Marsha Hunt, the actress of the golden age of Hollywood, died at 104

The actress has appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows and her career was cut short for being on the McCarthy-era “blacklist”.

Marsha Huntone of the last actresses of the so-called golden age of Hollywood (in the 30s and 40s), who has worked with artists such as Laurence Olivier The Andy Griffith and whose career was cut short by the McCarthy-era blacklist, died at the age of 104.

Hunt, who has appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows, died Wednesday at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., Said Roger Memos, the screenwriter and director of the 2015 documentary. Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversities. Originally from Chicago, she came to Hollywood in 1935 and over the next 15 years appeared in dozens of films, from the comedy Preston Sturges Easy life to the adaptation of Pride and Prejudiceby Jane Austen, who starred opposite Oliver and Greer Garson.

She was well under 40 when MGM called her “the youngest character in Hollywood”. In the early 1950s, she was a big enough star to be on the cover of the magazine. Life. Everything indicated that he would thrive in the new television medium when “the job ran out,” he recalled in 1996. The reason, he learned from his agent, was that Red Channel, a publication that chased the Communists, revealed that he had attended a conference, peace talks in Stockholm and other suspected suspicious meetings.

Next to stars like Lauren Bacall, Humphry Bogart And Danny Kaye, Hunt also went to Washington in 1947 to protest the House’s Anti-American Activities Committee, which was conducting a witch hunt for Communists in the film industry. “I made 54 movies in my first 16 years in Hollywood,” Hunt said in 1996. “In the last 45 years I’ve done eight. It shows what a blacklist can do for a career. ”

The solution was to migrate to the theater

Hunt then focused on theater, where the blacklist was not respected, until she occasionally went back to film work in the late 1950s. The cocktail party, the lady does not burn And The Tunnel of Love, and on Broadway a The Devil’s Disciple, Sarah’s Legend? And The Paisley convertible.

Marcia Virginia Hunt (she later changed the spelling of her first name) was born in Chicago and raised in New York, the daughter of a lawyer and singing teacher. Slender and elegant, with a warm smile and large, expressive eyes, Hunt studied acting and worked as a model before making her film debut.

An early marriage with director Jerry Hopper ended in divorce. In 1948 she married screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr. and they had a daughter, who died shortly after her premature birth. Her husband died in 1986. Hunt’s first movie was the law is fulfilled, 1935. He went on to play demure roles in numerous Paramount films, including The accusing finger And Naval in action.

But, as he said Associated Press in 2020 she was tired of “sweet young women” and was asking for more substantial jobs. Hollywood provided a painful education. in the documentary Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversities says he almost got the part of Melanie Wilkes Gone With the Wind, insured by producer David O. Selznick. Within days, Olivia de Havilland was announced as the actress who would play Melanie in the epic 1939 film.

“That was the day I grew up,” Hunt said in the documentary. “That was the day I realized I could never break my heart again from this acting profession.” She left Paramount and went to MGM around the time Gone With the Wind and had leading or supporting roles in These fines today, wings in the dark And The human comedyamong other films.

‘MGM was pure magic’

“MGM was pure magic,” he recalled in an interview with Associated Press in 2007. “When I came to the studio for a daytime role, they parked my car. I went to the set and found a director’s chair with a sign: ‘Miss Hunt’. Another sign was in my dressing room.” myself: “Any studio that treats a one-day actor like this really knows how to make movies.” They have earned my loyalty. ”

Jobs quickly sold out after she openly embraced liberal causes, such as when she joined the 1947 protest against Congressional hearings on Communist influence in Hollywood. “I have never been a communist nor have I been interested in the communist cause”, she declared in 1996. “I was an innocent in politics to defend my industry”.

With a few exceptions, in producer Stanley Kramer’s 1952 comedy The Happy Time, she wasn’t seen on the big screen for most of the 1950s. She subsequently appeared in many TV series, including My three children, Matlock, all in the family And Murder, he wrote.

She remained vigorous and elegant in her old age. In 1993 she released The way we wore: the styles of the 30s and 40s and our world ever sincepicture book of fashion during its heyday in Hollywood.

A lifelong political activist, Hunt first came into contact with terror in 1962 when he participated in a forum on right-wing extremists and that same night two other attendees were damaged by homemade bombs. “The pale-faced actress said her home probably escaped the bomb attack only because the terrorists failed to find out where she lived,” the report said. Los Angeles Times. The police have been sent to watch your home.

Most recently, she helped create a shelter for the homeless in Los Angeles, in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood where she lived, and was awarded the title of honorary mayor. Looking back on his years as an activist, Hunt commented in 1996: “I never wanted an identity as a talking figure. But having resisted and found other interests in the meantime, I can look back with some philosophy.”

Source: Terra

Emily

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