Mercedes McCambridge Quotes

United States, Actress
March 16, 1916 – March, 2, 2004.

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 All the King's Men (1949) and was nominated in the same category for Giant (1956). She also provided the voice of Pazuzu (the demon) in The Exorcist (1973).

My anger made me drink as an escape from reality, a way of forgetting. But you don't know when the medicinal effect ends and the poisoning begins ... This is my sixth year of sobriety. Overcoming alcoholism has been my greatest challenge and my greatest reward.

Mercedes McCambridge
Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.

Mercedes McCambridge

I'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.

Mercedes McCambridge
I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room

Mercedes McCambridge
- Funny
- Flowers
- Humorous
Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.

Mercedes McCambridge
- Want
- Knows
- Queens
I can choose to accelerate my disease to an alcoholic death or incurable insanity, or I can choose to live within my thoroughly human condition.

Mercedes McCambridge
- Human
- Disease
- Conditions
So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so

Mercedes McCambridge
- People
- Thinking
- Wanted
My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.

Mercedes McCambridge
- Universe
- Knows
- Lying

I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.

Mercedes McCambridge
- Believe
- Sides
- Agony
I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done

Mercedes McCambridge
Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.

Mercedes McCambridge