When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.

During the marriage and afterward McCambridge battled alcoholism often being hospitalized after episodes of heavy drinking. In the mid-1970s McCambridge briefly took a position as director of Livingrin a Pennsylvania rehabilitation center for alcoholics. In 1954 the actress co-starred with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden in the offbeat western drama Johnny Guitar now regarded as a cult classic.

Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress. Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge (March 16 1916 – March 2 2004) was an Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe-winning American actress of radio stage film and television.