In 1961 she starred alongside Shirley MacLaine and Laurence Harvey in the MGM movie Two Loves where she played a young Maori woman.

1963 saw her appear in an uncredited background role in the comedy drama Love with the Proper Stranger starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood.

She starred with Lloyd Bridges in a 1959 Sea Hunt television episode as a Hawaiian woman fighting to protect pearl beds from poachers.

She appeared in the 1960 episode "Princess of Crazy Creek" of the syndicated western TV series Pony Express, starring Grant Sullivan.

In 1971, McCarthy joined East West Players, an Asian American theatre group in Los Angeles.

Her starring role in the indie feature The Wash, opposite Mako, earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination in 1989.

[6] On April 6, 2002, McCarthy died at the age of 67 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm while she was on location in Brazil, filming Gaijin - Ama-me Como Sou.