Kevin McCarthy (actor)

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Kevin McCarthy (actor) bigraphy, stories - United States Actor

Kevin McCarthy (actor) : biography

15 February 1914 – 11 September 2010

Kevin McCarthy (February 15, 1914 – September 11, 2010) was an American stage, film, and television actor who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the film version of Death of a Salesman (1951), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor.Montgomery Clift by Patricia Bosworth, p. 225 McCarthy is probably best known for his starring role in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a horror science fiction film.

Personal life

McCarthy was married to Augusta Dabney, 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. McCarthy and Clift were cast in the same play together, Ramon Naya’s Mexican Mural. The two, along with McCarthy’s wife Augusta Dabney, quickly became the best of friends and were believed to be lovers by Tennessee Williams and George Whitmore.George Whitmore in Winston Leyland (ed), Gay Sunshine Interviews, (San Francisco, Gay Sunshine Press 1978), p. 324. They socialized with each other and acted together in several projects. The two also collaborated on a screenplay for a film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams/Donald Windham play You Touched Me!, but the project never came to fruition.

Death

McCarthy died of pneumonia on September 11, 2010 at the age of ninety-six.

Selected filmography

  • Winged Victory (1944)
  • Death of a Salesman (1951)
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) as Dr. Miles Bennell
  • Nightmare (1956)
  • The Misfits (1961)
  • Way Out (1961) (TV)
  • A Gathering of Eagles (1963)
  • The Prize (1963)
  • The Best Man (1964)
  • Mirage (1965)
  • A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966)
  • Hotel (1967)
  • Richard (1972)
  • Kansas City Bomber (1972)
  • June Moon (1974)
  • Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976)
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), (Cameo appearance), as Dr. Miles Bennell
  • Piranha (1978)
  • The Howling (1981)
  • Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
  • My Tutor (1983)
  • Terror in the Aisles (1984) (archival footage)
  • Invitation to Hell (1984) as Mr. Thompson
  • Innerspace (1987)
  • Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (1987) (TV)
  • UHF (1989)
  • The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)
  • Greedy (1994)
  • Just Cause (1995)
  • Addams Family Reunion (1998) (straight to video)
  • Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) as Dr. Miles Bennell (cameo)
  • Loving Annabelle (2006)
  • Fallen Angels (2006) – Pastor Waltz
  • Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007) – Latecomer
  • Her Morbid Desires (2008) – The Monk
  • Wesley (2009) – Bishop Ryder
  • The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012) – The Grand Inquisitor
  • Operation Heartbeat (1969)

Life and career

McCarthy was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Martha Therese (née Preston) and Roy Winfield McCarthy. McCarthy’s father was descended from a wealthy Irish American family based in Minnesota. His mother was born in Washington state to a Protestant father and a Jewish mother. He was the brother of the author Mary McCarthy, and a distant cousin of former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota. 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 mistreatment, described in Mary McCarthy’s memoirs, the children were split up: Mary moved in with their maternal grandparents, and Kevin and his younger brothers were cared for by other relatives in Minneapolis. McCarthy graduated in 1932 from Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin,http://www.campion-knights.org/Notables/ and he then attended the University of Minnesota, where he participated in his first play Henry IV, Part 1, and discovered a love of acting.