Mercedes McCambridge, offstage, is a candid person, kind, attractive, unsophisticated, and without visible defenses. But onstage or on-camera, she can somehow suggest the sort of skirted arachnid that bites through everything in its path. Two weeks ago, Mercy McCambridge took over from Uta Hagen, playing opposite Donald Davis, as the harridan in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? With this new, brown-eyed, waspish savage, the producers have probably added a year to the run.
As the newswoman Sadie Burke, she nipped at the heels of Broderick Crawford in Hollywood's All the...