Marsha Hunt, the bright-eyed starlet who stood out in such films as Glamor Girls, Pride and Prejudice and Raw Deal before her career was dismantled by the communist witch hunt that swept through Hollywood, has died. It was 104.
She died of natural causes Tuesday afternoon at her home in Sherman Oaks, where she had lived since 1946, Roger C. Memos – writer-director of the documentary Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity – told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hunt also appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the Academy Award-nominated The Human Comedy (1943) during a period when she was known as “Hollywood’s Youngest Actress”.
A former model who signed a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 17, the Chicago native made her big splash as a suicidal opposite Lana Turner in MGM’s These Glamor Girls (1939).
Playing Walter Brennan’s lover in Joe and Ethel Turp’s Call on the President (1939), Hunt aged from 16 to 65 on screen. She played sister Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940) and in Anthony Mann’s classic Raw Deal (1948), she was the good girl opposite Claire Trevor and Dennis O’Keefe.
Years later, in Johnny Got His Gun (1971) – written by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo – Hunt played the mother of Timothy Bottoms’ quadruple amputee character.
Although she never achieved the stardom of some of her co-stars, Hunt was proud of her career, especially early on. “Before I was 30, I had played four roles in age and I was the youngest character actress in Hollywood … no two roles are the same,” she told the website Ms. in the Biz in 2015.
In 1947, Hunt and her second husband, screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., joined the Committee on the First Amendment, which challenged the legitimacy of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s efforts to expel Communists from the entertainment industry.
The committee, which also included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, John Huston and other Hollywood liberals, chartered a plane to Washington to attend the HUAC hearings and support 19 vetted creatives.
However, Bogart and others quickly backtracked, saying they had been duped by the Communists and that their trip to Washington had been misguided. Although this helped save their careers, Hunt had no regrets. In June 1950, he was listed on the Red Channels, the right-wing pamphlet that typed dozens of actors, directors, screenwriters and others for sympathizing with “subversive” causes.
“You know, I was never interested in communism,” he said in an interview in 2004. “I was very interested in my industry, my country and my government. But I was appalled at the behavior of my government and the mistreatment of my industry. And so I spoke up and protested like everyone else on that flight. But then I was told, when I was blacklisted, you see, I was straight liberal, and that was bad. I was told that actually it wasn’t really about communism – that was the thing that scared everyone – it was about control and power.
“The way you gain control is to get everyone to agree with what’s right at the time, what’s acceptable. Don’t question anything, don’t speak out, don’t have your own ideas, don’t express it, never be eloquent, and if you’re ever one of those things, you’re controversial. And that is just as bad, maybe worse, than being a communist. Which was still quite legal to be, you know: the Communist Party was still legal in America, running candidates for public office. But you lost your career, your good name, your savings, possibly your marriage, your friends, if you were a communist. It was horrible, just horrible.”
Her story was told in Sweet Adversity by Marsha Hunt, released in 2015.
She was born Marcia Virginia Hunt in Chicago on October 17, 1917. Her father, Earl, was an insurance executive and her mother, Minabel, a vocal coach. She and her family moved to New York and she graduated from the Horace Mann School for Girls at the age of 16.
Hunt began her modeling career when her high school yearbook photographer used her image as an advertising sample. Signed by the Powers Agency, she became a sought-after ‘Powers Girl’ and learned how to pose and act in front of a camera.
Friends with photographers-turned-journalists Robert and Sarah Mack, Hunt moved to Hollywood at 17, signed a contract with Paramount when her agent, Zeppo Marx, paid her $250 a week and landed the lead in her first film, The Virginia Judge (1935) . She appeared as an inventor and love interest in several films – John Wayne paired her in Born to the West (1937) – but the studio refused to renew her contract in 1938.
She landed at MGM in The Hardys Ride High (1939) and went on to appear at the studio in The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941) as a Brooklyn chorus girl. in Kid Glove Killer (1942), director Fred Zinnemann’s first US feature. in the WWII drama Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943). and as the leading title character in Jules Dassin’s romantic comedy A Letter for Evie (1946).
An exhibitor poll had placed her among the “Top 10 Stars of Tomorrow”—others on the list included Roddy McDowall, Gloria DeHaven, Sidney Greenstreet, June Allyson and Barry Fitzgerald—and when she wasn’t acting, she served as a hostess. in the famous Hollywood canteen for American soldiers.
In 1948, Hunt made her stage debut in the Hollywood production Joy to the World, directed by Jules Dassin. Two years later, she returned to Broadway in George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple and graced the cover of Life magazine.
After Devil’s Disciple closed, Hunt left for Europe, but when she returned, Red Channels had been published and her career – she had made more than 50 films by then – would never be the same.
He went on to guest-star on shows such as The Ford Television Theatre, Climax! and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was a regular on Peck’s short-lived 1959 series Bad Girl and later appeared in Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Ben Casey, My Three Sons, Ironside, Murder, She Wrote and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Marsha Hunt with her 1943 ‘Pilot #5’ co-stars Franchot Tone (left) and Gene Kelly. Courtesy of the Everett Collection Hunt was a SAG board member and served on various progressive committees. One advised actress Olivia de Havilland in her groundbreaking legal case against the studio system and Warner Bros. and another called for studios to hire minority actors outside of stereotypical roles.
In 1955, a trip around the world opened her eyes to the plight of Third World nations and she threw herself into humanitarian efforts, making appearances on behalf of the United Nations and becoming what she called a “patriot of the planet.”
In April 2015, she was named the inaugural recipient of the Marsha Hunt for Humanity Award, created by Kat Kramer, daughter of renowned liberal director-producer Stanley Kramer.
Hunt was “one of the first major actresses in Hollywood to dedicate her life to causes,” noted Kat Kramer, “and paved the way for Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Patricia Arquette, Sharon Stone, George Clooney. , Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Tippi Hedren, Ed Begley Jr., Ed Asner and Martin Sheen — celebrities using their fame as a voice for change.”
Hunt can be seen in all her glamor in the 1993 book The Way We Were: Styles of the 1930s and ’40s and Our World Since Then, which features photos of her in many of her own outfits from the era.
Hunt moved to Sherman Oaks in 1946 and served as its mayor emeritus for more than two decades. She and Presnell were married for 40 years until his death in 1986 at the age of 71. They had no children.
She is survived by a nephew, the actor-director Alan Hunt, and other nieces and nephews. Donations in her memory may be made to LA Family Housing.
In 2008, Hunt starred in the 22-minute film The Grand Inquisitor, written and directed by Eddie Muller.
“Working with her has been the most rewarding collaboration of my life. I suspect it always will be,” the TCM Noir Alley host said after Raw Deal and Grand Inquisitor aired on the cable channel last month. “He’s just the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.”
