Neil S. McCarthy

A third-generation Los Angeles native, he graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in law. For about seventeen years, McCarthy was associated with businessman Howard Hughes as his attorney and was a vice president in the Hughes organization during World War II.^[1] McCarthy set up practice in Los Angeles where he rose to fame as an attorney for many in the film industry. Among his clients were Paramount Pictures and well-known personalities such as producer Cecil B. DeMille, MGM Studios boss Louis B. Mayer, and actors Ginger Rogers, Joan Bennett, Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, and Ava Gardner.^[2]

Neil McCarthy and his wife Marguerite had four children. A daughter, Marjorie, married Dennis J. Gless and were the parents of actress Sharon Gless. She sought her grandfather's advice and he told her: "It's a filthy business. You stay out of it" but a few years later when she spoke to him again about acting, he encouraged her, and gave her money for acting classes.^[3] Another daughter, Rosemary, married Dr. John A. E. Bullis. In 1975, Rosemary Bullis was awarded a Silver Cup for Outstanding Achievement by the Los Angeles Times as one of its ten "Women of the Year."^[4] In 1966 Marguerite McCarthy died ^[5] and in 1969 Neil McCarthy remarried artist Mary Beich Myers.^{[citation needed]}