[2][3] One of 13 children born to John Henry McCarty and Catherine Elizabeth Theresa Lynch,[4][5][6][7] Mary graduated from Star of the Sea Parish High School in 1917.
[16][17][18] In 1939, a syndicated profile/interview highlighted McCarthy's "pet dislike at present," paraphrased by UP's Alex Kahn as "the so-called Hollywood 'Intellectuals' who, she says, try so hard to be different and become so utterly confused."
"[19]Aside from foreshadowing the anti-message 'message' of Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels, McCarthy's gripe also sheds light on a script she had recently completed and another she would soon begin, namely Irish Luck (1939) and Chasing Trouble (1940), vehicles designed for the newly minted, interracial comic team of Mantan Moreland and Frankie Darro (the latter having previously been singled out for praise in McCarthy's Hands of Hollywood).
[20] Despite playing the duo's nominal leader, Darro's leadership is typically so compromised by harebrained schemes and arcane, questionable methodology—in effect, "try[ing] so hard to be different"—that he can scarcely help but "become utterly confused.
"[21][22] Moreover, while it is unclear to what extent, if any, she herself was responsible for the Moreland-Darro pairing, the following excerpts from McCarthy's 1957 biography of her mother provides a useful reference point, regarding "the fundamentals of American life" as practiced and preached in the McCarty/McCarthy household.
"That's just putting up with them, like with bad plumbing when you can't afford to move..." [...] She did not "tolerate" the Negro or the Asiatic, the Protestant or the Jew, despite their racial or religious difference.
[23]Reviewing Meet Kitty for The New York Times, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey wrote: What lasting impact does a mother make on her daughter's mind and heart?
For when the seething chemistry of inter-family relationships is bottled up for obvious reasons, even San Francisco with its colorful history and humanity can't substitute.