FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – A veteran actress of film, radio and Broadway, considered the world’s oldest living actress, has died in Southern California at the age of 104.
Her star is on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but Marsha Hunt was blacklisted during the Golden Age for fighting for the right to freedom of speech.
Hunt was born in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1917. The family moved to New York City and she attended private schools. Her father, Earl Hunt, was a lawyer and insurance executive, and her mother, Minabel Hunt, was a voice teacher.
Beginning as a model with the Powers Agency, Hunt became a studio actress working with a number of studios, including Paramount, MGM and Republic.
Hunt appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in 1943’s The Human Comedy, an Oscar nominee for best picture.
She starred in over 60 films including Born to the West with John Wayne, but her career derailed during the Red Scare.
In 1947, Hunt and her screenwriter husband, Robert Presnell Jr., became members of the Committee for the First Amendment.
Hunt and a group of actors charted a plane to Washington to testify in front of Joseph McCarthy, in what was later called a “witch hunt” for communists and “un-American” activities.
“That committee is scaring the public to death, they are going to stop going to movies.”
-Marsha Hunt, “Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity.”
Hunt said she was not a communist but instead was sticking up for free speech.
“They gave the movement the name The Committee for the First Amendment,” explained Hunt in the documentary of her life filmed by director Roger C. Memos. Hunt continued, “Under that banner, all of us gathered and took that flag to Washington.”
Some of the stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall later backpedaled, and dodged being blackballed by the Hollywood industry but Hunt, who gave an anti-censorship speech, did not apologize.
Hunt appeared on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple and graced the cover of Life magazine in 1950 but was blackballed three months later, after the Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television a pamphlet was released with the names of actors, directors, screenwriters and others accused of communist ties.
“I was very much interested in my industry, my country and my government. But I was shocked at the behavior of my government and its mistreatment of my industry.”
Marsha Hunt, Film Talk Interview in 2004
Her husband, Robert Presnell Jr. died in 1987. Their only child, a daughter, died just hours after birth in August 1947, just three months later she was on a plane to protest McCarthyism.
After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to Joseph McCarthy’s gradual loss of public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false, and sustained opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren on human rights grounds.
-Wikipedia
Hunt only acted in a handful of films after being blacklisted, with a large role in “Johnny Got His Gun.” The 1971 film in protest of the war, was based on a book by Dalton Trumbo, who had been blackballed along with Hunt.
Not able to find work in films, Hunt moved into theatre, starring in Broadway plays and regional theatre.
Hunt became an activist, serving on the advisory board of directors for the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, raised funds for a daycare shelter for homeless children, and working for the United Nations and UNICEF.
In the 1980s, Hunt was named honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks.
A critically acclaimed documentary by director, Roger C. Memos, was filmed about her life called Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity.” It was released in 2015.
“My life has been a great ride with more than its share of high points. Even the lower points taught me and led me to higher ones. In my teen years, I thought I was born to act, but when my acting career was interrupted, I discovered a wonderful world of challenges, which became opportunities, opening up my life far beyond acting. I am very grateful for all the good fortune I have been given in my blessed life.”
-Marsha Hunt
Hunt lived on her property in Sherman Oaks for 46 years, with a guest house and garden watched over for three decades by her friend, Catherine Cox.
Hunt’s glamour was featured in a book released in 1993. The Way We Wore: Styles of the 1930s and ’40s and Our World Since Then, showed photos of Hunt posing in many of her own clothes from the Golden Era
Hunt starred in the film The Grand Inquisitor, written and directed by Eddie Muller In 2008. He told the Hollywood Reporter “To work with her was the most rewarding collaboration of my life. I suspect it always will be,” said the TCM host. “She is simply the most exceptional human being I’ve ever known.”
The director of her documentary Roger C. Memos, said Hunt died at her Sherman Oaks home of natural causes at the age 104.
According to a press release sent by Memos, her nephew, actor/director Allan Hunt, and her friend and executive manager, Elizabeth Lauritsen, were with her when she passed from natural causes, in the evening of June 6th, 2022.
Listen to the reports by KMJ’s Liz Kern.
