film producer, first for 20th Century Fox, then for Universal Studios. In 1951, Decision Before Dawn, a spy picture that McCarthy produced with Anatole Litvak was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He later produced Sailor of the King (1953) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). McCarthy spent nearly twenty years working on a biographical film of General George S. Patton. This film, Patton, (1970) was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starred George C. Scott as Patton. In 1971, at the 43rd Academy Awards, Patton won the Academy Award for Best Picture (with McCarthy, as the film's producer, accepting the award); Schaffner won the Academy Award for Best Director; and Scott won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Scott refused to attend the 43rd Academy Awards, so McCarthy accepted Scott's Oscar on Scott's behalf. The next day, Scott refused his Oscar (the first actor to do so) and McCarthy therefore returned it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. McCarthy planned a Tom Swift feature movie in 1968, to be directed by Gene Kelly. A script was written and approved, and filming was to have begun during 1969. However, the project was canceled by 20th Century Fox owing to the poor reception of the movies Doctor Dolittle and Star!, despite a $500,000 airship being built as a prop. After the release of Patton, McCarthy continued to work on a script to be filmed on a lower budget. McCarthy later produced an early TV movie, Fireball Forward, a 1972 war drama. In 1977, he produced the film MacArthur, an account of General Douglas MacArthur's life from 1942 to 1952 starring Gregory Peck. McCarthy died of cancer on December 1, 1986, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, at the age of 74. References External links "War Hero, Youngest Assistant Secretary of State, Producer Frank McCarthy Dies at 74", Los Angeles Times, Dec. 3, 1986 1912 births 1986 deaths Virginia Military Institute alumni Recipients of the Legion of Merit Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award Deaths from cancer in California United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army generals