Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy was a character actor known for his chiseled features and extensive film career spanning nearly 100 movies across seven decades. He had several starring roles, including in the horror cult classic *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* (1956). He portrayed Biff Loman, the disillusioned son, in the 1951 screen adaptation of Arthur Miller's *Death of a Salesman*, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer (Male). He was the younger brother of the late author Mary McCarthy and a distant cousin of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy was orphaned at age four when both his parents died during the 1918 flu epidemic. He was raised by his paternal grandparents 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 studied at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1933, with the intention of pursuing a diplomatic career. He later attended the University of Minnesota in 1936 and the Actors Studio in New York City. McCarthy appeared in two short-lived television series: *The Survivors* (1969), starring Lana Turner, and *Flamingo Road* (1980), in which he played Claude Weldon, the father of the character portrayed by Morgan Fairchild. A stage-trained actor, McCarthy frequently performed on Broadway, including roles as Jerry in *Two for the Seesaw* (1959) and Van Ackerman in *Advise and Consent* (1960). He also portrayed President Harry S. Truman in the one-man show *Give 'Em Hell, Harry!*. McCarthy continued acting well into his later years, appearing in the film *The Ghastly Love of Johnny X* (2012), in which he played the Grand Inquisitor at age 93, though the film was not released until 2011. He died of pneumonia on September 11, 2010.