The Quality of Mercy: An Autobiography

by Mercedes McCambridge

The award-winning film and stage actress recounts the telling events of her life--from her Catholic childhood, to her Hollywood successes and troubles, to her nightmare of alcoholism-and comments upon heroes and villains met along the way.

Genres: Nonfiction

245 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1981

About the author

Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge 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).

Reviews

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best known as the voice of the demon in The Exorcist and winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in 1949's All The King's Men, what most interested me about this memoir were McCambridge's reminiscences about her radio career. I've always been somewhat fascinated by actors who worked on radio, with only the power of their voices to convey the story.

She also campaigned for Adlai Stevenson in the 1950's. Possibly the best president the Americans never had. Along the way, she battled alcoholism (a running theme in my books lately, it seems) and worked with many famous people, including: Orsen Welles, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. She was never a star, but she worked a lot in her lifetime.

I poked away at this memoir for months. Reading a page or three every night at bedtime. Luckily, it is very anecdotal, so it didn't suffer too much from this mistreatment.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like it's author's acting, this memoir is endlessly diverting and so compelling you barely notice the lack of structure. A natural storyteller, which she would attribute to her Irish heritage, she creates vivid tales of her growing up, her work experiences and fascinating people like Adlai Stevenson, James Dean, Orson Welles and Joan Crawford (though she never gets into the supposed feud on the set of "Johnny Guitar"). But the stories are not in chronological order, there's no index and the captions she wrote for the illustrations at times promise stories that never appear in the text. If you can forgive her for that, which I found easy to do, the book presents a humorous and moving look at one of the mid-century's best actresses.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was quite an unexpectedly disappointing autobiography. Normally while reading the writings of others concerning their lives, I try to latch onto what is imitable when it comes to writing. This book had nothing to recommend it for writing a proper auto bio. The author was obviously still holding many grudges from her past. And so, instead of giving at least more positive views into her interesting life and entertainment career (radio, movies and t.v.), she proceeds to detail and delineate each and every grief in her life. With no repentance and no forgiveness she calls out those who had wronged her. The most strikingly nauseating parts of the book regard the author's attitude toward Christianity. She denigrates God and anything relating to the Lord in such a vicious way, going out of her way to bring Him into each situation in her life, seemingly just for the purpose of ridiculing and insulting both Christ and Christians, dissecting our faith. She makes sure the reader knows just how much she hates everything about God and those who believe in and follow Him.
It is perpetually perplexing to consider the average atheist and how he typically goes out of his way to disparage Someone he professes not even to believe in.
But God is in no way diminished. He is not insulted, moved or disturbed. Not yet.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alongside Veronica Lake's bitter yet hilarious autobiography, one of the best chronicles of an actor's struggle from Hollywood to Chicago to NYC to London, and McCambridge never spares the gory details. The events in her youth, especially an episode with her friend's abortion, are heartbreaking, and McCambridge's eye for detail and unapologetically abrasive humor re: the movie business create surprises throughout the book. The only disappointments come when certain famous types and their stories linger on when all you want is more Mercedes McCambridge. The kind of book that makes you wish you were alive to hang out with her at the Algonquin, to hear her anecdotes and her laughter.