Marion C. Dougherty

Marion Dougherty, Hollywood Star-Maker, Dies at 88 By DENNIS HEVESI DEC. 7, 2011 Marion Dougherty, who cast some of Hollywood’s biggest stars in their earliest parts, including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, and who suggested Carroll O’Connor for the role of Archie Bunker in the long-running hit television show “All in the Family,” died Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 88. Her death was confirmed by Margaret Whitton, a friend and a co-producer of “Casting By,” a documentary about casting directors that is scheduled for release next year. Ms. Dougherty, who got her start in the early days of live television in New York, was casting director for more than 100 movies, at Paramount Pictures and as vice president of casting at Warner Brothers from 1979 until 1999. Her credits include “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), “The Sting” (1973), “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (1976), “The Killing Fields” (1984), “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), “Gorillas in the Mist” (1988) and “Batman” (1989). Drawing on her experience in New York, Ms. Dougherty had a strong hand in reshaping the way Hollywood casts films as it moved away from the old studio system and its “cattle calls” in the 1960s. When she arrived in Hollywood she brought her index-card file filled with the names of promising actors she had spotted Off Broadway, in regional theaters and in summer stock. As casting director for NBC’s “Kraft Television Theater” from 1950 to 1958, she had found roles — some consisting of only one line — for the likes of James Dean, Paul Newman and Mr. Beatty. From 1954 to 1968 she was also casting director for the popular television series “Naked City” and “Route 66.” “Marion would call me on our set in Texas,” Arthur Hiller, a director for “Route 66,” said in the documentary, “and she would tell me, ‘I’ll have an actor for you there by 3 o’clock,’ and lo and behold, a young actor named Robert Duvall would come walking up over the hill.” In 1969 Norman Lear asked Ms. Dougherty to cast the pilot for what would become “All in the Family.” She recommended that Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton play Archie and Edith. “I had seen Carroll in a film, ‘What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?,’ and Marion reminded me of that,” Mr. Lear said on Wednesday. “But I had not heard of Jean Stapleton. She came in and I loved her because you could believe that she could love blindly, love Archie.” Marion Dougherty, left, with the actress Sally Field in 1986, after the two received awards from Women in Film. Credit United Press International Ms. Dougherty, he said, “was a glory, the best; the most talented, perceptive judge of acting.” Ms. Dougherty, whom Clint Eastwood once called “the dean of casting directors,” fostered a constellation of future marquee names, among them Bette Midler in “Hawaii” (1966); Mr. Pacino, whom she had spotted Off Broadway, and Raul Julia in “The Panic in Needle Park” (1971); Christopher Walken in “The Anderson Tapes” (1971); Brooke Shields in “Pretty Baby” (1978); and Diane Lane in “A Little Romance” (1979). She cast Glenn Close, in her first film, and Robin Williams, in his first dramatic role, in “The World According to Garp” (1982). After spotting a glimmer of stardom, she could be insistent. Juliet Taylor, a protégé of Ms. Dougherty’s perhaps best known as the casting director for more than 30 Woody Allen movies, recalled how her mentor had once struggled with the director John Schlesinger. Mr. Schlesinger wanted someone other than Jon Voight to play the Texan would-be hustler on the streets of New York in “Midnight Cowboy.” Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story Watching Get recommendations on the best TV shows and films to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox. “She adamantly disagreed,” Ms. Taylor said, “and kept badgering Schlesinger and bringing Voight back again and again until Schlesinger agreed that Voight was the better choice.” Under the old Hollywood system, each studio had its own stable of contract players, and casting directors would organize “cattle calls,” drawing dozens of actors to audition, all hoping to capture the director’s eye. Ms. Dougherty had a different idea. “Instead of having a whole lot of short blondes come in for the same role,” Ms. Taylor said, “Marion made it into a very selective process with only a few actors showing up, each quite different from the others and adding a new dimension to the character. She gave the director a choice.” Ms. Dougherty was one of the first casting directors to receive a stand-alone credit at the start of a movie — “Slaughterhouse Five” (1972) — rather than in the so-called crawl of credits at the end. Marion Caroline Dougherty was born in Holidaysburg, Pa., on Feb. 9, 1923, to Sarah and Orr Dougherty. She is survived by two sisters, Doris Keller and Virginia Goodyear. Ms. Dougherty graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1944 and came to New York hoping to be a set designer. For a time, she earned $45 a week designing windows at Bergdorf Goodman. Then a friend working for “Kraft Television Theater” asked her to become a casting assistant. Six years later she was casting director. “No casting director can truly say, ‘I knew he was gonna be a star’ — because that’s a bunch of baloney,” Ms. Dougherty told The Miami Herald in 1991. “Casting is a game of gut instinct. You feel their talent and potential in the pit of your stomach. It’s about guts and luck.”