCarthy returned to the house. "Monty's been in an accident! I think he's dead!" Clift was seriously injured and his face scarred in the accident, but he survived. Still, Clift's career was never the same after that.^[4]

Partial filmography

McCarthy has appeared in almost 100 films, including:

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kevin McCarthy

• Official website
• Kevin McCarthy at the Internet Movie Database
• Kevin McCarthy at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kevin McCarthy at Internet Off-Broadway Database