(AP) Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, who honed her vocal skills in radio with Orson Welles and provided the raspy voice of the demon-possessed girl in "The Exorcist," has died. She was 87.
McCambridge died from natural causes on March 2, Cathy Ruppert, the assistant to the trustee of McCambridge's estate, said from San Diego on Wednesday. Ruppert said McCambridge died at an assisted-living facility in the La Jolla area.
McCambridge's strong voice made her an ideal film portrayer of hard-driving women. She won her Oscar as best supporting actress for her screen debut, the 1949 film "All the King's Men." She played the secretary and mistress of populist Southern governor Willie Stark, a close replica of Louisiana's Huey Long.
The film also garnered the best picture Oscar, as well as the best actor Oscar for Broderick Crawford as Stark.
When she worked with Welles on radio dramas early in her career, he called her "the world's greatest living radio actress." Because of her great vocal skills, McCambridge was hired to be the voice of The Demon in William Friedkin's 1973 smash hit "The Exorcist." She called the role the hardest work she had ever done for a film.
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