Actress Mercedes McCambridge, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for All the King's Men and gained fame in the 70s as the voice of the devil-possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist, died of natural causes on March 2, it was reported; she was 85. A radio-trained actress with a powerful voice and strong demeanor who didn't fit the ingénue mold of the 40s and 50s, McCambridge won an Oscar for her 1949 screen debut as the conniving assistant/mistress to Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men. Other notable supporting roles followed, including her homoerotic turn opposite Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar, her performance as Rock Hudson's sister in Giant, and an uncredited yet visceral part as a gang leader in Touch of Evil. The part McCambridge is most remembered for, however, was her harrowing and altogether unworldly vocal dubbing of Linda Blair in 1973's The Exorcist. She clashed famously with director William Friedkin, who had promised onscreen credit for her work but claimed he didn't have time to insert it when the film initially previewed; an intervention by the Screen Actors Guild forced the inclusion of her credit. Later in her career, McCambridge performed on TV and onstage, most notably in Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers in the early 90s, and also published her autobiography, The Quality of Mercy, in 1981. --Prepared by IMDb staff...
- 3/18/2004
- WENN
Actress Mercedes McCambridge, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for All the King's Men and gained fame in the 70s as the voice of the devil-possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist, died of natural causes on March 2, it was reported; she was 85. A radio-trained actress with a powerful voice and strong demeanor who didn't fit the ingénue mold of the 40s and 50s, McCambridge won an Oscar for her 1949 screen debut as the conniving assistant/mistress to Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men. Other notable supporting roles followed, including her homoerotic turn opposite Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar, her performance as Rock Hudson's sister in Giant, and an uncredited yet visceral part as a gang leader in Touch of Evil. The part McCambridge is most remembered for, however, was her harrowing and altogether unworldly vocal dubbing of Linda Blair in 1973's The Exorcist. She clashed famously with director William Friedkin, who had promised onscreen credit for her work but claimed he didn't have time to insert it when the film initially previewed; an intervention by the Screen Actors Guild forced the inclusion of her credit. Later in her career, McCambridge performed on TV and onstage, most notably in Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers in the early 90s, and also published her autobiography, The Quality of Mercy, in 1981. --Prepared by IMDb staff...
- 3/17/2004
- WENN
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