McCarthy, Nobu

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Nobu McCarthy

Nobu McCarthy (1934–2002) went from being one of the top models in Japan to becoming one of the most famous Asian actresses in the United States.

Whatever McCarthy put her mind to, she did with aplomb and passion, and she seemed to have a talent for attracting attention wherever she went. She arrived on the shores of the United States in the 1950s, where an agent discovered her while she was eating in a restaurant. After this encounter, her acting career took off. She started alongside Jerry Lewis in 1958's Geisha Boy, and then spent the next five decades playing popular and famous roles on television shows and in movies alike.

Love of Performing Developed Early On

McCarthy was born Nobu Atsumi on November 13, 1934, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where her father was serving as a Japanese diplomatic attaché to Prince Tokugawa. When she was still young her family moved back to Japan and McCarthy spent most of her youth there. Her parents were Masaji, a diplomat and later fashion de-signer, and Yuki. She was four when her parents took her to see a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and from that time forward McCarthy has said she developed a keen interest to be a performer of some sort. She affirmed her love of performing when she was still young, as she was enrolled in piano, modern dance, and voice classes by the age of six. She took to performing with a passion and it was soon discovered that she was very good at it. In fact, before she had even become a teenager McCarthy became a contract singer for King Records, performing both on the stage and for radio audiences. When she was eleven she entered the Pavlova School of Ballet in Tokyo, where she studied dance seriously for the next seven years.

Growing up in Japan was very difficult at times for young McCarthy. She grew up during and after World War II, and was picked on by her peers due to the fact that she had been born outside of Japan, and that her father could speak English. She has said that she was embarrassed over the fact that she had been born outside of Japan, and her classmates were rather merciless about it. The would call her "Mary," which was a name that was used to infer that the person being called the name was pro-Western in their thinking and belief system, something that was seen as despicable in post-War Japan. But McCarthy, rather than being kowtowed by her classmates' disparagement, was energized by it. The teasing only served to motivate the young performer, who, the more cruel her classmates became, the more determined she became to show them that she was not somebody to be taken lightly. McCarthy, in fact, has said in interviews that if there was anything that could be pointed to as an explanation for her success, it would be her peers teasing her. It acted as a catalyst that pushed her to succeed. She made a vow to herself that she would show all her tormentors one day that they were wrong about her, and that she could be a success in whatever path she chose to follow.

Became Top Japanese Fashion Model

Fortunately, besides her determination, McCarthy had very supportive parents who backed her in all she attempted to do. In fact, they encouraged her strongly to follow whatever path she felt a calling to follow, and to complete with energy and dedication whatever she started. And she did. McCarthy took her parents' words to heart as she explored the world around her to find something to do that filled her with joy. Partly because of the grace she learned as a dancer and partly because of her fierce devotion, McCarthy became Japan's leading high fashion model in the 1950s.

Her father had retired from his diplomatic career years earlier and had begun a career as a fashion designer. When McCarthy was just beginning to think about entering the industry, her father created all the clothes she modeled. McCarthy had a friend who was acquainted with a fashion editor. That friend told the editor all about McCarthy, a young, beautiful dancer who was interested in modeling and who wore clothes designed by her father, and suggested the magazine should run a story on them. The photographs and the article that the friend wrote were so impressive that the editor hired McCarthy to be a model solely for that magazine, and McCarthy's career had begun. Within a year, McCarthy had become one of Japan's leading fashion models. Even though things were financially difficult in Japan after World War II, McCarthy made enough money with her modeling that she was able to put her four brothers through school. She eventually won the title of Miss Tokyo when she entered the pageant. Things seemed primed for a lovely career and life for McCarthy in Japan.

Discovered by Talent Scout While Eating

In 1955, however, McCarthy met and married a United States Army sergeant, David McCarthy, who was stationed in Japan at that time. Her family did not want her to marry David, but McCarthy was determined, and as she had been taught to follow her dreams, so she followed them at this juncture and was wed. The couple moved to America not long after the marriage. They eventually had two children: Marlan and Serena. One day, after McCarthy had settled into life in America, she was eating at a Little Tokyo restaurant when talent scout, Fred Ishimoto, discovered her. She had turned her hand to acting while she was still living in Japan and had not really enjoyed the experience, so she did not jump at the agent's offer. Eventually, however, Ishimoto convinced her to give acting another try. Ishimoto was drawn to McCarthy because of her vibrant beauty. He felt that McCarthy would make an instant sensation in the already beauty-filled industry, and he was not wrong. McCarthy's film acting debut was in 1958's The Hunters. It was a small part, but it attracted the attention of comedian Jerry Lewis, and she was called in to try out for a larger part in his next film. The movie, Geisha Boy (1958), alongside Jerry Lewis, was her first starring role, and it put her on the Hollywood map.

McCarthy was subsequently cast in a number of television shows and motion pictures, including a guest appearance on an episode of Perry Mason in 1959. At that time she began really studying the craft of acting so she could make herself into the best actress she could be, and her work paid off. Some of her early notable works were Wake Me When It's Over (1960), with Dick Shawn and Ernie Kovacs, and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), alongside Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood. She very soon was acting alongside some of the United States' best actors, including Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis, Jr., Marlon Brando, and Anthony Quinn, among others. The Japanese beauty queen had made just the impression on Hollywood that Ishimoto predicted, and it seemed that nothing would ever hold her back.

From Divorce to Farewell to Manzanar

Unfortunately, despite the numerous roles she was offered, McCarthy quickly realized that roles for Asians, especially Asian women, were limited in scope and were not exactly the plums that all actresses craved. This was one reason why she did not mourn too much when she was forced, for personal reasons, to put her acting on hold. In the late 1960s McCarthy and her husband were divorced, although she kept his name until the day she died. Dealing with the emotional repercussions of her divorce from her husband, McCarthy stopped acting. She was simply so overwhelmed and depressed that she felt incapable of doing much of anything, let alone trying to pretend to be someone else. The divorce was finalized in 1970, and by the time it was over, McCarthy was on the mend. When she finally returned to acting it was to act alongside the Los Angeles East West Players, which is the oldest Asian-American theatre in the United States. Meanwhile, in 1976, McCarthy met and married William J. Cuthbert, an attorney.

That was the same year that McCarthy co-starred in the NBC TV-movie Farewell to Manzanar. In the movie she played an old granny type character, hardly something that would seem to lend itself to an increased stardom, but it was this role, that of mother in Farewell to Manzanar, that has been considered a turning point in her career. In the movie she played a grandmother—they had to put makeup on her to age her looks. She was so good at the part, that she seemed to be typecast afterwards to always play an old granny type, even though she was still considered to be one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. This was not something that upset her, however. After Farewell to Manzanar, McCarthy has said that she was offered more honest, human roles, rather than the stereotypical Asian ones she had been offered previously. And the actress reveled in the opportunities.

Artistic Director of Los Angeles Theatre Center

While she continued her acting career, McCarthy also taught acting at California State University in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1987. From 1991 she expanded her teaching arena to encompass other universities, including the University of California, at Los Angeles. In 1986 McCarthy took on the stage in a production of As the Crow Flies at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Then in 1988 McCarthy received critical attention for her leading role in the play The Wash.

In 1989 she became artistic director for the Los Angeles East West Players, a position she held until 1993. She had originally turned down the position, but she eventually agreed because she decided she would like to help other Asian-American actors get their feet in the door. The group was going through problems at the time and was deteriorating, but McCarthy breathed fresh air into it. "This former starlet reinvigorated the theatre by expanding the board, increasing fundraising and opening up the institution to a more diverse multiethnic constituency. The stability she established made possible a smooth transition in 1993 to [the next] artistic director Tim Dang, one of many young talents she had mentored," according to American Theatre. One of the main things she did was take the small theatre group and turn it into a full-fledged training facility, including the Professional Actors' Training Program and the David Hwang Writers' Institute.

Done with her role as director in 1993, McCarthy returned full time to acting. She was very successful for a decade until April 6, 2002, when she died of an aortal aneurysm during filming in Londrina, Brazil. American Theatre said, "Hers was a spirit so free that, I have no doubt, it continues to flourish someplace today—still growing and taking on new challenges, looking at life with that same mischievous smile." She won, among other honors, the Los Angeles Drama-logue Award.