Blog-o-ween 2022: Mercedes McCambridge

Orson Welles, who knew a little something about radio acting (besides scaring the bejabbers out of listeners with The Mercury Theatre on the Air's verion of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, Welles was also the voice of Lamont Cranston, aka The Shadow), called her "the world's greatest living radio actress." Her credits include episodes of Lights Out, Inner Sanctum, This Is Peggy Drake, Studio One, and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. She worked in film, as well, appaering in Giant (1956), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Johnny Guitar (1954), and All the King's Men (1949), for which she was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. What she is most well-known for, however, is a voice performance in a film. Her vocal work as Pazuzu, the demon inhabiting young Regan's (Linda Blair) body in The Exorcist (1973), probably scared people as much as the spinning heads and spraying pea soup.

Today, Blog-o-ween shines the spotlight on Mercedes McCambridge.

Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois in 1916. After graduating from Mundelein College in Chicago, she made the move to New York City where she acted on Broadway. While treading the boards, she also began acting on the radio in the late-1930s. Her radio acting career stretched well-past the sell-by date of the Golden Age of Radio. In the 1970s, she was still appearing on radio drama, acting in Himan Brown's latest auditory offering, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

But, really, if anyone today knows Mercedes McCambridge, it is for her work in William Friedkin's adapatation of William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist. Utilizing all of the tricks and tools she'd picked up in her 40-year acting career -- as well as some raw eggs, cigarettes, and booze -- McCambridge created the definitive demon vocal performance. Friedkin himself claimed that he bound her to a chair during her recordings to help her get in the mood. When she died in 2004, NPR's Fresh Air offered this remembrance of the actor and her most famous role.

First up in tonight's Mercedes McCambridge appreciation post, we have an episode of Inner Sanctum. “Blood of Cain” is a story of dark family secrets and a chilling legacy handed down through generations.

Next, we have an episode of Arch Oboler's Lights Out called "It Happened." This story concerns a wealthy girl taking a tour of Paris. She becomes fed up with her boring old tour guide and decides to find her own way. Unfortunately for her, she ends up wandering into the sewers and running into...well...that would be telling.

Last, is an episode of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater about that most 1970s of subjects: The Bermuda Triangle. McCambridge plays the sole survivor of a plane that disappeared into "The Triangle."