Marion Caroline Dougherty was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania in 1923. She attended Penn State University as a Liberal Arts major and joined the Penn State Players, where she acted opposite Don Taylor. After graduating in 1943, she moved to Cleveland and joined the Cleveland Playhouse where Ray Walston was also performing. She acted with the company for two years before relocating to New York City where she hoped to be a scenic designer rather than an actor. She instead found work decorating window displays for Bergdorf Goodman and later sold ads in the yellow pages. After a few years, she reconnected with a college friend who had been hired to cast for KRAFT TELEVISION THEATRE, and he recruited Dougherty as his assistant. When her friend resigned four months later, Dougherty took over casting for the series.

She worked on KRAFT TELEVISION THEATRE from roughly 1949 to 1958, and during that time cast hundreds of episodes with such up-and-coming actors as James Dean, Jack Lemmon, Ann Francis, Rod Steiger, and Warren Beatty. In 1960 she was hired to cast NAKED CITY, providing early work for Martin Sheen, Peter Fonda, Christopher Walken, Jessica Walter, Robert Redford, James Caan, Brenda Vaccaro, William Shatner, Jack Klugman, Robert Duvall, Cecily Tyson, and Maureen Stapleton. Dougherty often frequented off- and off-off Broadway plays, and many of the actors she cast came from these stage productions. According to Dougherty she began casting ROUTE 66 in 1960 as well, offering roles to William Daniels, Richard Mulligan, Harvey Korman, Sylvia Miles, Daniel J. Travanti, and Bruce Dern. When she later moved into feature films, she would frequently cast actors she first hired during her time in television.

Dougherty’s first feature film casting job was THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964), directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed a number of KRAFT episodes in the 1950s. She cast Tom Bosley and Al Lewis in minor roles after having hired both for ROUTE 66. That same year she also cast ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO (1964), agreeing to be paid with a case of whiskey to assist the low-budget production. Hill hired her again for HAWAII (1966), and she spent months in Tahiti and Tonga finding Polynesian actors for the film. She also cast Gene Hackman and Carroll O’Connor, two actors she had previously cast on NAKED CITY. Notably, Dougherty gave Bette Midler her first on-screen role in this film, casting her in a bit part as one of the missionaries.

After HAWAII, Dougherty purchased a townhouse in New York City and used it to open an independent casting office, Marion Dougherty Associates. She hired several women to assist her, and many, including Juliet Taylor, Wally Nicita, Gretchen Rennell, and Nessa Hyams, went on to their own careers as casting directors. Dougherty continued to scour stage productions for new talent, with Al Pacino being one of her most notable discoveries. After seeing Pacino in “The Indian Wants the Bronx,” she found him a small role in ME, NATALIE (1969) and was instrumental in securing his first lead role in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), which also featured Raul Julia in his first film role. When casting MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), she recalled Jon Voigt and Dustin Hoffman, two actors she had cast on episodes of NAKED CITY, and lobbied hard for both to appear in the lead roles, resulting in Academy Award nominations for Best Actor for both of them. Her other notable credits from this period include A NEW LEAF (1971), THE ANDERSON TAPES (1971), BANANAS (1971), WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971), and ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974).

Dougherty and Hill continued to work together for the remainder of his career as a filmmaker, and his film SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE (1972) was the first film for which Dougherty received a single card credit in the main titles. For THE STING (1973), Dougherty said she only auditioned one actor for each role, and the film went on to win Hill the Academy Award for Best Director as well as the award for Best Picture. She gave Susan Sarandon her first leading role in Hill’s THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER (1975) and Diane Lane her first film role in A LITTLE ROMANCE (1979). For Hill’s THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982), she cast Glenn Close in her first film role after seeing her on stage, and Close and John Lithgow both earned Academy Award nominations for the film.

Dougherty stayed involved in television as well, suggesting Jean Stapleton and Carrol O’Connor for ALL IN THE FAMILY, having cast both on NAKED CITY a decade earlier. In 1973 she left Marion Dougherty Associates to join David Picker’s new company, Two Roads Productions, for which she cast LENNY (1974) and SMILE (1975). In 1976, when Picker became President of Motion Pictures at Paramount, he hired Dougherty as Vice President in charge of Talent, and she moved to California. When Picker left Paramount in 1979, Dougherty did as well, becoming Vice President of Talent at Warner Bros. Pictures. In this position she cast such films as REDS (1981), THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (1983), produced by Picker, THE KILLING FIELDS (1984), SWING SHIFT (1984), BATMAN (1989), JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990), DOGFIGHT (1991), and FALLING DOWN (1993), among many others. One of her most significant casting decisions involved suggesting Danny Glover for LETHAL WEAPON (1987), having cast the actor in his debut film, ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979). She was awarded the Crystal Award from Women in Film in 1986 and the following year received the Hoyt Bowers Award from the Casting Society of America. Dougherty retired in 1999 and returned to New York City. She died in 2011 and was posthumously awarded the Television Academy’s Governors Award in 2014.