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 also provided the voice of the demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973).
Early life
McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish-American Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer.<ref name="usa">{ { cite news| url=https://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-03-17-mercedes-mccambridge_x.htm| title=The Exorcist actress Mercedes McCambridge dies at 85| work=USA Today| date=March 17, 2004| access-date=2013-10-24| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051201012054/https://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-03-17-mercedes-mccambridge_x.htm| archive-date=December 1, 2005}}</ref> She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago.
Career
Radio
McCambridge began her career as a radio actor during the 1930s while also performing on Broadway. In 1941, she played Judy's friend in A Date with Judy. 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", 5/11/1938; "Execution", 4/27/1943 and "The Word", 9/14/1943) episodes of Inner Sanctum (including "Blood of Cain", 1/29/1946, "Death's Old Sweet Song", 11/4/1946, "But the Dead Walk Alone" (December 2, 1946). and "'Til Death Do Us Part", 10/27/1947) episodes of the Bulldog Drummond radio series episodes of Gang Busters episodes of Murder at Midnight (including "The Man with the Black Beard", 5/8/1950) episodes of Studio One (including "Anthony Adverse", 10/14/1947; "Kitty Foyle", 11/4/1947 and "The Thirty-Nine Steps", 3/28/1948) Episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Dr. Constance Peterson in Spellbound episodes of Screen Directors Playhouse (including "Spellbound", 1/25/1951 and "Only Yesterday", 7/5/1951) episodes of Ford Theater (including "The Horn Blows at Midnight", 3/4/1949) 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 (most notably as 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, McCambridge 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", first aired on CBS on March 30, 1966, McCambridge played Sybilla, the matriarch of a family of supernatural space farmers.
In an episode of Bewitched entitled "Darrin Gone! and Forgotten," which first aired on ABC on 17 October 1968, McCambridge played a powerful witch named Carlotta, a frenemy of Endora. (Note that Carlotta was McCambridge's actual first name.) 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 terms pact, 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.