Kevin McCarthy, 1914-2010

Dana Wynter (l.) and Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

I just spotted the obituary of Kevin McCarthy, who passed away yesterday at the age of 96. He was an extremely active actor, but is probably best known for his work as an actor in the science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (That, and the fact that his sister was the fairly well known writer Mary McCarthy, famous for having said about Lillian Hellman, "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'.")

I knew some of McCarthy's other work, but I was surprised in reading the obituary just how much he did. I knew little about McCarthy's stage work, which apparently included Abe Lincoln in Illinois and Advise and Consent. Back on film, McCarthy appeared in another political drama, The Best Man. Interestingly, the obituary doesn't mention McCarthy's appearance as the man divorcing Marilyn Monroe at the beginning of The Misfits.