He then moved to New York City and became the press agent for legendary Broadway theater producer George Abbott's Brother Rat (1937), a farce about students at the Virginia Military Institute.
By 1941, McCarthy had attained the rank of colonel and was aide-de-camp to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George C. Marshall.
According to Andrew Roberts' book Masters and Commanders (HarperCollins, 2009) McCarthy was homosexual, a fact unknown to Marshall who kept on introducing him to attractive young women.
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.
However, the project was canceled by 20th Century Fox owing to the poor reception of the movies Doctor Dolittle and Star!,[2] despite a $500,000 airship being built as a prop.
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.