- Born
- Died
- Height5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
- Handsome, chisel-jawed character actor Kevin McCarthy appeared in nearly 100 movies in a career that spanned seven decades. He also had some starring roles, most notably the horror cult classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He played the disillusioned son Biff Loman in the 1951 screen adaptation of Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman (1951), for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and won the Golden Globe Award for most promising newcomer (male).
He is the younger brother of the late author Mary McCarthy and distant cousin of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.
McCarthy was orphaned at the age of four when both his parents died in the great flu epidemic of 1918. He was raised by his father's parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later by an uncle and aunt. He graduated from Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1932. He attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, in 1933, intending to enter into the diplomatic field. He also attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1936 and the Actors Studio New York, New York. He had roles in two short-lived TV series: The Survivors (1969), with Lana Turner, and Flamingo Road (1980) as Claude Weldon, the father of the character played by Morgan Fairchild.
The stage-trained McCarthy frequently appeared on Broadway. He starred as Jerry in "Two for the Seesaw" (1959) and as Van Ackerman in "Advise and Consent" (1960). He also played President Harry S. Truman in the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!"
McCarthy showed no signs of retiring as late as June 2007. McCarthy acted in the film The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012), playing the role of the Grand Inquisitor, at age 93, which was finally released in 2011. He died of pneumonia on September 11, 2010.- IMDb Mini Biography By: K Bernard
- SpousesKatherine (Kate) Martin Crane(April 28, 1979 - September 11, 2010) (his death, 2 children)Augusta Dabney(September 12, 1941 - February 18, 1965) (divorced, 3 children)
- ChildrenMary Dabney McCarthyTess McCarthyPatrick McCarthy
- RelativesMary McCarthy(Sibling)Eugene McCarthy(Cousin)
- Strong commanding voice
- Frequently worked with Joe Dante
- His famous sister was author Mary McCarthy who wrote the best-seller "The Group". Many of her works were influenced by the trauma of her and her siblings' tragic, difficult and often abusive childhood.
- Cousin of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.
- Was a strong proponent of the "Method" school of acting and a founding member of The Actors Studio, which was initially formed and taught by Elia Kazan. The first class, run by Robert Lewis, consisted of Kevin, Maureen Stapleton, Montgomery Clift, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Patricia Neal, Karl Malden, David Wayne, E.G. Marshall and Jerome Robbins.
- Graduated from Campion, a Jesuit prep school in Wisconsin. Subsequently attended Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC, in the hopes of initially being a diplomat, but left after only four semesters due to lack of money. Once he decided to try acting, he went back to college.He then studied at the University of Minnesota and majored in drama. His first play there was "Henry IV, Part II".
- His portrayal of President Harry Truman in a touring production of the play "Give 'em Hell, Harry" was the grand opening production of the Hippodrome Theater in Waco, Texas, in 1986.
- I like acting in the theater more than anywhere else because you get a little more depth and breadth in most stage stories . . . but I enjoy it all.
- about his experiences at The Actors Studio] Lee Strasberg could be very caustic and he was fairly nasty to me on several occasions.
- In London I played Biff [on stage] with a great deal of anguish and determination and desperation to the point where the part became very personal to me . . . With the exception of Fredric March, the principal actors of the movie had already played their parts in the play in one place or another. So during rehearsals, when [Frederic March] would be telling jokes right up until the director yelled, "Action!", I found myself resenting the way he worked. Not that he wasn't a nice guy . . . It's just that he had never done the investing of his intelligence and feeling in a study of what Willy [Loman] was about. In fact, Arthur Miller thought March played Loman as if he was simply nuts, and never favored what he did in the film at all.
- The Misfits (1961) - $2,900
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