Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917)

Marsha Hunt is an American actress, model, and activist. She was blacklisted by Hollywood film studio executives in the 1950s during McCarthyism. She is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. During her career spanning 73 years, she appeared in many popular films including Born to the West, Pride and Prejudice, Kid Glove Killer, Cry ‘Havoc’ and The Human Comedy.

About Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917) in brief

Marsha Hunt is an American actress, model, and activist. She was blacklisted by Hollywood film studio executives in the 1950s during McCarthyism. She is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. During her career spanning 73 years, she appeared in many popular films including: Born to the West, Pride and Prejudice, Kid Glove Killer, Cry ‘Havoc’ and The Human Comedy. In her later years she has aided homeless shelters, supported same-sex marriage, raised awareness of climate change and promoted peace in Third World countries. Hunt’s family moved to New York City when she was young, and she began performing in school plays and church functions. In May 1935, she planned on studying stage acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the United Kingdom. She graduated from the Horace Mann High School for Girls in 1934 at age 16. In June 1935, at age 17, Hunt signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. She made 12 pictures at Paramount, including a starring roles in Easy to Take, Gentle Julia, The Accusing Finger, Murder Goes to College, and two on loan-out to RKO and 20th Century Fox. 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.

In 1944, she was cast as the love interest of Franchot Tone in The Decision, which she is now regarded as a film that is now a film of the century. She previously did a screen test to play Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind and got the part before Olivia de Havilland was cast in None Shall Escape. She also appeared in the film No 5: The Decision of The Valley of Decision, in which she played a woman whose love interest is killed in a car crash. In the film, she also played the role of Martha Scott’s surrogate child Hope Thompson in Cheers for Miss Bishop. Her elder sister, Marjorie, a teacher, died in 2002. Marcia Virginia Hunt was born on October 17, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois, the younger 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 later changed the spelling of her first name to Marsha. Hunt and her family were active in the Methodist church. They were wholesome, they neither smoked nor drank, and they never used the Lord’s name in vain. They never heard a four-letter word. It didn’t exist in my wholesome family setting.

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