Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917)

Marsha Hunt (born Marcia Virginia Hunt; October 17, 1917 – September 7, 2022) was an American actress with a career spanning nearly 80 years.

Hunt was born on October 17, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of two daughters.

Her parents were Earl Hunt, a lawyer and later a Social Security Administrator, and Minabel Hunt, a vocal teacher, and organist.

She graduated from the Horace Mann High School for Girls in 1934 at age 16.

Hunt's parents wanted her to pursue a college degree, but Hunt, unable to "locate a single college or university in the land where you could major in drama before your third year", found work modeling for the John Powers Agency and began taking stage acting classes at the Theodora Irvine Studio.

She was one of the highest-earning models by 1935.

In May 1935, she planned on studying stage acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the United Kingdom.

Although initially reluctant to pursue a film career, in June 1935, at age 17, Hunt signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.

Paramount discovered her when she was visiting her uncle in Los Angeles and the comedian Zeppo Marx (of the Marx Brothers fame) saw a picture of her in the newspaper.

She was then offered a screen test for The Virginia Judge.

At Paramount, Hunt mainly played ingenue parts.

Between 1935 and 1938, she made 12 pictures at Paramount, including starring roles in Easy to Take (1936), Gentle Julia (1936), The Accusing Finger (1936), Murder Goes to College (1937), and two on "loan-out" to RKO and 20th Century Fox.

She appeared in many films, including Born to the West (1937) with John Wayne, Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, Kid Glove Killer (1942) with Van Heflin, Cry 'Havoc' (1943) with Margaret Sullavan and Joan Blondell, The Human Comedy (1943) with Mickey Rooney, Raw Deal (1948) with Claire Trevor, The Happy Time (1952) with Charles Boyer, and Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun (1971).

In the midst of the blacklist era, she became active in the humanitarian cause of world hunger and in her later years aided homeless shelters, supported same-sex marriage, raised awareness of climate change, and promoted peace in Third World countries.

In 1937, she starred opposite John Wayne, a couple of years before his breakthrough in Hollywood, in the Western film Born to the West.

The studio terminated Hunt's contract in 1938, and she spent a few years starring in B-films produced by poverty row studios such as Republic Pictures and Monogram Pictures.

She also headed to New York City for work in summer stock theatre shortly before winning a supporting role in MGM's These Glamour Girls (1939) opposite Lana Turner and Lew Ayres.

The role of Betty was said to have been written especially with Hunt in mind.

She previously did a screen test to play Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was told by David O. Selznick she would play the role, but to "keep it a secret for now."

Three days later, it was announced that Olivia de Havilland was cast.

Other roles in major studio productions soon followed, including supporting roles as Mary Bennet in MGM's version of Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Laurence Olivier, and as Martha Scott's surrogate child Hope Thompson in Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941).

In 1941, Hunt signed a contract with MGM, where she remained for the next six years.

While filming Blossoms in the Dust, film director Mervyn LeRoy lauded Hunt for her heartfelt and genuine acting ability.

During this period she had starring roles in 21 films, including The Penalty (1941) opposite Lionel Barrymore, Panama Hattie (1942) opposite Ann Sothern and Red Skelton, and the war drama Pilot No. 5 (1943) in which she was cast as the love interest of Franchot Tone, and The Valley of Decision (1945).

In 1944 she polled seventh in a list by exhibitors of "Stars of Tomorrow".

In 1944, she appeared in None Shall Escape, a film that is now regarded as the first about the Holocaust.

She played Marja Pacierkowski, the Polish fiancée of a German Nazi officer named Wilhelm Grimm.

In 1945, Hunt was invited to join the board of the Screen Actors Guild.

Disturbed by the actions of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities (HCUA), Hunt and her husband, screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr.., became members of the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947.

She was blacklisted by Hollywood film studio executives in the 1950s during McCarthyism.

Interviewed for a 1999 book, she said about her family: "I lucked into the most fortuitous, warm, constructive kind of family context imaginable. My father was a top scholar, a Phi Beta Kappa. My mother was a voice coach and accompanist of singers in the concert and opera fields. We didn't have the term 'liberated woman', but my mother certainly was...They were brought up, both, in the state of Indiana, which is now called the Bible Belt. They were wholesome, they neither smoked nor drank, and they never used the Lord's name in vain. I never heard a four-letter word. It didn't exist in my wholesome family setting."

Hunt's family moved to New York City when she was young, and she began performing in school plays and church functions.

Her elder sister, Marjorie, a teacher, died in 2002.

Marcia later changed the spelling of her first name to Marsha.

Hunt and her family were active in the Methodist church.

According to NPR, she was – at the time of her 100th birthday – the last surviving member of the group.

On October 26 that same year, aged 30, Hunt took part in Hollywood Fights Back, a star-studded radio program co-written by her husband protesting the activities of HCUA.

In 2020, Hunt recalled:

"We made our speeches and did a radio programme called Hollywood Fights Back and came home thinking we'd been patriots and had defended our profession. If there were some communists among us that was their business and not ours."

The next day, Hunt flew with a group of about 30 actors, directors, writers, and filmmakers (including John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Danny Kaye) to Washington to protest the actions of HCUA.