McElhatton had several film credits, including "Cardiac Arrest" (1980) and "Thief of Hearts" (1984). In Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958), Hitchcock filmed a never-used 1-minute scene showing Midge Wood (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) listening to a radio report that the murderer had been arrested in Europe — the unseen radio announcer in this scene (included as an extra on the DVD release of "Vertigo") originally was McElhatton, but in his place are the dubbed-in voices of the film's restorers Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz.