Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress". She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her screen debut in All the King's Men (1949) and was nominated in the same category for Giant (1956). She voiced the majority of dialogue for demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973). She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago. She had the title role in Defense Attorney, a crime drama broadcast on ABC in 1951–52. Her other work on radio included:

  • episodes of Lights Out (including "It Happened", November 5, 1938; "Execution", April 27, 1943, and "The Word", September 14, 1943)
  • episodes of Inner Sanctum (including "Blood of Cain", January 29, 1946, "Death's Old Sweet Song", April 11, 1946, "But the Dead Walk Alone" (December 2, 1946). and "'Til Death Do Us Part", October 27, 1947)
  • episodes of the Bulldog Drummond radio series
  • episodes of Gang Busters
  • episodes of Murder at Midnight (including "The Man with the Black Beard", August 5, 1950)
  • episodes of Studio One (including "Anthony Adverse", October 14, 1947; "Kitty Foyle", April 11, 1947, and "The Thirty-Nine Steps", March 28, 1948)
  • episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Dr. Constance Petersen in Spellbound
  • episodes of Screen Directors Playhouse (including "Spellbound", January 25, 1951, and "Only Yesterday", May 7, 1951)
  • episodes of Ford Theater (including "The Horn Blows at Midnight", April 3, 1949)
  • Rosemary Levy on Abie's Irish Rose
  • Peggy King Martinson on This Is Nora Drake (1948)
  • various characters on the radio series I Love A Mystery in both its West Coast and East Coast incarnations (including The Stewardess and 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 Jack "Jacqueline" Dempsey Ross in The Battle of the Century)

She frequently performed feature roles on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and was an original cast member on Guiding Light (before the Bauers took over as the central characters). She also starred in her own show, Defense Attorney, on ABC 1951–52, as Martha Ellis Bryan.

From June 22, 1953, to March 5, 1954, she starred in the soap opera Family Skeleton on CBS.

Television

McCambridge played Katherine Wells in Wire Service, a drama series that aired on ABC during 1956–57, produced by Desilu Productions.

The series starred McCambridge, George Brent, and Dane Clark as reporters for the fictional Trans Globe Wire Service.

In the season one episode of the original Lost in Space series "The Space Croppers", aired on CBS in March 1966, McCambridge played Sybilla, the matriarch of a family of supernatural space farmers.

In an episode of Bewitched titled "Darrin Gone! and Forgotten," which aired on ABC in October 1968, McCambridge played a powerful witch named Carlotta (McCambridge's real first name), a frenemy of Endora. Endora and Carlotta had made a pact "at the turn of the century" that their first-born children would one day marry. When, according to the pact terms, certain celestial phenomena signaled it was time for the marriage, Carlotta (McCambridge) disappeared Darrin and pushed for Samantha to marry her coddled son Juke (played by veteran character actor Steve Franken).

Film

McCambridge's film career took off when she was cast as Sadie Burke opposite Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men (1949). McCambridge won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role, while the film won Best Picture for that year. McCambridge also won the Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress and New Star of the Year – Actress for her performance.

In 1954, she 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 her "a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady." Her dispute with Friedkin and the Warner Bros. over her exclusion ended when, with the help of the Screen Actors Guild, she was properly credited for her vocal work in the film.

From 1975 to 1982, McCambridge devoted her time to the nonprofit Livengrin Foundation of Bensalem, Pennsylvania. She first served as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors, then as president and CEO, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the treatment center, which at the time was a 76-bed residential program for both male and female alcoholics. Livengrin still operates today, and has 129 beds and eight outpatient clinics throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, treating both alcoholism and drug addiction. McCambridge, through her celebrity and larger-than-life personality, helped bring public recognition to, and acceptance of the disease of addiction, as well as the benefits of seeking treatment for the disease. She freely shared her own story of addiction and recovery as a means of reaching others in need of help.

She was an outspoken liberal Democrat who campaigned for Adlai Stevenson.

Family tragedy

McCambridge's son John Markle, a UCLA graduate with a PhD in Economics,

Markle was placed on medical leave, then fired from his position at Stephens. McCambridge refused to cooperate with Markle and the company in instituting a repayment scheme that would have kept the matter from becoming public, saying that she had done nothing wrong and that Stephens Inc. owed her money.

In 1986, McCambridge had played the mother of a child who plans to take their own life in an Arkansas Repertory Theatre production of night, Mother.

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| 1956

| Giant

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| rowspan="2"| 1949

| rowspan="2"| Golden Globe Awards

| Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture

| rowspan="2"| All the King's Men

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| Most Promising Newcomer – Female

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| 1956

| Laurel Awards

| Top Female Supporting Performance

| Giant

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| 1972

| Tony Awards

| Best Supporting or Featured Actress in a Play

| The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks

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References

Further reading

  • Lackmann, Ronald W. Mercedes Mccambridge: A Biography And Career Record. McFarland & Company. 2005.
  • McCambridge, Mercedes. The Quality of Mercy: An Autobiography. Times Books, 1981. .
  • Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924–1984. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1999.