[Deathwatch] Mercedes McCambridge, 'Exorcist' voice actress, 87

[Deathwatch Central]

Oscar winner Mercedes McCambridge dead
Actress was in 'All the King's Men,' voice in 'Exorcist'
Thursday, March 18, 2004 Posted: 8:28 AM EST (1328 GMT) 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/18/obit.mccambridge.ap/index.
html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Actress Mercedes McCambridge, who won
an Oscar for the 1949 film "All the King's Men" and later provided the
raspy voice of the demon-possessed girl in "The Exorcist," has died.
She was 87.

McCambridge died from natural causes on March 2, Cathy Ruppert, the
assistant to the trustee of McCambridge's estate, said from San Diego
on Wednesday. Ruppert said McCambridge died at an assisted-living
facility in the La Jolla area of San Diego.

McCambridge's strong, radio-trained voice made her an ideal film
portrayer of hard-driving women. She received the Academy Award as
supporting actress for her screen debut in "All the King's Men," the
secretary and mistress of populist Southern governor Willie Stark.

Broderick Crawford was named best actor for his role as Stark, a close
replica of Louisiana's Huey Long, and the drama was honored with a best
picture Oscar.

During her film career, McCambridge acquired a reputation as a
strong-willed, outspoken woman on and off the screen. When she was
hired to play the enemy of Joan Crawford in a 1954 Western, "Johnny
Guitar," the pair feuded on the set. In her memoir, McCambridge called
Crawford "a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady."

Because of her great vocal skills, McCambridge was hired to portray The
Demon in William Friedkin's 1973 smash hit "The Exorcist." After weeks
of what she called the hardest work she had done for a film, she had
been promised prominent mention in the credits.

But when she attended the preview, her name was missing. As she left
the theater in tears, Friedkin tried to explain that there had been no
time to insert her credit. The Screen Actors Guild intervened and
forced her inclusion in the credits.

Despite the celebrity that followed her Academy Award for "All the
King's Men," McCambridge's film career did not flourish. Because she
did not fit the glamour girl image that was prevalent in postwar films,
her movie work was sporadic.

Among the later films: "Giant" (1956 -- her second Academy nomination
as supporting actress), "A Farewell to Arms" (1957), "Touch of Evil"
(1958 -- with her radio cohort Orson Welles), "Suddenly Last Summer"
(1959), "Cimarron" (1960), "99 Women" (1969), "Thieves" (1977), "The
Concorde -- Airport '79" (1979).

In the early 1990s, Neil Simon called with an offer to play the
grandmother in "Lost in Yonkers" on Broadway and on the road.
McCambridge's return to the New York theater proved triumphant, and she
performed the play 560 times.

In her later years, McCambridge also appeared in "Magnum, P.I." and
other television series, but her movie work was sparse.

"I don't think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do,"
she said in a 1981 interview. "That's all right. I've never looked for
a job in my life, and I'm not going to start now. I have plenty to keep
me busy."

McCambridge battled through much of her life, surviving a long siege of
alcoholism, two failed marriages and series of tragedies involving her
only child, John Lawrence Fifield. The son, who later took the last
name of his mother's second husband, Markle, killed his wife and
children and himself in 1987.

Charlotte Mercedes Agnes McCambridge was born on March 16, 1916, in
Joliet, Illinois, Ruppert said. McCambridge, at some point in life,
began giving her birth date as St. Patrick's Day 1918, Ruppert said.

In explaining the discrepancy, Ruppert laughed and said: "She's an
actress. ... She was a little bit Irish. And she decided she wanted to
be two years younger."

After graduation from Mundelein College in Chicago, she acted in
Chicago radio, which then produced several network soap operas and
nighttime shows. She married her first husband, William Fifield, at 23.


They eventually wound up in Hollywood, where she resumed her career as
a radio actress. Her vocal versatility brought her jobs on shows
ranging from "I Love a Mystery" to "Red Ryder."

McCambridge returned to New York for the title role in a radio
adaptation of the play "Abie's Irish Rose." She later found steady work
in the radio dramas of Welles, who called her "the world's greatest
living radio actress."

>From 1950 to 1962, McCambridge was married to Canadian-born Fletcher
Markle, a radio director who became well-known in the U.S. during the
years of live television drama. During the marriage and afterward, she
was sometimes hospitalized after episodes of heavy drinking. After
years with Alcoholics Anonymous, she achieved sobriety.