Tom McCarthy, award-winning Philadelphia-based actor, has died at 88
He quit his job as a bartender at 30, sharpened his acting skills for a decade, and went on to earn memorable roles in major movies and TV shows.
Tom McCarthy, 88, formerly of Penn Wynne, Montgomery County, award-winning theater, film, and TV actor, longtime president of the local chapter of the Screen Actors Guild, former theater company board member, mentor, and veteran, died Saturday, May 31, of complications from Parkinson’s disease at his home in Sea Isle City.
Reared in Overbrook and a 1955 graduate of St. Katharine’s High School in Wayne, Mr. McCarthy turned to acting when he was 30 after being inspired by theatrical productions at the old Valley Forge Music Fair in Devon. He quit his job as a bartender in 1965, sharpened his acting skills for a decade at Hedgerow Theatre Company in Rose Valley and other local venues, and, at 42, went on to earn memorable roles in major movies and TV shows.
In the 1980s, he played a police officer with John Travolta in the movie Blow Out and a gardener with Andrew McCarthy in Mannequin. In 1998, he was a witness with Denzel Washington in Fallen. In 2011, he was a small-town mayor with Lea Thompson in Mayor Cupcake.
On TV, he had parts in Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street in 1997. He was a senator on the The West Wing in 2001, a pharmacist on Hack in 2003, and a newspaper editor on The Wire in 2008.
He acted with Zsa Zsa Gabor, Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Cloris Leachman, Robert Redford, Donald Sutherland, John Goodman, and other big stars. In all, he has 28 movie and TV acting credits on the industry website imdb.com.
On stage, he was even more prolific. From 1965 to his last performance in 2016, he appeared in hundreds of shows at the Hedgerow, Wilma, Arden, Walnut Street, Bristol Riverside, People’s Light, Philadelphia, St. Stephen’s, and Eagle theaters. He played the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Kimmel Center’s Innovation Studio in Philadelphia, and the Act II Playhouse in Ambler.
“Tom was one of the most influential people in the development of a resident performing arts community.”
He did dramas, Shakespeare, children’s plays, musicals, and comedies. He headlined the one-man play The Philly Fan, which he cocreated, for years in the mid-2000s and starred in the King of East Jabip in 2016, a play his daughter, Kelly, wrote with him in mind.
He was especially fond of Arthur Miller’s work, and he earned a Barrymore Award from the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia in 1997 for his poignant portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Terrence J. Nolen, producing artistic director at Arden Theatre Company, called those performances “legendary” and “monumental” in a recent tribute.
Mr. McCarthy also did hundreds of commercials, voice-overs, and industrial and training films for DuPont, Bell Atlantic, Rohm & Haas, Bethlehem Steel, AT&T, and Freshen Up gum. He told the Daily News in 1992: “I’ll take anything I can get.”
Daily News reporter Ron Avery opened that 1992 story with: “Who’s Philadelphia’s most successful film actor? In terms of salary and stardom you might choose Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Bacon, or Bill Cosby. But when you use the broadest definition of ‘success’ and ‘film,’ Tom McCarthy might be the champion.”
“His commitment to the work raised the bar. His joy and laughter made the work fun, and he always seemed to make it look easy.”
From the start, Mr. McCarthy championed local actors and successfully pressured visiting filmmakers to hire Philadelphians for principal parts. He told The Inquirer in 2002: “I was not going to move my family and live on $200 a month in New York or L.A. and starve. New York and California, they put you in a box. You’re this kind of character. Whereas in Philadelphia, I do a thousand different things, blue-collar stuff or bankers or killers.”
In 2003, the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. “He built a life and a career that defined what being a Philadelphia actor could be,” Nolen said. “He loved the work, the craft.”
Mr. McCarthy was his own agent and public relations man, and he sometimes worked two performances at different locations in one day. The Inquirer, Daily News, and other publications wrote stories about his long career, and Douglas J. Keating, then The Inquirer’s theater critic, called him a “skillful actor who gets the most out of a scene” in 2000.
Offstage, Mr. McCarthy served as president of the local Screen Actors Guild for 35 years. He made it a point to mentor young actors and was so popular that he ran unopposed for guild president for decades.
“You know Philadelphia is a great town for club fighters. I guess that’s what I am, a good club fighter. I’ll take anything I can get.”
He was on the board of directors at Arden Theatre Company for several years and helped establish the Greater Philadelphia Film Office in 1985. Colleagues called him “a central figure to modern Philadelphia theater history,” “the quintessential Philadelphia performer,” and “fierce, funny, and deeply human” in online tributes.
He made public appearances, was featured at fundraisers, guested on TV talk shows, and was the host of a popular game-show-style high school quiz competition in Delaware County, known now as the Delco Hi-Q, for 39 years. Delco Hi-Q officials inducted him into their Hall of Honor and said in a recent tribute: “Tom was more than just the voice of Hi-Q. He was its soul.“
Thomas Aquinas McCarthy was born June 23, 1936, in Philadelphia. As a boy, he was asked to leave St. Thomas More High School because he spent more time at the movies than in class.
He studied for a year at Niagara University after high school and served a year in the Army before tending bar at taverns and restaurants for 20 years. He married Barbara Burk in 1962, and they had a son, Tom Jr., and a daughter, Kelly, and lived in Penn Wynne for decades. His wife died in February.
“In this particular role he’s achieved a singularity few actors manage. In the minds of many, McCarthy both defines and is everyone’s Philly sports fan.”
Mr. McCarthy followed the local sports teams, especially college basketball, and routinely welcomed his wife and children to his rehearsals and backstage on show nights. They also spent many memorable summers at Intermission, their seaside home in Sea Isle City.
“He was bigger than life to everyone,” his daughter said. His son said: “Everyone had admiration and love for him.”
In 2002, Mr. McCarthy said: “What I love is that I’m a Philly guy, and I get to work in my town, live in my town, and go to bed each night in my town.”
In addition to his children, Mr. McCarthy is survived by his son-in-law, Eric Cecilio, and other relatives. A sister and a brother died earlier.
Services are to be held later.
Donations in his name may be made to the Arden Theatre Company scholarship for young actors, 40 N. Second St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.