Nobu McCarthy

Actress, artistic director of East West Players

By VARIETY STAFF

Nobu McCarthy, who started her Hollywood career as a starlet and later became artistic director of the pioneering theater company East West Players, died April 6 from an aortic aneurysm while on the set of the movie "Gaijin II" in Londrina, Brazil. She was 67 and had just returned to work on the film after recovering from pneumonia. Filming was suspended on the pic about several generations of Japanese immigrants in Brazil.

McCarthy was born Nobu Atsumi in Ottawa, Canada, where her father was a private secretary to the Japanese ambassador. She was brought to Japan as a baby, later trained in ballet and sang with choral groups onstage and radio. She became a successful model and was named Miss Tokyo in the competition leading up to the Miss Universe pageant. She married U.S. Army Sgt. David McCarthy in 1955.

After agent spotted her in L.A.'s Little Tokyo, she was sent to an audition at Paramount that landed her a role in the Jerry Lewis comedy "The Geisha Boy" in 1958. From then and through the early 1960s, she appear in Such films as "The Hunters," "Wake Me When It's Over" and "Walk Like a Dragon."

She withdrew from acting in the late 1960s, but after a divorce in 1970 she revived her career by joining the East West Players, the country's first Asian-American theater company, in 1971 and playing a number of roles on its stage.

East West Players went through a turbulent period in 1989 and founder Mako resigned under pressure from the board. McCarthy was selected as his replacement and served as artistic director until 1993.

Other credits for McCarthy include the landmark TV movie "Farewell to Manzanar" in 1976 as well as the films "Karate Kid II" in 1986 and "Pacific Heights" in 1990.

McCarthy and her second husband, the late William Cuthbert, received a lifetime achievement award from East West in 1996.

She is survived by two children from her first marriage and three brothers.