Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy was born in Evanston, Illinois,[6] the son of Daniel and Barbara McCarthy.[7] His mother was a cellist and served as the president of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra.[8] His father was a rancher and real-estate developer. McCarthy graduated from Stanford University in 1972.[6] McCarthy married at age 43 to Sasha Alpert on July 4, 1993 on his family's ranch in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Sasha is a documentary film maker.[8]

McCarthy edited Kings of Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System with Charles Flynn, a book that discusses the great filmmakers of B movies, which was published in 1975.[1] He moved to Los Angeles and from 1974 to 1975, worked for Paramount Pictures as an assistant to Elaine May.[6] He helped her edit Mikey and Nicky (1976). From 1975 to 1977, McCarthy worked for New World Pictures in Los Angeles as the director of advertising and publicity.[6] He also joined the The Hollywood Reporter as a film critic in 1975 but was let go a year later.[9] McCarthy was later the manager of the English-language edition of Le Film français in 1977. The next year, he got a job as a Hollywood editor for Film Comment.[6]

McCarthy joined Daily Variety in 1979 and worked there as a reporter and film critic until 1989.[2][9] In 1990, McCarthy wrote the PBS documentary Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer which won him an Emmy Award.[10] He directed four documentaries about film: Visions of Light (1992), Claudia Jennings (1995), Forever Hollywood (1999), and Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient (2007).[11] Visions of Light was named the Best Documentary of the Year award by the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. Forever Hollywood has been played at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre for more than a decade.[10]

In 1991 he joined Variety as film review editor of Variety and Daily Variety.[12] He wrote about the producer/director Howard Hawks in his book, Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood which was published in 2000.[11] In 2007 he wrote Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing.[6] McCarthy also wrote Des Ovnis, des Monstres et du Sexe: Le Cinéma Selon Roger Corman (2011).[13]

McCarthy lost his job at Variety in March 2010,[4] having been the longest-serving member of their staff.[1] McCarthy began writing for IndieWire after leaving Variety. He was rehired by The Hollywood Reporter in October 2010 as the chief film critic under Janice Min.[4][3] He wrote the introduction to the 2013 edition of cinematographer John Alton's book Painting with Light.[14] McCarthy lost his job at The Hollywood Reporter in April 2020.[15] McCarthy subsequently began writing regularly for Deadline Hollywood later in 2020.[5]

• Todd McCarthy at IMDb
• Todd McCarthy papers, MSS 2308 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University